42. Two front vowels remain to be considered, the i sounds. Say bid and bead. You recognise that one is longer than the other; are they otherwise the same? Say bid and repeat it with the same vowel drawn out; then say bead, and repeat it with the vowel shortened. If you are careful in each case to change only the length, and not the quality of the vowel, you will perceive that the vowels in bid and in bead are different.
The vowel in bid is laxly articulated and is known as the open [ɪ]. In unstressed syllables (see § 38) it is often very open indeed, and when it is final, as in very, the tongue is raised very little higher than for close or even middle e. The sign for this sound is [e˔] or [ɪ˕]. (Here ˔ means more close, ˕ more open.) Can you hear any difference between the two vowels of lily?
The great phonetician Ellis remarked that the pronunciation of the i in six is the touchstone of foreigners, especially of those belonging to the Romance nations; they usually articulate it too tensely. Ask a Frenchman to say fini, and compare his sounds with those in finny.
Notice the frequent cockney pronunciation of -y as [ei], e.g., in windy [windei].
Often [ə] is substituted for this sound, as in unity, ability, pronounced [juwnəti, ə´biləti], also in April, visible; but this is avoided by some speakers.
The in the diphthongs [ai] and [ɔi], as in buy, boy, is very low.
In bead we have not a single vowel, but a kind of diphthong. If you utter it slowly, you will find that the tongue does not remain in a uniform position, but rises a little towards the end, the sound becoming closer. It may begin close, in which case the further rising reduces the passage so much that we have [j]; bead in this case is [bijd]. Or the vowel may begin fairly open and rise to the close position; then bead is [bɪid].[48] When the diphthong is followed by a voiceless sound, it is shortened; beat [bijt] [bɪit] is shorter than bead. Compare also seed, seat, sit; feed, feet, fit. Careful speakers pronounce been like bean, not like bin; most speakers, however, use the shortened form in ordinary speech.