Fizan Ahmed

35%
Flag icon
The speakers are unconsciously trying to distance themselves from their parents’ foreign accents. Yiddish speakers tended to have trouble with certain unfamiliar English vowel sounds. They tended to turn cup of coffee into “cop of coffee.” The presumption is that their children compensated for this by overpronouncing those vowels. Hence the accent.
The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way
Rate this book
Clear rating
Open Preview