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/i/ sound before "ng" and "nk"

English Language & Usage Asked on August 16, 2021

I’m a substitute teacher and recently was teaching a kindergarten class about long i sound. They were crossing out words without long i, circling words with long i. One of the words was ink. I told them no, listen , we don’t say i nk (say it with a long i to see what I mean) and they crossed it out. Later, looking at the teacher’s edition, it had ink circled. I thought it was just a mistake then I saw that an ink bottle was actually used as an example in the book for the long i sound. I thought something was terribly wrong so I looked it up in the dictionary—it shows i in ink as a long i sound (I looked at many dictionaries, all were the same). This can’t be right, but I’m wondering if it’s one if those things that’s just been accepted and not questioned. Or if it’s a category that hasn’t been explored yet as needing a separate sound to clarify, like words with r-controlled vowels. Any comments on this would be extremely helpful.

Edit:

I realized I made a mistake with my original post and used long I all the way through. I meant to say that in ink, think, pink, thing, ring, king, etc., in other words, words ending in “nk” and “ng”, the “i” is usually pronounced more like a long e sound, like e in meet. At least, that is how I have always pronounced it and heard it pronounced. I’m from California so this could be regional, but I’ve never heard it pronounced with a short i like in it. Fumblefingers listed words in which a short i occurs, including ink, pink, bit, fit. I definitely hear short i in bit and fit, sounds the same. In ink and pink, i does not sound the same to me, nor have I heard people say it with the same i sound as in bit. Unless the i is getting so quickly blended into the “ng” that it is almost ignored, in which case it should have a special sound category like we teach r-controlled vowels. The pronunciation rules could be very different between the US and the UK .

4 Answers

Something funny happens to short i in some California accents; what most of us pronounce as short i (as in sit or king) turns into long e (as in seat or keen) when it's before an "nk" or an "ng". So ink would be pronounced eenk in these accents.

But this is a regional thing, established in California, Michigan, and probably several other regions of the U.S., but there are lots of regions where people don't do this. So the dictionaries are correct; except in California, pink and ring have a short i like bid.

Answered by Peter Shor on August 16, 2021

Also here in Maryland we say K-ee-ng (king) and p-ee-nk (pink). A google search actually brought me to this thread, because I had a similar question regarding my son's Kimdergarten homework.

Answered by Anon on August 16, 2021

Modern neutral American English often uses the long ee sound before nk and ng. It's not regional so much as it is just the evolution of neutral American English. For example, kin and king are completely different "I" sounds. But unfortunately many English learning materials still teach it as a short sound.

Answered by Kyle on August 16, 2021

Yes, for my money the "i" in "ink" and "ring" is pronounced long e. Like in "creak" and "leak." I don't get the short i pronunciation with these words.

Answered by Curtis Flowers on August 16, 2021

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