Foot-Goose Merger

The foot-goose merger refers to a merger of the high back vowels in the words foot and goose. It is found in the English of Scotland and Northern Ireland. In the foot-goose merger, both words are pronounced with a high back rounded tense vowel.

In Northern Ireland and Scotland, many speakers pronounce foot and goose with the same vowel, the vowel of goose. For these speakers, the words Luke and look sound identical and the words food and good rhyme. The distinction between the tense vowel of goose and lax vowel of foot is lost.

The foot-goose merger neutralizes the distinction between the tense and lax high back vowels of English. The marked lax vowel is replaced with the unmarked tense vowel. The foot-goose merger also exists in Singapore English. In Singapore English, however, the vowel is not as advanced as in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The foot-goose merger is one of the many mergers in English.