Ferguson (1972) described the distribution of æ and æ: in his native Philadelphia speech and pointed out that these two varieties of low, front vowel have different distributions in different dialects. He ended his paper with a plea for further data collection in more dialects that would lead ‘to better understanding of the synchronic system and to more satisfactory hypotheses about the diachrony’ (1972:273). This paper is in response to his request and consists of a description of the distribution of æ and æ: in my native Melbourne speech.

Speculation concerning the future direction of linguistic evolution, despite its obvious pitfalls, has a long tradition, not to mention attraction, in linguistics. In the French domain, one need only think of Pulgram (1967) or of various works by Ashby concerning « Future French » (1974, 1977), both of whom reflect on ideas present in French scholarship dating from the early decades of this century (e.g. Meillet, 1921, 1936; Vendryes, 1923). Recent work in typology, showing apparently orderly progression from one language state to another, has buttressed speculative efforts, as have many of the results of sociolinguistics, where clear trends in age or social profiles often allow one to infer directionality and even end result on the basis of ongoing change.