dude fuckin... today i noticed that (how i pronounce em) the words "pier" and "pierre" are very close in sound but just slightly off. so ive gone online to try and figure out exactly what the difference is but i cant quite tell?
wikitonary says pier is /pîr/ which according to their chart is the same as /pɪɚr/ or /pɪɹ/; assuming the first one and lowering precision i understand this roughly as phonetic [pɪər]. also for pierre it gives /piˈɛr/ which i understand roughly as phonetic [piɛr]
apparently phonemic /ɪə/ is the "ea" in "fear" which is weird to me because id write the pronunciation (for my accent) more like phonetic [iə], so eg "fear" is [fiər] ... so i guess my pronunciation for pier would be more like [piər] and for pierre more like [piɛr]
yeah ok actually this does make sense !! its the [ə] vs [ɛ] which makes the difference. thanks internet
but it feels like the same difference between "air" and "ear" ... is "air" [ər] and "ear" [ɛr]? definitely not, at least not for me. more like [ɛr] and [ir]. so dunno whats happening there. o well
