# Love (pronunciation)



## akelas

Hola.
La palabra love se pronuncia así según todos los diccionarios, incluido el de esta casa: 
 love = /lʌv/ 
Un sonido de A, es decir, el mismo signo fonetico que cuando decimos, 
But  /bʌt/
¿Cómo puede ser entonces, que al decir Love se oiga un sonido "O" , más bien de o abierta...?
¿Es mi oido no nativo q lo malinterpreta?


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## Wandering JJ

El sonido /ʌ/ se pronuncia exactamente igual en las palabras inglesas _but, love, sun, son, shove, done_, etc. etc.


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## akelas

Love.  /lʌv/
Entiendo que no suena como una  /o/
Pero tampoco es un sonido /ʌ /puro.
O me equivoco?


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## akelas

Gracias Wandering,
Pero yo al darle al audio de la palabra love, NO oigo un sonido  /ʌ / marcado. Suena a /o/ abierta.
Could you please, with your native ear, go and press the audio button, and tell me that 
"But" and "love" have the exact same sound 
/ʌ/ ?????


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## cyberpedant

Have a listen here, post again if it doesn't clear things up for you. I don't hear the sound you call "O" in the word love.

Edited to include link.


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## Wandering JJ

I don't need to press an audio button. In English, writing the /ʌ/ sound using the letter 'o' took place centuries ago when handwriting was 'pointed' and the letter 'u' next to an 'n' or a 'v' or an 'm' (plus some others) was very difficult to read. Therefore, the French scribes decided to replace the 'u' in such positions with the letter 'o'. Hence, for example, _son, love, come, some, ton, won, dove, mother..._


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## Raposu

Pronunciations not only vary regionally and by level of discourse, they also change and evolve over time.  In most modern American pronunciations *but*, *love*, *glove*, *shove*, and *dove* are all pronounced with the same vowel sound - the u in but.  To the modern reader, Shakespeare's works often contain what have been termed eye rhymes, partial rhymes, half rhymes, slant rhymes and near rhymes.  In the Shakespeare's original pronunciation, however, *love* and *prove* shared the same vowel sound.  Here is one reading that may be of interest - http://www.paulmeier.com/OP.pdf


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## duvija

Just remember the sound in 'love' is different for the one in 'but' because the following consonant is voiced in the first one but not in the second one.


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## duvija

duvija said:


> Just remember the sound in 'love' is different for the one in 'but' because the following consonant is voiced in the first one but not in the second one.



Plus an anecdote: I've verified that it depends where you're from. For some strange reason (I couldn't figure it out), north of the Equator, they say that /ʌ/ as [o], whereas south we tend to say it more like [a]. My trials (tons of tapes) were for the common 'fuck'. It's either [fok] or [fak], depending... The dividing line is not the Equator but it's close to it.


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## Wandering JJ

duvija said:


> Plus an anecdote: I've verified that it depends where you're from. For some strange reason (I couldn't figure it out), north of the Equator, they say that /ʌ/ as [o], whereas south we tend to say it more like [a]. My trials (tons of tapes) were for the common 'fuck'. It's either [fok] or [fak], depending... The dividing line is not the Equator but it's close to it.


Perhaps also an east-west divide. We English marvel at the way many Americans manage to turn monosyllabic 'and' into a two syllable utterance!
Back to 'love', some posh English southerners might pronounce it more like /lav/ or even /la:v/ but I cannot recall any dialect using /lov/.


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## Raposu

My opinion concerning the pronunciation of *love* and *but* applies to the American English I hear every day, not British English.


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## Raposu

Duvija's most recent comment reminds me that my grandfather (from Asturias in northern Spain) was once in an audience of other asturianos being addressed in English by someone who used the term "you folks." repeatedly.  He was about to take action against what he heard as an insult (you fucks) when one of his sons explained the pronunciation to him.  This was in a West Virginia zinc smelting town where the majority of workers were from Asturias.


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## Cenzontle

> ¿Es mi oido no nativo q lo malinterpreta?


Did you get a clear answer to this question?  The blunt answer is yes, [I suspect] your ear is influenced by the spelling.
Many thanks to Wandering JJ for the fascinating explanation about the French scribes, 
and to duvija for the equally fascinating note about the north/south divide in Spanish renditions of /ʌ/.


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## akelas

Thanks to all of you.


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## duvija

It was very interesting for me when I realized part of the story (my Mexican, Guatemalan, Cuban, Venezuelan friends all use the [o]. Argentinians, Chileans, Peruvian, Uruguayans, go for [a]. I'm missing some countries, I know. 

I discussed it with the chair (Linguistics) at Pittsburgh and got some vague answer about how in the South we pay more attention to the 'backness' and in the North to the 'roundness' of that sound, but the question of 'why?' never got answered. I didn't find even a working hypothesis. Sheet!


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## Wandering JJ

Raposu said:


> Duvija's most recent comment reminds me that my grandfather (from Asturias in northern Spain) was once in an audience of other asturianos being addressed in English by someone who used the term "you folks." repeatedly.  He was about to take action against what he heard as an insult (you fucks) when one of his sons explained the pronunciation to him.  This was in a West Virginia zinc smelting town where the majority of workers were from Asturias.


Brilliant!


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## Cenzontle

That word "folks" has caused a number of problems.  Here is an old post explaining how the surname of Mexican president Vicente *Fox* was heard as "folks".


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## More od Solzi

You can hear different realizations of the STRUT vowel right here:
Listen Online to World Accents of English and Other Germanic Languages


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## McAlgo

duvija said:


> Just remember the sound in 'love' is different for the one in 'but' because the following consonant is voiced in the first one but not in the second one.


Am I alone in my disagreement of this? I can't imagine any phonetic transcription treating the two vowel sounds as being different, personally.


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## Cenzontle

You are not alone, McAlgo.  I also am unaware of voiced or voiceless consonants making a difference in the *quality* of that vowel ("but"/"bud").
There *is* a case to be made for vowels differing in *quantity* , longer before a voiced consonant.


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## Wandering JJ

You guys, McAlgo and Cenzontle, are not alone – count me in too. Like Cenzontle, I recognise a slight difference in vowel *length *but not in quality.


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## suzyboots

Me compadezco contigo. Es un campo minado.  He inventado una oración para subrayar el problema:-  <I'd love to move to Hove>


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## Forero

Cenzontle said:


> You are not alone, McAlgo.  I also am unaware of voiced or voiceless consonants making a difference in the *quality* of that vowel ("but"/"bud").
> There *is* a case to be made for vowels differing in *quantity* , longer before a voiced consonant.


A longer vowel tends to diphthongize, and the parts of the diphthong (or triphthong) tend to have a different quality than the simple short vowel.

Regional pronunciations can also make a difference. One person's _bus_ sounds just like another person's _boss_.

I think we also need to point out that _but_ has a stressed pronunciation, like _butt_, but also an unstressed pronunciation with a schwa.


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## akelas

Such elaborated contributions and answers you all posted regarding my original thread about "love" pronunciation. Thank you!
Now I got clear that "love" is pronounced with an "a" sound, at least the spanish "a" sound I am familiar with.
By the way, in one of your answers, Wandering JJ posted:
*"We English marvel at the way many Americans manage to turn monosyllabic 'and' into a two syllable utterance*!"
I don't think I've ever heard 'and' into 2 syllables! Any AE speaker could confirm that? I don't mean to discredit o debunke you Wandering, but I really don't get it. "A-ND"??


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## Agró

Sort of AN-DA, I guess /'ændə/.


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## Forero

akelas said:


> Such elaborated contributions and answers you all posted regarding my original thread about "love" pronunciation. Thank you!
> Now I got clear that "love" is pronounced with an "a" sound, at least the spanish "a" sound I am familiar with.


Spanish has five vowels, but most English has seven full vowels of the "short" variety (as in _hack_, _heck_, _hick_, _hock_, _Huck_, _hawk_, _hook_ or _sat_, _set_, _sit_, _bot_, _butt_, _fought_, _foot_), plus a few offglides and reduced vowels, and a lot of regional variation.

The shortest version of the vowel sound in _love_ varies, but in most dialects of English it is the vowel of _Huck_ or _butt_, somewhere between Spanish _a_, _o_, and _e_ without quite fitting any of them. Curiously, in some dialects of English, _love_ is pronounced with a rounded-lips version of the same sound, sounding like the vowel of French _bonne_, or with a vowel between Spanish _o_ and _u_. Centuries ago, _luv_ was pronounced with a sound very close to Spanish _u_.





> By the way, in one of your answers, Wandering JJ posted:
> *"We English marvel at the way many Americans manage to turn monosyllabic 'and' into a two syllable utterance*!"
> I don't think I've ever heard 'and' into 2 syllables! Any AE speaker could confirm that? I don't mean to discredit o debunke you Wandering, but I really don't get it. "A-ND"??


No, when stressed, with a diphthong like _eh_-_uh_ in most of the North (due to the northern cities vowel shift) and a triphthong like _a-yuh_ in some parts of the South (due to southern "drawl"). Here I am using _uh_ to represent a schwa, not a full vowel.

The vowel of _love_ is not likely to be drawled, but after a _b_, as in _butt_, it might sound (in part of the South) like "oh-uh" (the "oa" of "boat" followed by a schwa).


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## akelas

Now I see.
Thanks a lot.


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## Wandering JJ

Forero, your comment "with a diphthong like _eh_-_uh_ in most of the North (due to the northern cities vowel shift) and a triphthong like _a-yuh_ in some parts of the South (due to southern "drawl"). Here I am using _uh_ to represent a schwa", this is exactly what I was referring to. Delighted someone recognises it!


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## Cenzontle

Yes, the "two-syllable" _and_ comes by way of an exaggerated diphthong.  I would spell it as "AY-yund" (first syllable rhyming with "day", second with "stunned").
I think this is only when the word is emphasized or as a filler ("Let me think of the next item").  I can't put a regional label on it.
In contrast, when unstressed it can be reduced to a syllabic consonant, most famously in "rock 'n' roll".


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