[PLUG-TALK] [PLUG] Current state of Linux voice recognition

[John Jason Jordan]

<Moving to PLUG-Talk>

On Wed, 28 Jun 2017 16:46:57 -0700
Dick Steffens <dick at dicksteffens.com> dijo:

>On 06/28/2017 04:39 PM, Rich Shepard wrote:
>> On Wed, 28 Jun 2017, John Jason Jordan wrote:
>>
>>> Human languages all have a unique phonetic inventory, that is, all
>>> the individual sounds of the language. English has 41 - 43 phonemes
>>> (depending on your dialect), ...
>>     Does this include Brooklyn and New Joisey?
>
>Or suthern Ohia?

Yes! Southern Ohio has 41. The difference in the pronunciation of
'Ohio' is merely a matter of stress on the final syllable. English
syllables have primary stress, secondary stress, or no stress. When a
syllable has no stress the vowel automatically becomes a schwa. (A
student in an Intro class once exclaimed "I want to be a schwa!") So in
southern Ohio (I lived there myself for several years) they have just
changed the stress pattern of the word. There is no change in the
number of phonemes; like most Americans they have 41.

But your mention of southern Ohio reminds me of a story told by a
professor while discussing isogloss lines. An isogloss is a line drawn
on a map delineating a dialect change. E.g., one of the most famous
isogloss lines is the pail-bucket line running east to west through
Pennsylvania. North of the line they say bucket and south of the line
they say pail. 

The professor proceeded to describe the 'hun line,' running along the
southern boundary of West Virginia, continuing along the Ohio river,
and finally petering out on the west side of the Mississippi. The
professor explained that north of the line waitresses in diners
addressed their customers as 'sir' or 'ma'am,' where south of the line
customers were uniformly addressed as 'hun.'

Not all linguists officially recognize the hun line. :)