merry marry Mary
I am from western Pennsylvania and I make absolutely no distinction between the words "merry", "marry", and "Mary". I cannot understand how these are not homophones in other accents and I cannot say them any other way because I've never heard it any other way (or at least I've never noticed). So I was wondering if somebody could give me some audio samples of somebody who makes the distinction.
Also, which vowel do people with the merger use in these words? For instance, when I say all three words, does it sound like marry, merry, or Mary in unmerged regions?
Also, are there any places outside of Philadelphia that merge (or at least come close to) merry and Murray?
I merge Merry and Mary, but Marry is different, so is Murray.
Haha, as an Eastern New Englander (from Massachusetts) who really does make the "Mary-merry-marry" distinction, I've been discussing this issue for years know. The vowels? "Merry" uses the exact same vowel as "bed", "marry" uses the exact same vowel as "bad", and "Mary" (along with "mare") uses a distinctive r-influenced vowel phoneme.
Similarly, for me, "Sirius" uses the exact same vowel as "bid", whereas "serious" (along with "sear") uses a distinctive r-influenced phoneme; and "hurry" uses the exact same vowel as "bud", whereas "furry" (along with "fur") uses a distinctive r-influenced phoneme; and "torrent" uses the exact same vowel as "bod", whereas "Tory" (along with "tore") uses a distinctive r-influenced phoneme.
And you're in luck! Thanks to my computer's recording abilities, I can present you with an audio sample of my dialect:
http://media.putfile.com/Dialect-58 In this recording, I'm saying, "Mary, merry, marry; serious, Sirius; hurry, furry; Tory, torrent", followed by other things.
And in answer to your last question: there's a whole big phonemic discussion to be had on that one, but generally in North American English, I'd say that the merged vowel is closer to unmerged "Mary" (and "mare") than to unmerged "merry".
For those who aren't merged, usually Mary has the vowel in the word "square", marry has the one in "cat" and merry has the one in "bed".
However as far as I know very few North Americans maintain the difference. The unmerged accent can be heard in some Eastern areas.
Many Australians, Kiwis and RP speakers are unmerged.
<<However as far as I know very few North Americans maintain the difference. The unmerged accent can be heard in some Eastern areas.>>
It's found in Eastern New England (Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, most of Massachusetts), in the New York metro area, and in Philadelphia (albeit with the merry-murry merger).
<<Many Australians, Kiwis and RP speakers are unmerged.>>
The merger is essentially unknown outside of North America.