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⟨au⟩
⟨au⟩ is a vowel digraph that occurs in English.
Examples[edit | edit source]
As /ɔː/
- assault, auction, audience, audio, audit, August, authentic, author, authority, automatic, autumn, caught, cause, clause, daughter, exhaust /ɪɡˈzɔːst/, fault, fraud, launch, laundry, Laura, naughty, Paul, pause, sauce, taught
- Aussie, Australia, Austria, cauliflower
- aunt, draught,BrE laugh, laughter
The following sounds only appear in loan words.
As /əʊ/
- aubergine, au gratin, au revoir, au lait,[1] au pair, chauffeur
As /aʊ/.
- sauerkraut /ˈsaʊərkraʊt/
Spelling anomalies[edit | edit source]
The word “because"[edit | edit source]
In Received Pronunciation “because" is normally pronounced /bɪˈkɒz/[2] but it is one of the few instances in which it is possible to have a stressed schwa: /bɪˈkəz/.[2][3]
In General American “because" is pronounced /bɪˈkɔz/ or /bɪˈkʌz/.[4] In American English a stressed schwa is pronounced as /ʌ/.[3]
Homophones[edit | edit source]
- /ɔː/: aural, oral; clause, claws; pause, paws;
- General American /æ/: aunt, ant
- Non-rhotic accents /ɔː/: sauce, source
- /ɑː,BrE æAmE/: draughtBrE (flow of air), draft (rough version, flow of airAmE)
Variant pronunciatons[edit | edit source]
- astronaut /ˈæstrənɔːt,BrE AmE ˈæstrənɒtAmE/
- austerity /ɒˈsterəti,BrE ɔˈsterətiAmE BrE/
- Austin /ˈɒstɪn, ˈɔstɪn, ˈɔstən/
- Saudi /ˈsaʊdiː, ˈsɔdiː/
- sauna /ˈsɔnə, ˈsaʊnə/
Spanish L1[edit | edit source]
Many Spanish speakers (who probably don’t hear their teachers, and who also their teachers don’t hear them), pronounce "au" as /aʊ/ which is the way "au" sounds in Spanish. For example, "automatización" sounds like [aʊtomatiθaˈθjon] or [aʊtomatisaˈsjon], and it is very common to hear Spanish speakers saying */aʊtəˈmeɪʃən/ instead of /ɔːtəˈmeɪʃən/. Shorter and more common words, such as “cause" or "author" (which also have cognates in Spanish with the sound [aʊ]) apparently don’t suffer this problem.
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Collins English Dictionary, "au lait"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Collins English Dictionary, “because"
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 John Wells’s phonetic blog, Archive 1-15 July 2007, Stressed and unstressed schwa, 13 July 2007.
- ↑ Collins American Dictionary, because