Hell's Corner IPA: [ɑ] [ɒ] [ɔ] Vowels

Jim leads you through a REALLY important vowel distinction that is helpful to know more about for almost ALL accents! These are the Palm/Father, Lot, Cloth, and Thought vowels ([ɑ] [ɒ] [ɔ]) which merge in different ways in different accents - and here's a beginning guide to these... 

Here's a transcript of the video:

Hey there, Jim Johnson for AccentHelp.com, and I want to talk about the, what I call Hell's Corner.

The vowels for FATHER, LOT, CLOTH, and THOUGHT.

Which have huge variations in a variety of accents and dialects. Alright. So I'm talking about these vowel distinctions...

This is the vowel quadrilateral, in the phonetics. So the IPA, the International Phonetic Association, created the international phonetic alphabet. This is, in this vowel quadrilateral, this is the front of the mouth, the back of the mouth, the top, the bottom.

Here at the back is what I call Hell's Corner.

So we've got the /ɑ/ like FATHER, which may be written as /ɑ/, and we've got this rounded version of that. So this is the script a /ɑ/ and this is the turned script a /ɒ/, and then just above that we've got what's commonly called the open O /ɔ/. So that one is like a backward C.

So there's a guy named Arthur Lessac who created this numbering system for a variety of vowels, and he called this one the five, this one the four, and this one the three. And I appreciate that numbering system because it also can give a shorthand to talk about it rather than script a, turned script a, open O, which can be confusing. So we're gonna call them the three, the three, the four, and the five. What I want to do - so here's the five, here's the four, here's the three. This one is the more rounded one, and this one is the more open one, and this one's sort of in the middle.

So some people think of these as three vowels FATHER, HONEST or HONEST and ALL, as in "all honest fathers." That's a phrase that sometimes people use.

Well, another person named JC Wells, he used actually four different words to describe these, which he used PALM P-A-L-M, which has huge variations for Americans. So I'm going to actually use a different word. I want to use FATHER. And then he used a word for this which is LOT L-O-T. He used another word that I want a place here, which is CLOTH. And then he used a word here called, or that is THOUGHT.

So here's what I want to say: Americans, in general, this is not absolutely true, but Americans in general don't use fours. They mostly use threes and fives. So what we end up with is a split here, where we say FATHER LOT both as fives, and CLOTH THOUGHT both as threes. Now most Americans don't round their threes as much as people from England do: THOUGHT. So it's kind of more like a 3.75 almost, approaching a four.

But what happens in England, instead of CLOTH LOT, a split there, you actually have a split here. So we end up with this split instead.

I hope you're still with me. There's a reason I call this Hell's Corner.

Where they say FATHER, LOT, CLOTH. So those are together. And THOUGHT, very rounded, very distinct. So this three almost feels more like a 2.5, maybe. It's even more rounded. This four is rounded at the back. This five is more of an open, open vowel. AH FATHER. AWH LOT CLOTH.  AW THOUGHT. That very rounded sound.

So how to figure out these sounds in various accents...

What I would say is first of all, for Americans especially, figure out is it a three or is it a five. And then if it's spelled with O, it's a four. Now notice if it's spelled with OU or some other variation, it's not a four, but almost all of the fours, the exception is when there's a W before the vowel, that can shift it, but pretty much all the fours are spelled with O. That's the important thing to know. So this can be a big distinction between American accents. We only have this to these two subdivisions.

And British accents. We have these three subdivisions. Right? So these two being together.

Now I'm not being absolute when I'm saying "with American accents" because you will tend to get this split, only a two subdivision, for New York accents. Whereas other than when there's an R after the four so that often New Yorkers will make a division there, like "horrible." But they will tend to say THOUGHT CLOTH and LOT and FATHER, lumping these together, lumping those together.

Whereas in Boston you actually get the three categories. You'll get FATHER LOT CLOTH and then their THOUGHT doesn't round as much as it does for a New Yorker. Whereas a New Yorker will lump these together. So a Boston person, these two will sound similar, but also a little bit like this, because they don't round this as much. Whereas a New Yorker rounds this even more: THOUGHT CLOTH. In Boston: THOUGHT CLOTH LOT FATHER. New York: FATHER LOT and then CLOTH THOUGHT. Some people call that "coffee vowel."

Do you see why I call this Hell's Corner?

The reason that you should care is that when you're working on accents, it's really important to figure out where does the split happen? Do you only have these two categories? Do you have all three categories? Do you have a split here? Or are these together? And figuring that out can make a big difference for a lot of pronunciations when you're trying to figure out if something is a three, or a four, or a five, an open o, a turn script a, or a script a. That's when it's important, I think, to figure out Is it a three or a five? And then is it spelled with O? Well, then it's a four, unless there's an R after it, because then it's less predictable.

I warned you. It's hell's corner. And I apologize that it's this complicated. But if you're gonna get it, you got to dive into the deep end of the pool.

For more info on various accents, to try to pin down sound changes like this, check out AccentHelp.com.