Timeline for Is there a rule in British English about how to pronounce "either"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
12 events
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| Sep 6, 2014 at 13:10 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @FlorianF The German doesn't derive from the OE, they're just cognates (meaning they both derive from a common ancestor); the fact that they happen to mean different things in the modern languages doesn't change that they're genetically related, it just means that the meanings have drifted. | |
| Sep 6, 2014 at 13:07 | comment | added | Florian F | @Janus The German word 'jeder' means 'each'. 'Either' is 'entweder' in German. I think both derive from the OE ǣghwæther. This still makes your point, I guess. | |
| Nov 15, 2013 at 22:51 | comment | added | Noldorin | Interestingly, upon looking a little further into this point, it would seem that a few isolated/rural communities in Northern England still use the historical pronunciation of "AY-thur". This doesn't surprise me too much, as I know there are still a few speakers in the North using archaic pronunciation, but it's kind of cool nonetheless! I would suppose both the /aɪ/ and /iː/ sounds developed from that in different regions, though perhaps /iː/ was intermediary to /aɪ/ even? | |
| Nov 15, 2013 at 20:18 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @Noldorin Typing in a tiny box on a phone (and trying to include IPA and other special characters by copy-pasting from Wikipedia) clearly annoys me more than I realised, and obviously also makes me forget what I have just written. And I quite agree that /ˈaɪðəɹ/ is the prescribed and ‘correct’ RP pronunciation. (I use /slashes/ to indicate phonemics, rather than phonetics, so the final /ɹ/ is of course dropped by non-rhotic speakers.) | |
| Nov 15, 2013 at 12:45 | comment | added | Noldorin | @ColinFine: Yep, it certainly sounds like a more universal way of denoting pronunciation. I will make a conscious effort to pick it up now! Would gladly give you an up-vote now, but it seems I can no longer do so, ah well. | |
| Nov 15, 2013 at 12:40 | comment | added | Noldorin | @JanusBahsJacquet: You may well be right about the historical pronunciation being that, and I'm happy to retract the false insinuation to Germanic pronunciation of "ei" (since this spelling is modern and does not correspond to original pronunciation). Nonetheless, I certainly maintain that /ˈaɪðə/ is prescribed in RP, and is considered more 'correct' in at least Southern England, as also suggested by Colin Fine. | |
| Nov 15, 2013 at 12:29 | comment | added | Colin Fine | @Noldorin: yes, Janus' comment has revived the thread. Do look at IPA: it's not as frightening as people think, and much better at conveying pronunciation than other methods, since it doesn't depend on your dialect. | |
| Nov 15, 2013 at 12:25 | comment | added | Noldorin | @Colin Fine: Apologies, and thank you for correcting me on the IPA. (I should really learn it at some point!) Incidentally, I just saw your comment, so I know this reply is ludicrously delayed! | |
| Nov 15, 2013 at 1:02 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet |
@Noldorin: that is nonsense! The ‘historically correct’ pronunciation would be something like /ˈɛɪðəɹ/ (AY-thur), which is not found anywhere (at least not anymore). The first part of ‘either’ is the same word as in ‘for aye’ (think Scots), OE ǣ. None of the forms is really ‘in line’ [even less ‘inline’] with any other Germanic language: they’ve all had so much chopped off that any correspondence they once had with one another has long been quite impossible to maintain. Dutch has ieder and German jeder, neither of which fits with neither /ɛɪ/, /aɪ/, nor /iː/ in English!
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| Dec 3, 2010 at 15:36 | comment | added | Colin Fine | No, /aɪ/ is made of a kind a 'a' and a kind of short 'i', and thus represents what you write as 'EYE'. /i:/ is a lengthened /i/, and so means what you write as 'EE'. Thus the prejudice I was silently taught as a child corresponds with your preference. I now know that it is absurd to call one or other pronunciation 'incorrect'. | |
| Dec 2, 2010 at 20:16 | comment | added | Noldorin |
I don't read IPA, but I suspect /ˈaɪðə/ corresponds to EE-THUR. If so, this is actually incorrect! The historically correct pronunciation was always EYE-THUR. (This is also more inline with other Germanic languages.)
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| Dec 2, 2010 at 13:00 | history | answered | Colin Fine | CC BY-SA 2.5 |