What is the closest language to English?

At least here, "their" and "Thayer" *wouldn't* form a true minimal pair, as here "their" is /Der/ -> [De:r\] whereas "Thayer" would most likely be /Te@`/ -> [Te@`].

For plenty of information on "th" (both /T/ and /D/) in English, look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_th

According to that page, for minimal pairs for /T/ and /D/, "thy" and "thigh", "ether" and "either" (in some dialects), and "loath" and "loathe" are listed as minimal pairs for them. I myself really cannot think of any minimal pairs besides them.

The main thing though is that one ignores these, it would still be hard to truly interpret the two as being simply allophones of the same phoneme in English today, because I really cannot think of any *predictable* pattern by which one can determine whether [T] or [D] would be used in any given place in English today. Furthermore, at least here, /T/ and /D/ word-initially have different assimilation patterns that differ in more ways than simply the "default" voicing; for example, /T/ is far more likely to be preserved than /D/, and /D/ will assimilate to a far wider range of other phonemes, along with being far more apt to change to [d] or [z] spontaneously. This raises the question of why would two different allophones of the same phoneme, in the same position, differing only in voicing, differ very significantly on how apt they are to assimilate to other phones, if they truly were but allophones of a single phoneme.

<<At least here, "their" and "Thayer" *wouldn't* form a true minimal pair, as here "their" is /Der/ -> [De:r\] whereas "Thayer" would most likely be /Te@`/ -> [Te@`].>>

The Merriam Webster dictionary says it can be pronounced as one or two syllables. "There-Thayer" is a minimal pair for me, because I pronounce "Thayer" as [Ter] rather than [Te@`].

<<According to that page, for minimal pairs for /T/ and /D/, "thy" and "thigh", "ether" and "either" (in some dialects), and "loath" and "loathe" are listed as minimal pairs for them. I myself really cannot think of any minimal pairs besides them.>>

Thanks for pointing those out.

I think that /D/ as seen in function words is often a result of the process of sandhi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandhi for those unfamiliar with this process) in which the old rules of intervocalic /T/ --> /D/ applied even across word boundaries for such common function words. Today we see some slight variation rooted in this historical process. For instance Old English "wiþ" was pronounced /wIT/, but in Southern English dialects by the process of sandhi the /T/ often became voiced before following voiced sounds to the point of reanalysis of the word as [wI:D] in all positions, which is still seen today in Southern British English. This didn't occur in all dialects, however, as I understand some Northern English dialects still have traditional [wIT], and [wIT] is the most common pronunciation seen in American English today (and is the only pronunciation I happen to have...I never say [wI:D]).

I normally say "with" as [wIT] myself, but in certain cases it seems to weirdly change to [wIt] (not [wI?], which is what it'd be were it /wIt/ to start with in the dialect here) when followed by another word that doesn't start with a vowel. In particular, it seems to often do this when a following word starts with /D/, which is strange, as then it can't be explained purely in terms of assimilation. Rather, what seems to happen is that "with" becomes [wIt], and said /D/ also becomes [t] (not [t_h]) as well, which would technically actually be on a connected speech level [t:] together. Note though that in less informal speech, and in rather informal speech as well, a different thing also commonly happens where the /T/ of "with" remains as is, but rather the /D/ of a following word assimilates to that, as [T].

The thing that I can really think would explain this if the initial /D/ of said following word were initially actually becoming [d]. In turn, the /T/ of "with" would assimilate to that with respect to manner of articulation and place of articulation, as [t]. In the opposite direction, said [d] would be devoiced as [t] by the preceding /T/ turned [t]. Of course, though, this is a rather weird sort of bidirectional assimilation, but I can't see anything else that would really explain this.

(Sorry for going off on a bit of a tangent here, by the way.)

I'm an orchestra director and need to know how to pronounce the name "Wirén". Is it Swedish? Can you help me say it correctly?
Thanks,
Ellen Palmer

<< At least around here in southeastern Wisconsin, though, the "th" phonemes seem rather well, prone to not being realized as their "default" forms, especially in the case of /D/. /T/ will assimilate to /s/ as [s] and when word-initial to /t/ as apparently [tT] here, but word-initial /D/ here will assimilate to just about any non-approximant consonant which isn't either labial or velar, including /T/. Furthermore, word-initial /D/ seems to be very often (inconsistently) realized as [d] or [z] here for no particular reason at all outside of formal speech (that is, in most speech), as if in very informal speech people don't need an "excuse" to change word-initial /D/ to something other than [D].

I would guess all of this is most likely due to outside influence by other languages, in this area probably primarily German, on the local English dialect. This is because there seems to be similar features, with respect to the avoidance of [D] (and also [T]) in some of the English dialects of other parts of the Upper Midwest with significant outside immigration of speakers of primarily other Germanic languages, while at the same time certain pockets such as Washington Island which had large concentrations of Icelandic-speakers historically often lack such features. This would hint at such not being originally native to the dialect(s) of English in areas of the Upper Midwest, as if it were, why would areas with significant amounts of immigrants historically who did have [D] and [T] natively (specifically Icelandic-speakers) in their own languages preserve the full use of [D] and [T]? >>

Huh? That only happens in the Upper Midwest by speakers of other dialects, like AAVE, and by some recent immigrants. Or maybe there's a difference between Minnesota and Wisconsin that I'm not aware of?

AAVE does change /T/ and /D/ to things other than [T] and [D], but it favors labial pronunciations, that is, [f] and [v] respectively, which *never* happens in my native dialect. Another note is that it also varies by register, as in formal speech I normally use [T] and [D] respectively for such, except for maybe some voicing assimilation, whereas in informal speech /T/ and in particular /D/ undergo a much more profound level of assimilation, amongst other phonological changes such as stopping of /D/, when word-initial. From overhearing others around the Milwaukee others, I can definitely hear the same kinds of features amongst many younger individuals there; ironically, though, my dad does not seem to have such features for the most part, despite being from practically the same area originally, but part of this may be his tendency to speak more formally than most there, especially younger individuals. One note is that this may still be a primarily local matter today, which would explain why such seems unusual to you, but it seems like similar features are likely present in the dialect in the Chicago area as well, as shown by things such as "da Bears" (referring to the Chicago Bears football team) and like.

It could be another difference that is noticable when you pass the Madison/Appleton/Green Bay line where on the East, the vowels are likely to have the Northern Cities Shift, and Coke is soda, whereas on the West side, there are more obvious looooong vowels and Coke is pop. When I read your post it just seemed strange, as no one around here, save those who possess a non-standard dialect, has those features in their speech.

That's interesting, as many people from outside the Milwaukee area, such as people from the Chicago area, specifically say that the native dialect in the Milwaukee area (not AAVE) has *quite* markedly long vowels, even though Milwaukee is definitely on the east side of that line that you refer to.

Ellen Palmer, Wirén the composer was Swedish, but I don't know how his name is meant to be pronounced.

"German has indeed 3 genders (masc./fem./neut.) and Danish has two but certain dialects of Norwegian do have 3 genders.And a language like English is genderless! :) "

Wrong.

English, like German, has three gender - masculine, feminine and neuter.

=>English, like German, has three gender - masculine, feminine and neuter. <=

OH!!! THIS COULD BE THE DISCOVERY OF THE CENTURY!!

PLEASE ADAMN GIVE EXAMPLES!!!

I'm waiting adam ... come on

Adam, pfft. English has no *grammatical gender*, and the marking of natural gender on certain pronouns does not count as such at all.

Adam where art thou?"Thou hast some explaining to do!