Aunt Pronounced "Ant" , "Awnt" Or "Arent"

[oldriver]

You forgot the hillbilly "aint."

I grew up with relatives all over the country. There was AWNT Carole in Virginia, ANT Barbara in New York and AINT Lizzie in Texas.

I believe you are right, Pecker. It depends on where "y'all" are from. In Texas I grew up saying ANT, or AYNT. Later, around Dallas, I heard a few blacks saying "AWNT" and "AWNTIE" which I thought was a British pronounciation; however, a lot of southern blacks use each variation. (I am white.)

It's just a dialect thing. Like in the southern US, "coke" refers to any carbonated, non-alcoholic soft drink (for non-druggies like me, that is). Conversational example: "You want a coke?" "Sure, thanks." "What kind? Dr. Pepper, 7-Up, or Coke?"

 

[B_dumbcow]

In England, most people say "Arent".
I think the northerners tend to say "Ant"

But I've always said "Ant" and I'm from the South. :dunno:

 

[Runco]

I'm a Brit too and I say 'Arent'. I suspect Northerners may use another variation as there are differences between us in the use of the word 'mummy'. They tend to say 'mammy' so they may well say 'Ant' and 'Anti'.

 

[ClaireTalon]

God, sometimes I'm so glad I wouldn't even pick my family with pincers, let alone talk about them. But I think it would sound a little funny that my ant is babysitting my daughter. Or that my ant just died of cancer. Or that my ant has married a new man. I mean, someone could feel inspired to step on my ant and smash her.

My favorite is "awnt".

 

[griplock22]

from scotland and i say "ant"
so....i say thats the right way :tongue:

 

[Mr. Snakey]

I say Ant.

 

[Calboner]

I think we're gonna see a big national divide on this one. OK I take back what I said about most common. It is in my country anyhow.

ps; how can ant be the correct saying? the u is there for a reason!

You could say the same about the words "chaunce" and "advaunce," though in their case the spelling was changed to drop the superfluous U. The letter U was kept in the word "aunt" presumably to distinguish it from the word "ant."

This discussion is going to produce misunderstandings on every side, because the letters that people use to represent their pronunciation are interpreted differently by people with different accents. For instance, in some accents "aw" represents the same vowel as is represented by the letter O in "pot" (so that, e.g., "caught" and "cot" sound the same), while in other accents those are two entirely different vowels. In some accents, "ar" represents the same vowel as the "a" in "father," while in other accents those are two entirely different sounds. In some accents, "aw" and "ah" represent the same sound, while in other accents they represent two different sounds.

The only unambiguous way to answer this question is with phonetic notation, which unfortunately is not available here -- quite apart from the fact that few people know how to read or write it.

 

[B_Think_Kink]

Ant.

 

[TwasBrillig]

When wrestled into a no-win position regarding pronunciation just say "uncle".

It's the easy way out.

 

[Principessa]

[quote=bball233223;1636965]Which do you prefer? Which is correct?[/quote]

I grew up saying "ant", but my mother who is from Connecticut says "awnt". One of my friends from Eastern North Carolina, right up on the Virginia border says "awnt" as well, but all my friends here say "ant." Wierd...

Prepstudinsc, as a black man :tongue: you should know the proper pronunciation amongst our people is 'ont' as JustAsking spells it.

I come from Connecticut but lived all over New England, New York State, and now the midwest.

I grew up saying something more like "Ont" (rhymes with font), but as you move towards Boston it turns into more like "Awnt" (rhymes with haunt).

These days I still say "Ont", although most of my accent has been flattened out by the midwest.

I grew up with the ont pronunciation of aunt as well. I did notice that only white people in central Jersey said ant. So I thought it was a color, not a regional thing. :dunno:

You could say the same about the words "chaunce" and "advaunce," though in their case the spelling was changed to drop the superfluous U. The letter U was kept in the word "aunt" presumably to distinguish it from the word "ant."

That is what I always thought as well. Ant and aunt were never meant to be homonyms.

This discussion is going to produce misunderstandings on every side, because the letters that people use to represent their pronunciation are interpreted differently by people with different accents. For instance, in some accents "aw" represents the same vowel as is represented by the letter O in "pot" (so that, e.g., "caught" and "cot" sound the same), while in other accents those are two entirely different vowels. In some accents, "ar" represents the same vowel as the "a" in "father," while in other accents those are two entirely different sounds. In some accents, "aw" and "ah" represent the same sound, while in other accents they represent two different sounds.

The only unambiguous way to answer this question is with phonetic notation, which unfortunately is not available here -- quite apart from the fact that few people know how to read or write it.

Funny Story: A white friend of mine who majored in English and worked in a predominanatly black office asked me why I always said aunt (ont) as opposed to ant. She then went on to say that she thought it was a black/white thing.

Having spent my formative years in a private prep school I explained that my proper pronunciation of aunt was not a result of the difference between black and white but a difference between private and public school. :tongue:

 

[arthurdent]

I'm with DumbCow on this one. According to the Oxford English Dictionary it is pronounced a:nt, where the a: is a long a as in father. It comes from the 13th Century French ante, which comes from the Latin amita.

I would say it is pronounced the same as can't but the a may be long or short depending on where you live. People in Northern England mostly use short as, so would say Ant, whereas folk in Southern England say Aant.

I've never heard anyone pronounce it Ont or Awnt!

 

[Calboner]

I'm with DumbCow on this one. According to the Oxford English Dictionary it is pronounced a:nt, where the a: is a long a as in father. It comes from the 13th Century French ante, which comes from the Latin amita.

I would say it is pronounced the same as can't but the a may be long or short depending on where you live. People in Northern England mostly use short as, so would say Ant, whereas folk in Southern England say Aant.

I've never heard anyone pronounce it Ont or Awnt!

I have never heard anyone pronounce "aunt" in a way I would represent as "ont" or "awnt" either. The trouble is that, as I said earlier, when people use English spelling to represent their pronunciation of something, they will completely mislead those who have a different accent. Many Americans pronounce the vowels in father, cot, and caught exactly the same, and some of them will claim that they pronounce "aunt" as "ont" or "awnt" when they intend to represent a pronunciation that an English person might represent as "arnt" (which for most Americans represents a completely different sound, with an audible R in it).