04:21
I think the zillions of pronunciations under
/æ/ raising are what can sometimes give rise to the yeah/neah thing, however you care to spell that.
For some people, man and crayon rhyme.
Meaning the version of crayon with two syllables, perhaps [ˈkɻæ̃.ən] if you like.
You can pivot on a /j/ there, too: [ˈkɻæ̃jən]. It just drags out without a clear break though.
The OED gives /ˈkreɪɒn/, /ˈkreɪən/, U.S. /ˈkreɪˌɑn/ if it matters.
Wikipedia has Eastern New England with [æ~eə], upper midwest and northwest and Canada with [æ~ɛə], and the South with [ɛ(j)ə~eə]. And that’s just what happens before a nasal.
> For speakers in much of Canada and in the North-Central and Northwestern United States, a following /ɡ/ (as in magazine, rag, bags, etc.) or /ŋ/ (as in bang, pang, gangster, angler, etc.) tenses an /æ/ as much as or more than a following nasal does.[8] In Wisconsin, Minnesota, and central Canada, a merger of /æ/ with /eɪ/ before /ɡ/, making bag, for example, rhyme with vague, has been reported.[9]
I’m sure we tense bang into /beŋ/.
It’s super close to bane in fact, just a slightly different terminal nasal.
The bane of your existence. The bang of your existence.
So some people say hand like ['hejən(d)].
I’m sure you’ve heard that.
> The realization of this "tense" (as opposed to "lax") /æ/ varies from [æ̝ˑ] to [ɛə] to [eə] to [ɪə], and is greatly dependent on the speaker's particular dialect.
[hɛ̝ĕən], [hɛ̝ɪ̆ənd], [hɛ̝ˑən] — and oh so many more.
Bath: [bæ̝əθ], [bɛĕəθ], [bæˑəθ], [be̞ˑəθ]. ...
Makes you appreciate why we (usually) use phonemics not phonetics, eh? :)
Anybody can figure out /bæθ/ but the narrow transcriptions are so finicky.