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Some American speakers pronounce both 'woman' and 'women' as 'woman' (ˈwʊm.ən). Is this a recent pronunciation change? Where, why, and when did it originate?

I specified the American accent because other accents, such as New Zealand and South African accents, naturally have similar sounding vowels in that word.

Example: Video posted by Savanah Hernandez on Twitter

Laurel
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  • For background, there are multiple questions about the New Zealand pronunciation but there's also this question which discusses the American pronunciation. It would help if you could characterise where the speakers are from and how you would transcribe the common pronunciation. – Stuart F Dec 03 '23 at 12:56
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    No, American English speakers in standard speech make the difference between the singular and plural. – Lambie Dec 03 '23 at 14:25
  • I find that, when I'm saying something that I'm "inventing off the top of my head", my brain may not have picked the right pronunciation by the time I get to the word. So I pick the pronunciation that is easiest to pronounce. – Hot Licks Dec 03 '23 at 15:03
  • You are listening to an accent rather than a different word. That said, one of the speakers uses the uncountable "woman" to mean "womankind". – Greybeard Dec 03 '23 at 16:25
  • I've been hearing this recently from younger (school age) speakers. Maybe it's an incipient change helped along by the anomalous spelling. – Tom Recht Dec 03 '23 at 21:30
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    The second interviewee in that video (well, third, but the first two are in a group together) definitely does pronounce women with a vowel that is a lot closer to [ʊ] than to [ɪ]. The main difference between the two vowels is roundedness, and the preceding [w] is heavily rounded, so it’s a fairly straightforward case of phonetic assimilation. Changes like [wɪ/wə ~ ɪw/əw] to [wʊ ~ ʊw] have happened in lots of languages over time, and if it’s currently happening in some accents of English, that’s typologically unsurprising. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Dec 04 '23 at 00:30
  • afaict all speakers in that video do have a distinction between the singular and plural, it's just that whilst most of them make the distinction in the first vowel (the traditional standard), some seem to be making the distinction primarily in the second vowel (i.e. something like /'wʊmən/ vs /'wʊmɪn/). Ftr I'm a Southern British English speaker and lack the weak vowel merger, so it's possible I'm actually picking up on a secondary phenomenon that the speakers themselves wouldn't recognise or consider pertinent – Tristan Dec 04 '23 at 09:58
  • @JanusBahsJacquet in support of your theory, "willing" seems to me that it might be pronounced close to /ˈwʊlɪŋ/ https://youglish.com/pronounce/willing/english/us? – awe lotta Dec 09 '23 at 01:18
  • Some of the interviewees are simply switching back and forth between "woman" and "women" very quickly and not always getting the right word. "The woman's bathroom" and "The women's bathroom" are both acceptable, which adds to the confusion. – DJClayworth Mar 16 '24 at 15:32

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To use the term "Woman" instead of "Women" is often used to express female empowerment and strength in the face of adversity. ie "I am woman"

GYW
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    Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center. – Community Jan 18 '24 at 14:52
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    The video seems to have instances where only 'women' can be correct ("... women are ...") and where the pronunciation is non-standard. Perhaps people are conflating the (anarthrous) singular and plural generic forms erroneously. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 18 '24 at 16:29