The Annabridgetic sound shift
Anna has started pronouncing some phonemes strangely in English.
For car, instead of RP /k??/, Scottish English /k?r/ or Danish English /ka?/, she says /k??/.
For water, instead of RP /?w??t?/, Scottish English /?w?t?r/ or Danish English /?w??t?/, she says /wo?ta?/.
There are some other occasionally oddities (e.g., /?ba?bi/ for ‘baby’), but this shift of the low back vowels seems to be the most systematic change.
What’s causing it? Is it because she hears so many different accents and languages around her that she thinks it’s OK to play around with her own accent? Or is it a bad attempt at copying the English accents she hears in her favourite TV programme, Tweenies?
Well the playing theory fell over tonight when she asked 6 of us for ‘paper’ before Granny worked out she actually wanted ‘pepper’ on her curry.