Are you Ready for Skewl?

Although this is not something I have encountered recently, it is always something my parents joke about when talking about when they were in high school and something I have always found very interesting. They are both from Marystown (on the Burin Peninsula), and apparently when they were growing up, everyone from there would be teased about their pronunciation of the word "school," and how it always came out as "skewl." 

See, the thing with being from such a small community as this is you need to find something to do, and apparently when my parents were growing up, it was making fun of the way people pronounced their words. People from Grand Bank made fun of those from Marystown, and people from Marystown would make fun of those from St. Lawrence and so on. So this made me think, why such a big deal about pronunciation?

The difference between the two pronunciations of the word "school" does not change the meaning, but lies more in the articulatory processes involved. The more standard way of saying "school" is a rounded vowel sound, and this is characterized by the way your lips round when pronouncing the word. Also, in the ending consonant, the tip of your tongue comes up just to touch the alveolar ridge (located just behind the top row of teeth). In what is said to be the Marystown pronunciation, "skewl," the lips still push forward and make more of a Q sound than an O. They also do not round quite so much, rather stay relatively flat together while pushed forward. You can also notice that when making that final consonant sound, which is similar in both pronunciations of the word, the tip of the tongue does not quite reach the alveolar ridge, but rests more on the top teeth.

As stated, these slight differences do not show a change in meaning like pronunciation would in some of the worlds other languages, but do show that there is clearly more than one dialect of Newfoundland English in our language. These variations are found all over the province, depending on your geographical location. All the places earlier listed are within one hour of each other, but all still have their own quirks displayed through their language, and are clearly strong enough to be noticed by people of other areas. This is what, I feel, makes our language so interesting. While we all have some traits of what people call typical "Newfinese" we also display things that are unique to our own home towns, giving us all that connection to where we came from.