# pronunciation: library /laɪbrəri/ OR /laɪbəri/



## audiolaik

Hello,

This is what I found in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary:

_'The awkwardness of two 'r's in the same unstressed syllable make people tend to drop the first of them. ...,such reduced pronunciations are nevertheless often heard from educated speakers.'


_Are you familiar with the /laɪbəri/ version?


Thank you!


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## liliput

It would sound like a kind of fruit: "I'm going to have some lyeberry jam on my toast".
I can only imagine a two-year-old pronouncing library in this way.

I am familiar with people dropping the second-to-last syllable and saying "ly-bree". It's a bit lazy if you ask me.

Personally I go to the library.


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## gratuitous

Alas, I am very familiar with /laɪbəri/.  I hear it almost constantly here in Kentucky.  The tendency that I have is to equate it with uneducated people, but the use is growing.  It is very similar to the "r" in February, which has been dropped almost completely.


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## JamesM

I am familiar with the "ly-berry" pronunciation.  It is not something I would expect to hear from someone with anything beyond a high school education, but it is a common colloquial pronunciation.


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## Nikola

In AE it is common but not considered correct.


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## audiolaik

Thank you all for your kind input!


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## KenInPDX

Nikola said:


> In AE it is common but not considered correct.



I think we should shy away from calling pronunciations "correct" or "incorrect".  I prefer "standard" or "nonstandard".

This is a sociolinguistic question - there is no inherently correct or incorrect pronunciation of a word.

Which is "correct" - to-MAY-to, or to-MAH-to?


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## KenInPDX

Oh, one more thing on the "correct" vs. "standard".

That said, there are pronunciations which will be seen, rightly or wrongly, as marking off the speaker who uses them as ineducated or lower-class.

In most of the US, I'd say the "lyeberry" is one of them.

However, these are sociological issues.  The pronunciation of words evolves over time.  We don't pronounce words as they did in Shakespeare's time - so by that standard we're all incorrect.


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## Loob

audiolaik said:


> _'The awkwardness of two 'r's in the same unstressed syllable make people tend to drop the first of them. ...,such reduced pronunciations are nevertheless often heard from educated speakers.'_
> 
> 
> Are you familiar with the /laɪbəri/ version?


Hi audio

I definitely drop the first "r". But the result is /laɪbri/, not /laɪbəri/.

I can't swear to it, but I don't think I've heard /laɪbəri/.


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## audiolaik

Loob said:


> Hi audio
> 
> I definitely drop the first "r". But the result is /laɪbri/, not /laɪbəri/.
> 
> I can't swear to it, but I don't think I've heard /laɪbəri/.



So you get rid of the schwa sound, don't you?


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## Loob

Yes, I miss out the whole middle syllable.


EDIT: Oops, I've just noticed that the Longman quote suggests the two r's are in the same syllable.  What I mean by the above is that I drop both the first r and the schwa.


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## panjandrum

Loob said:


> Yes, I miss out the whole middle syllable.


Me too, most of the time.
I think there would be a hint of a schwa in there sometimes.
Edit: Bother. Whateve Loob said in her edit applies to me as well. It's as if the "ar" just isn't there, or possibly the "ra"


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## Wobby

I miss out the middle syllable too!


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## nzfauna

I say [LAI-BREAR-REE].

[LAE-BR'-REE] or [LAE-BREE] if I'm speaking fast.


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## olliemae

The problem with dropping the R is that librarians become Liberians. Not in itself a bad thing, but a little unusual.


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## ewie

Lie-bee-reeunz /laɪ'bi:riənz/ , Ollie? [/FONT]


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## se16teddy

I pronounce the word as _libery or libry_; and I think I would only ever say _libry book. _ I suppose I might say _librery _if I were speaking very carefully - reading from the Bible in church perhaps.


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## olliemae

ewie said:


> Lie-bee-reeunz /laɪ'bi:riənz/ , Ollie?



Lyeberry --> lyeberrian (person from Liberia)


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## stephenlearner

<Thread merged with an older thread. Nat, Moderator>

Hi,

There are two Rs in the word library. But when I listen to the online pronunciation, it sounds like there is one R in the word. I can't hear the first R. So the word sounds like "libry".

Can you explain it?

Thanks


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## entangledbank

Yes, that reduction is quite common. For many people it's the normal pronunciation. <Deletion>


<Remark not required with the merged threads. Nat>


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## boozer

Well, the explanation is a bit complicated, but...
The 'r' sound contains, by default, a schwa sound. In the 'normal', i.e. fairly slow and meticulous, pronunciation of the word, you should have the sequence:
r - ə - r
However, as both 'r's contain a schwa anyway, the middle schwa gets reduced and is eaten away in fast speech so you are left with an r-r sequence, which is, effectively, a long 'r' sound. A long 'r' sound can get further reduced to a regular short one.

My 'library' is actually 'libry', usually.


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## Keith Bradford

Over centuries, people often contract words that they use frequently, especially if there's a complex group of sounds in them.  So the mediaeval _Woden's Day_ became _Wednesday _(modern spelling) and _wensdi _(modern pronunciation).

_Library _has suffered the same fate.  I suppose we should be glad that people talk about libraries often enough to make the shortening worthwhile!  When my wife was a librarian in Liverpool, some of the young children there couldn't cope with _library _so they called it the _liberry _/laɪ'beri:/_._


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## Rover_KE

_February_ is another example.

feb*′*ro̅o̅ er′ē, feb*′*yo̅o̅-, (Random House)


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## DonnyB

I think the only person I've ever heard pronounce "lib-ra-ry" distinctly with its full quota of syllables was our stern authoritarian deputy Headmaster at school.

Almost everyone else I've heard say it (and I used to work in one ) has either said "liberry" or "librey".

I can't help feeling that it has a particular combination of letters/syllables that for some reason speakers of English find difficult to say.


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## Myridon

DonnyB said:


> I think the only person I've ever heard pronounce "lib-ra-ry" distinctly with its full quota of syllables was our stern authoritarian deputy Headmaster at school.


The "as-written" pronunciation is quite common in the US.  The Random House dictionary in WRF only lists that. The Random House Unabridged lists lib-brare-ee  and lib-bruh-ree before li-bree.


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## Esca

Please note that the standard pronunciation in AE is not /laɪbrəri/ as in BE, but instead more like /laɪbreɪri/, which in my dialect rhymes with both "fairy" and "ferry."


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## Truffula

I pronounce "library" as Esca says  /laɪ*'* breɪr' i/  "lye-brerry" when I'm paying attention to the pronunciation.  Sometimes when I'm not I say /laɪ' bə˞  i/ "lye-bury"  (where the -bury is like the end of "Canterbury" in Canterbury tales, or the end of Salisbury in Salisbury steak.  I put ə˞  instead of ər because it's more like the end of "buttery" than the end of "strawberry" ... and I think sometimes I also say "lye-bray"  /laɪ' breɪ/ 

While I might think someone saying /laɪ*'* beɪr' i/ "lye-berry"  sounded a bit rural, I would not find "lye-bury" even at all remarkable, not just because I say it myself.

edit: I misunderstood and it's ɛː not eɪ in the above...   see below.


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## Loob

That's where the BrE-AmE difference lies.  The "full" version in BrE is /laɪbrəri/.  That's why we often end up dropping the first /r/ and the schwa.


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## stephenlearner

Esca said:


> Please note that the standard pronunciation in AE is not /laɪbrəri/ as in BE, but instead more like /laɪbreɪri/, which in my dialect rhymes with both "fairy" and "ferry."



One of the native speakers said the sound of a in "library" is a long a. I'm confused.  Is the sound of a in "fairy" a long a ?


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## entangledbank

Historically it was, but that's no longer a phonetically accurate description. In words such as 'gate', 'bake', Middle English had a long [a:] sound. This changed many hundreds of years ago, but it is still sometimes described as a 'long a'. The same sound before [r] changed even more.


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## natkretep

Esca said:


> Please note that the standard pronunciation in AE is not /laɪbrəri/ as in BE, but instead more like /laɪbreɪri/


Are you sure? I would have thought it would be more like /ˈlaɪˌbrɛːri/, in line with the secondary stress normally accorded in AmE to words ending with -_ary_.

For the record, I do try to say /ˈlaɪbrəri/, but it can become /ˈlaɪbri/.


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## Esca

Well, I was going to invite you all to come visit me to listen to me saying "library," but this seemed easier  (press the audio button):
Definition of LIBRARY
To me, this sound is a long a.


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## natkretep

Yes, Merriam Webster gives /ˈlaɪˌbrɛːri/, with the vowel in _fairy_ rather than _faith_.


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## Esca

natkretep said:


> Yes, Merriam Webster gives /ˈlaɪˌbrɛːri/, with the vowel in _fairy_ rather than _faith_.


To me, fairy and faith have the same vowel sound. I'm sure you've heard of the American parlor game where you survey your friends and test whether they pronounce "Mary," "marry," and "merry" the same or differently -- vast swaths of the US pronounce them identically, myself included.


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## natkretep

Esca, where are you in the US?

I'm familiar with _Mary_, _marry_ and _merry_ having the same vowel in some American accents, but this vowel is different from the vowel in _faith_ or _cake_. This is also the case in the audio pronunciation given in Merriam Websters. Is your pronunciation different from M-W's?

I am aware also that in many Scottish accents, the same vowel is used in _faith_ and _Mary_.


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## Esca

natkretep said:


> Esca, where are you in the US?
> 
> I'm familiar with _Mary_, _marry_ and _merry_ having the same vowel in some American accents, but this vowel is different from the vowel in _faith_ or _cake_. This is also the case in the audio pronunciation given in Merriam Websters. Is your pronunciation different from M-W's?
> 
> I am aware also that in many Scottish accents, the same vowel is used in _faith_ and _Mary_.


My pronunciation is roughly the same as M-W's, but I literally cannot hear the difference between "fairy" (or Mary, merry and marry) and "cake." It could be a dialect quirk.
I'm from Pennsylvania but both of my parents were from the upper Midwest.


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## Truffula

I'm in North Carolina and I do hear a distinction between the vowel before the "r" in "fairy" or "fair" (same vowel sound in these two) and the vowel sound heard in "cake."

If I said "fair" with the vowel sound in "cake" it'd rhyme with "mayor" because I can't say the sound I use in "cake" and immediately end the syllable with an "r" - not without feeling silly and abrupt (?) - so I'd put in a mini-schwa like I do in "mayor" and "fair" would become two-syllable.


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## RM1(SS)

Esca said:


> My pronunciation is roughly the same as M-W's, but I literally cannot hear the difference between "fairy" (or Mary, merry and marry) and "cake."


Same here.


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## Jignesh77

<Added to this thread. Nat, Moderator>

My son brought a reading book "Library Mouse" by Daniel Kirk.
How do we pronounce the word library
ˈlaɪ.brər.i'? I must have tried few dictionaries but not sure if the actual pronunciation match the IPA, I hear ˈlaɪ.bər.i'. I know that the american pronunciation is different.


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## JulianStuart

There is a range of pronunciations used in English. The two you have listed are quite common, as is one where the -brary comes out as -bry (lie-bree).


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## PaulQ

If you go to our dictionary, you will find library - WordReference.com Dictionary of English. You can then hear "library" pronounced in various accents.


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## heypresto

The pronunciation guide in the WR Dictionary here, has this to say:

_Library, with one r-sound following close upon another, is particularly vulnerable to the process of dissimilation—the tendency for neighboring like sounds to become unlike, or for one of them to disappear altogether. The pronunciation (lī′brer ē), therefore, while still the most common, is frequently reduced by educated speakers, both in the U.S. and in England, to the dissimilated (lī′bə rē) or (lī′brē). A third dissimilated form (lī′ber ē) is more likely to be heard from less educated or very young speakers, and is often criticized._

I'm one of the educated English who dissimilate, and say _lī′brē_.


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## Oddmania

*/'laɪbrəri/* (LIE-bruh-ri) or */'laɪbri/* (LIE-bri)
_(British English)_

*/'laɪbreri/* (LIE-brarey)
_(American English)
_
I think *"libary"* is a very widespread mistake that you shouldn't try to copy. It's non-standard and is likely to make you sound somewhat uneducated if you do it on purpose.

(It's funny that the very same phenomenon exists in French with the French word for "library". There's something with libraries that seems to bother people around the world!).


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## dojibear

/laɪ.brər.i/ does not match IPA, for at least 2 reasons:

[1] American R is /ɹ/ in IPA, not /r/.
[2] The "R-colored vowel" shown as /ər/ is represented by /ɚ/ in IPA.

I agree that the "rer" sound (/ɹɚ/) is dificult to hear. I pronounce all the sounds, but you might not hear the first /ɹ/. So it may sound like I am "dissimilating".


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## Jignesh77

Thanks


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## heypresto

You could perhaps go to your local library (with your son?) and listen to how the librarian pronounces it.


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## Jignesh77

Thanks


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## ewie

dojibear said:


> /laɪ.brər.i/ does not match IPA


(It's okay if you're using a phonemic rather than a phonetic approach)


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## Loob

ewie said:


> (It's okay if you're using a phonemic rather than a phonetic approach)


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