How would you pronounce the word 'yesterday'?

Question

Hey, I've got a question to native-speakers or to those specializing in linguistics. Is the word 'yesterday' pronounced like /'jest?di/ or /'jest?de?/?Thanks for all the answers

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

/ 'j ? s t ? ?d e ? / AmE

CJ

W0t · Answer

Thanks for the answer.

So, is /'jest?di/ rather BrE?

CalifJim · Answer

w0tSo, is /'jest?di/ rather BrE?

I don't think so. I can't place the accent at all. Australian? Irish? Sorry. I can't help you there.

CJ

W0t · Answer

Meh, I found these both pronunciations in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary by J.Wells and it got me really confused. I have never heard any native-speaker saying /'jest?di/ before and as I'm studying linguistics myself it made pretty curious. I thought that it could be pronounced so within RP. I'm not 100% sure though.

Raindoctor · Answer

There are two issues: ( a ) whether r is present or not; (b) whether the latter vowel is /i/ or /e?/

/i/ is also heard in American English. The frequency varies from the region to region. In some places, it is not dominant.

CalifJim · Answer

raindoctorThere are two issues: ( a ) whether r is present or not; (b) whether the latter vowel is /i/ or /e?/

My attention was drawn more to that first vowel. /e/ or /?/. I'd like to hear your opinion about that.

CJ

Raindoctor · Answer

CJ, I just opened Well's LPD. On page xxvi, I see this " ? for the vowel which LPD writes as e".

Before quoting dictionaries, one should familiarize with their transcription systems. I don't trust IPA for comparative phonetics across languages. German /u/ is closer to the cardinal vowel 8. When some German, who knows his phonetics well enough, ends up pronouncing his vowel when he comes across the IPA symbol /u/ in English. Besides Cardinal vowels, IPA system is just phonemic. Within a language (say, English), one can use the lexical sets, and see how vowels vary across dialects.

The reference lexical set in this case is: DRESS vowel. British folks transcribe it as /e/. Americans transcribe it as /?/. Then, British folks claim that American DRESS vowel /?/ is more opener than their DRESS vowel and that their British DRESS vowel is more opener than the monophthong /e/. Basically, their vowel is [e?]. See the underlying diacritic for lowering. Wikipedia for RP DRESS transcribes it as [?~e?]

If someone wanna shoot for a general British accent, they should just avoid RP. Use Geoff Lindsey's system. Check his http://englishspeechservices.com/blog/?p=1795. Geoff uses the same American DRESS vowel for the general British accent.

I know someone personally, who is trained in articulatory phonetics, teaches aspiring actors, voice overs, and also knows the other stuff like Stern, etc. He keeps the same vowel for both General American and general British accent, even though he uses narrow phonetic transcription for other lexical sets.

Another point about the consonant cluster /st/. This cluster has a special historical significance. In Middle English, long vowels before a consonant cluster got shortened usually (They call it precluster shortneing). Before voiced homorgonic clusters like /nd/, /ld/, /rd/, /mb/, /ng/, the vowels got lengthened (this is homorgonic lengthening); later, some of these vowels got shortened. Still, we see that effect in words like kind, child, climb, etc. Before the cluster /st/, vowels got lengthened in Middle English. That's why we see its effect on words like Christ, Eustace, Houston, ghost, least (cf. breast), beast, feast, etc. Whatever the history of 'yester or yesterday', we don't see a modern variant of some lengthened vowel from Middle English there. It is a plain DRESS vowel.

Anonymous · Answer

Yesterdi s closer to the oldest true pronunciation of the word yesterday. The word for yesterday is originated from the same word as gestern in German which in some dialects where the g is often pronounced as a "y" as in yester- from yesterday.

The Allemanic dialect of German also pronounces "Tag" (day (remember the original pronunciation of g)) as "teeg". In some variations the g is hard and in some, the hard g was probably just silenced as it entered English. Thus being said, yes. Yersterde is actually more correct than yesterda

How would you pronounce the word 'yesterday'?

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