Long 'i' in -ind

Questions of pronunciation in all languages.
Audiendus
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Long 'i' in -ind

Postby Audiendus » Thu Mar 10, 2016 10:29 pm

Most one-syllable English words ending in -ind have the 'i' pronounced long:

bind, find, hind, kind, mind, rind, wind [verb], blind, grind.

An exception is wind [noun], with a short 'i'.

By contrast, most words ending in -int have the 'i' pronounced short:

dint, hint, lint, mint, quint, tint, clint, flint, glint, print, skint, squint, stint, splint, sprint.

But pint has a long 'i'.

The 'i' is also short in -ing and -ink words and other -in^ endings, e.g. -inx, -ince, -inge.

Does anyone have an explanation for the anomalous long 'i' in -ind words (and pint)?

bnjtokyo

Re: Long 'i' in -ind

Postby bnjtokyo » Mon Mar 14, 2016 1:10 am

The Wikipedia article entitled "Phonological history of English" provides a partial explanation for the phenomena you identified. It says that there was something called Homorganic lengthening in the Middle English period. Somewhere around 1000AD "Vowels were lengthened before /ld/, /mb/, /nd/, /rd/ . . . when not followed by a third consonant or two consonants and two syllables"

This phenomena would account for "find," "mind," "kind," etc. but not the noun "wind." It also covers "child" ("child" vs "children"), "wild" ("wild" vs "wilderness"), "climb" ("climb" vs "clamber"?).

I couldn't find examples words ending in /rd/ that fit the pattern, but /r/ has had and continues to have an oversized influence pronunciation, perhaps obscuring the effect.

Then, at about the same time something called Pre-cluster shortening occurred in which "Vowels were shortened when followed by two or more consonants, except when lengthened as above."

Except for "pint" this development covers your /nt/ and other cluster examples

See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonologi ... of_English

Audiendus
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Re: Long 'i' in -ind

Postby Audiendus » Tue Mar 15, 2016 10:59 pm

This phenomena would account for "find," "mind," "kind," etc. but not the noun "wind." It also covers "child" ("child" vs "children"), "wild" ("wild" vs "wilderness"), "climb" ("climb" vs "clamber"?).
But "build", "gild", "guild" and "limb" have a short 'i'.

Thanks for the link. I will read the article.

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Re: Long 'i' in -ind

Postby Perry Lassiter » Sat Mar 19, 2016 8:38 am

Is the I in -ing actually short? Isn't it rather pronounced as a long E?
pl

Audiendus
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Re: Long 'i' in -ind

Postby Audiendus » Sat Mar 19, 2016 10:57 pm

Well, the 'short i' seems to be generally pronounced with more of a drawl in the US than in Britain (particularly in Southern US accents), but I would not have thought this applies only to the -ing suffix.

There are personal idiosyncrasies, however. I remember a British television announcer of the football (soccer) results who slightly lengthened the short 'i' sound in 'nil', e.g. "Liverpool one, Arsenal niil".

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Re: Long 'i'

Postby Audiendus » Sun Apr 04, 2021 11:35 pm

Can anyone explain why the 'i' in 'Christ' is long?

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Slava
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Re: Long 'i' in -ind

Postby Slava » Mon Apr 05, 2021 11:45 am

Isn't asking why a no-no in language? :D
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Re: Long 'i' in -ind

Postby David Myer » Sun Jun 20, 2021 10:39 pm

Ah, but it is short in Christmas, Christopher and Christian. So maybe it is lengthened simply to give it more weight or gravitas; so when it appears at the end of a sentence it can be a stressed syllable.

Maybe the exception 'wind', to the long i in find, mind etc is because the short i in the noun wind is to differentiate it from the long i in the long winding road. I would guess that at some stage in English language development, one of them was spelt with a y, or some such. Scholars may be able to enlarge or confound this idea.

While trying to research this, I came across an apparently scholarly website Grammarist.com, which includes this extraordinary statement:

"Wind (wind), which rhymes with bend and tend, is the movement or rush of air or an air current."

Where (apart from New Zealand where six is pronounced sex), does Wind ever rhyme with Bend? It does throw doubt on the efficacy of the rest of the article.

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Re: Long 'i'

Postby Audiendus » Thu Jun 24, 2021 1:49 am

Can anyone explain why the 'i' in 'Christ' is long?
The Online Etymology Dictionary has the answer:
Pronunciation with long -i- is result of Irish missionary work in England, 7c.-8c.


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