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What is NYU like?

From what region do people pronouncing "new" like "nyu" come?

  • It seems that "new" can be pronounced both as "nu" or "nyu": new |n(y)oō| nuance |ˈn(y)oōˌäns| nude |n(y)oōd| nutrition |n(y)oōˈtri sh É™n| However, words with the same sound except with "m" are unconditionally pronounced "myu":mew 1 |myoō| museum |myoōˈzÄ“É™m| music |ˈmyoōzik| There's also some cases of this happening in the middle of a word:avenue |ˈavəˌn(y)oō| I pronounce all the "new" sounds as "nyu", but "avenue" without the "nyu". I'm trying to pinpoint which region this came from.

  • Answer:

    Not pronouncing the "yu" sound after "n" is an instance of what is called "yod-dropping". It happens for most American speakers after alveolar consonants (in particular, "t", "d", and "n"), but not for most British speakers in those particular contexts. Of course, there are exceptions and variations beyond that glib generalization. It would be difficult to pinpoint why you have yod-dropping only in "avenue" out of your examples without further information about your background (and even then, it may just be a personal idiosyncrasy).

Sridhar Ramesh at Quora Visit the source

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The pronunciation with y is considered “original”/“standard”. Most North American dialects, however, drop the y sound after dental/alveolar consonants (t, d, n, l). The change simplifies the pronunciation and is thus easier to say.

John Peyton

Actually, nearly all English speakers employ both pronunciations, depending on context since the context changes whether the word is emphasized or not. For instance, in the sentence "This car is very new" - nearly all dialects would employ "nyu" (perhaps except for South-African and certain north British accents) while as an adjective and therefore unstressed form, most English speakers would pronounce it as "nu".

Jonathan H. Avidan

http://applewebdata://E49FA5A0-3A82-4A8D-B1C1-21431C167118#'s answer is interesting in that he gives an example that I was going to give: 'This car is very new.' Where I come from, Derry, in the north of Ireland, not only do we have a spoken 'y' after the 'n' in 'new', but we also have one after the 'c' in 'car', rendering it 'kyar'. Other invisible letters crop up in cinema - we go to see a fil(u)m - and any words which rhyme with 'towel' which we pronounce 'tauyel'.

Adrian Merk

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