How The Words "Aunt" And "Auntie" Are Pronounced By Many African Americans

Tarle Speech & Language Services - English Pronunciation

Learn how to pronounce the English words  ANT & AUNT /ænt/ correctly with this American English pronunciation lesson.

ANT & AUNT are pronounced /ænt/ and rhyme with can't, pant, rant.  AUNT can also be pronounced /ɔnt/ and rhymes with bought, caught, fought, taunt.     

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Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post provides excerpts from various online discussion threads and articles about how African Americans usually pronounce the words "aunt" and "auntie".

The content of this post is presented for linguistic and socio-cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.    

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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
For the record, I am African American and was born in 1947 and raised in Atlantic City, New Jersey until I went off to college in 1965. I and everyone Black I knew in my hometown pronounced the word "aunt" as "ahnt" (which rhymes with "gaunt" and "taunt" etc.). I don't recall anyone pronouncing it the same way as the ant insects.

I knew some White people in Atlantic City when I was growing up, particularly from my high school whose student population was almost 50% Black and almost 50% White along with a few Asian students. However, I don't remember if there were any differences in the way Black people and White people in Atlantic City pronounced any words.

Fast forward to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where I've lived since 1969.... African Americans pronounce "aunt" the same way I pronounced it in New Jersey. However, White Pittsburghers pronounce "aunt" exactly like the word "ant" is pronounced. 

Some of the comments below that mention Pittsburghers' pronunciation of the word "aunt"  confirm my experiences that there are racial differences between the way that Black people and non-Black people in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania pronounce that word. There are also other words that are pronounced differently besides "a" and "aunt", but I'll save that for another post.  

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DISCUSSION THREAD AND ARTICLE EXCERPTS ON THIS SUBJECT

These quotes are given in no particular order. Numbers are assigned for referencing purposes only.

However, the numbers for the excerpted comments don't correspond to their numbers in that discussion thread.
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Excerpt #1
From https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/pronunciation-aunt.132982/#:~:text=I%20have%20noticed%20that%20here,%22ah%22%20for%20both%20sounds.

1. DaleC; San Diego, California; Apr 18, 2006
…"Lower Delaware Valley: ahnt (I've never heard 'awnt' but maybe that's the New England way?). (West of the Great Plains, 'aw' becomes 'ah', so that 'caught' rhymes with 'cot'.)

 Ahnt is basically eastern United States. Since one member from Ohio says 'ant', while African-Americans, New Englanders, and Delaware Valley people say 'ahnt', this points to the Appalachian Mountains as the dividing line. I'm interested to find out for sure."

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2. Joelline, USA (W. Pennsylvania), Apr 18, 2006
"Born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, I say ANT (just like the teeny creatures), but as many have noted, most of the black people I grew up with said "AWNT." Because of that, I've always associated the "awnt" pronunciation with blacks--or with veddy proper Brits!"...

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3.  DaleC; San Diego, California; Apr 18, 2006
"And Pittsburgh, PA is just slightly west of the Appalachians.

Foreigners should be aware that African-Americans almost all speak with Southern accents, even those whose families have lived far from the southeast USA ("The South") for generations. So it is not surprising that Joelline would say 'aunt' one way and the local A-A's would say it the other way."

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4. SouthJerz, American English/United States, Apr 18, 2006
"I have always pronounced it 'ant'. I did have one relative that preffered that we call her Awnt Nancy. She was from Kentucky, so there is another instance of it being a southern thing."

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5. jinti, New York City and Pennsylvania, April 18, 2006
"I'm from the Philadelphia area of Pennsylvania originally.

I say ant, but now that I'm in NYC, I hear ahnt more than ant. It's definitely part of AAVE, but not limited to it. Of course, NYC is quite a crossroads, with people from all over....

A quick poll of my officemates reveals that:

1. We don't have too many native speakers of English in my office

2. Everybody here who is originally from NYC says ant, with the exception of the African-Americans, who say ahnt "because ants are those little insects", and my boss, who says ahnt but wonders why he does so, since no one else in his family pronounces it that way. A further poll of the office attributes my boss' pronunciation phenomenon to psychosis, treatable only by letting us go home early. He is now teaching us his pronunciation of "no". ;)"

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6. SarahBeth, English/USA; Apr 18, 2006
"I'm from the southern US and my family and a lot of friends say "ant", but my African American friends usually say "awnt". My friend is from the West coast and she says "awnt" also."

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7. Jacob, New Jersey/United States, Apr 19, 2006
"StrangeAttitude said:

Not to sound racist (because my wife is black), but I hear a lot of black people say it the way you mentioned. I say aunt as in ant and my wife and her family say awnt.
[end of quote]

I've noticed that too. The black side of my family says aunt (with awe sound) and the white side of my family says aunt so it sounds like ant."

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8. MarcB, US English, Apr 19, 2006
"Before reading this post I had never heard of AAVE. I have heard many African Americans say awnt but certainly not all. In the general population I mostly hear ant but often awnt as well. Many of the people who say awnt are from the south, but many also say ant. Some New Englanders say awnt but many do not. In my little corner of the world most people say ant but again some say awnt. Since there are many people from other countries where I live most of them, whether native English speakers or not seem to say awnt, again not all. So I would say my findings are not conclusive."

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9. Lizzo, English USA, May 29, 2016
"I think this is an interesting discussion. I went looking for information about this because last night someone commented on my pronunciation of the word (awnt). I am currently living in Montreal among people from all over Canada and Europe, and a couple from the midwestern us. I grew up in Maine and Massachusetts, and both parents are from the Boston area (mother's extended family is from Connecticut and upstate new york.) A girl from Michigan told me that my pronunciation sounded like "a pretentious New England" way of pronouncing the word. I had never given much thought to it - it's not pretentious, it's just the way I've always said it, and pretty much all natives of my region use this pronunciation. I think it's surprising that there seems to be a pattern here of people associating this pronunciation with African-Americans. Maine is one of the whitest states in the country, and if I heard an African-American pronouncing the word "awnt," I would assume it was because they grew up in my region, not because it was a pronunciation used by the majority of African-Americans. But it is interesting that people in regions where the pronunciation "ant" is usually used note that African Americans use the other pronunciation. So... some people think it sounds like "pretentious New England"-speak, and others associate it was AAVE! (Which I am not judging, but it is not something I would equate with pretentious New England-speak.)"

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10. CarolSue C, English, USA, May 29, 2006
"I have noticed that here in the Midwest many African American young people refer to an "aunt" as "auntie," pronounced either "AHNtee" or "ahnTEE." I don't think the majority of native Midwesterner speakers of any race distinguish between the "ah" and "aw" sound either, usually using the "ah" for both sounds. I know that they pronounce "Boston" with the "ah" sound, while I use the "aw" sound for the initial "o." "

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11. la_cavalière, St. Louis, MO, |"anglais États-Unis, May 29, 2006
"I was raised in Minnesota, and I say "aunt" like "awnt" with the "awe" sound, as did everyone I knew (and no, I'm not African American, and there were very few where I grew up).

In Missouri, where I live now, everyone says "ant."

Although I've been here for many years, I REFUSE to say "ant." That sounds absolutely ridiculous to my ears. An "ant" is a small insect. My "aunt" is my mother's sister.

Examples of words beginning with "au" (all have the "aw" sound):

audience

auction

August

audit

Australia

Austria

author

auto

autumn

automatic

 

I rest my case."
-snip-
One blogger mentioned "AAVE" in their comment. Acouple of people asked what that meant, and someone responded that "AAVE" means "African American Vernacular English".

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Excerpt #2
From https://www.quora.com/Do-Americans-usually-pronounce-aunt-as-ant-or-awnt

1. Heidi Cool, Native speaker of American English., Answered April 10
"The pronunciation of Aunt varies from place to place. Ant is the most common pronunciation in the U.S., but you will hear ahnt in parts of the Northeast and parts of the South. I live in Cleveland, Ohio and refer to my dad’s sisters as my ants. My friend Larry lives in Boston and he called his parent’s siblings ahnts. Neither of us say awnt."

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2. Ari Hoptman, lives in The United States of America, Answered April 10
"I can’t speak for all of the US, but I have heard variation between ethnic groups. I grew up in a racially mixed city in the Midwest. White people tended to say [ænt], to rhyme with ant, and black people tended to say [ant], to rhyme with haunt."

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Excerpt #3
From https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Americans-pronounce-Aunt-differently

1. Patti Charron, Answered January 25, 2016
"There are a lot of words that people pronounce differently. It depends on how the individual learned to pronounce it initially, and then upon influences later on.

When I was a kid, we called my Irish mother's sisters ANT Muggie, ANT Martha, ANT Dierdre. Everyone at my school talked about their ANTS. To make matters worse, this was with the nasally A, which is common in Cleveland.

When I went away to college, I started hearing AUNT from kids from up east and from the south. This appealed to me as it differentiates between the blood relation and the insect.

In the area where I live now, most white folks say ANT. African-Americans say AUNT and AUNTIE.

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2. Heidi Cool, Native speaker of American English, Answered April 4, 2016
"The pronunciation of Aunt has evolved differently in different areas. I'm in Cleveland (where Patti was raised) and say "Ant." My friends in Boston say "Ahnt."

Auntie anxiety gives a nice overview of this topic. Apparently "Ant" used to be the common pronunciation in England but over time it changed to "Ahnt.""
-snip-
An excerpt of that article is given immediately below.

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Excerpt #4 
From https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2009/09/auntie-anxiety.html

Q: I would like to know why some people pronounce “aunt” like AHNT and others like ANT. I grew up in the Midwest where everyone said ANT, but I now live in NYC where everyone says AHNT. Please explain which is correct.

 A: A blog reader wrote in earlier this year with this explanation: an AHNT is a very rich ANT. But, seriously, the word “aunt” has two correct pronunciations: ANT (like the insect) and AHNT.

Both pronunciations are given, in that order, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.).

The first (ANT) is by far the predominant American pronunciation. The second (AHNT) is common in the Northeast, some Southern dialects, and among African Americans.

British speakers today also prefer the second pronunciation (AHNT), according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

But many phonologists and other scholars have shown that the pronunciation of “aunt” varies widely in Britain, and that “ant” and “aunt” are pronounced the same by many speakers in the northern counties.

In fact, ANT was once the preferred pronunciation in Britain, so the dominant American pronunciation is actually older, a relic of British usage in the late 18th century.

The linguist and lexicographer M. H. Scargill has written: “Acceptable late-18th-century British pronunciation rhymed ‘clerk’ with ‘lurk,’ ‘caught’ with ‘cot’ and ‘aunt’ with ‘ant,’ and those pronunciations are the ones immigrants brought with them.”

The “a” in words like “after,” “aunt,” “last,” “past,” “class,” “dance,” “path,” and “chance” is pronounced the old way (like the “a” in “bat”) by most Americans, while most British speakers now pronounce it as “ah.”

In its entry for “aunt,” the Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary notes that the ANT pronunciation “was brought to America before British English developed the ah in such words as aunt, dance, and laugh.“

“In American English,” Random House adds, “ah is most common in the areas that maintained the closest cultural ties with England after the ah pronunciation developed there in these words."…

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