Talk:Warspite/@comment-26843989-20160813132006/@comment-35182244-20160813202759

Thank you SonyaUliana, SofaKinng, Cools0812 and our anon for your input.

The nature of the English [y] is an interesting one, since it exists both as a consonant and as a vowel and both [i] and [y] are allophones of the same phoneme, but are pronounced differently (/ɪ/ and /i/ respectively). The complicating factor is that [y] is both a semivowel and a diphthong (having two vowels in it).

Moreover English [i] and [y] are known to have been in complementary distribution. Meaning that they can occur in the same spot such as "loveli" or "lovely" and the meaning would be the same except for pronunciation. Due to complementary distribution, [y] tends to be in a final position while [i] tends to be in a medial position, such as "lovingly", which further add to this mess. We have a word like "LovInglY". Here, /i/ and /y/ sound pretty much identical. Still, looking at these evidence provided, I can summarize that a change in pronunciation occurred between 1700-1800.

Perhaps at this point the only way I could imagine we could solve this is to either find out the reasoning behind the choice of pronunciation by the devs themselves or to consult a historian well versed in English linguistics, or the interviewing of WW2-era survivors.

I'll try and contact my faculty lecturers who are well versed in linguistics and English overall and they might be able to provide more insight into this matter.