What do you call your mom's sister? (or your dad's)

I grew up saying ant.

OK. But now that you're all grown up and all, what do you say? Is it still 'ant'?

And, oh yeah, at the risk of sounding like dalehilman it would help if you indicate the general geographical background of where you learned to speak that way.

I'd like to tag along Andy, as ask how people say insurance.

I grew up saying inSURance, but now I say INsurance.

I called my aunts 'ant'. My niece - and I don't know the definition of niece and don't want to - calls me ahnt, which tends to make me blink. That is from instruction by her rather didactic father, my brother in law, whom I like but can get your goat with small effort.

That's a regionalism, Chai. Everybody south of the Mason/Dixon line says INsurance; hardly anyone north of those latitudes does.

Ok, I just said out loud "There's an ant hill over there." Then, "That's my Aunt Millie"

Ant came out more nasally (forgive me, I was never good with phonetics in school, long short vowels, etc. made my palms sweat and stomach lurch)

Aunt came out like a short "a" as in cat or can't

So ant is nasally and whiney.

As a child, young adult cat and can't were nasally and whiney as well, not now.

I grew up in NJ, on the Jersey Shore (and no, that doesn't mean I sounded like Snookie, they were visiting), and thinking about these sounds, I think I sounded more like Carmela Soprano (although I said my R's at the end my my words, never said "dinnah" for "dinner")
Just like Carmela, as far as saying a lot of "a's" in words that should have had short "a's" sounded nasal...like a mosquito whining.
The further North you went in NJ back in the 70's, the more whiney you sounded.

I made a conscious effort to change my accent when I moved to Wisconsin, as that was the first time I lived somewhere where I sounded a lot different from others, and was treated differently because of it. Prior to that, I lived in S. Florida, which was basically like living in NJ.

So I broadened my vowels mostly I guess.

Now, if someone asks where I was born (from) in conversation, I'm surprised and until recently would ask "You can't tell?" I'd get some varied answers, but no one would ever say NJ or NY.

I've lived in Austin Tx for, oh...almost 20 years now, and say INsurance and "fixin' ta" and "y'all"

I'm Australian and say ahnt. Who says awnt? I don't think I've noticed that.

I've heard it but can't think of what the geographical connection is now.

Tante Ruth und Tante Inge und Tante Irmgard und ...

Me, too, Beth. They were all Tantes.

We were transplanted southerners in Fresno, CA, where I learned to say ant. Didn't start saying aunt as in awning, until late in life. As a sidebar, I was ridiculed by a neighbor kid for calling aigs eggs.

What should you have called them?

According to him "aigs."

Ant. I grew up in Kansas. I would say Ahnt if I wanted to sound more sophisticated.

In Noo Yawk, we say ant, which rhymes with can't and has a much flatter sound than can. That's right. In the Big Apple can and can't don't have the same "a "sound.

I'm an ahnt speaker (as in aren't; can't!)

If ever I visit the USA, I'm not going to speak to any of you - and I probably won't understand you either!

Can and can't don't have the same 'a' sound in Oz, either! But they're nothing like the Noo Yawk ones!

You say 'can' and 'cahnt', don't you? In Noo Yawk they also say 'can' but I have no notion of how to spell their version of Kant phonetically. Nor the Bostonian version, come to that; it's quite different from the Newyorkese.

I have no notion either. It's a very flat sound, and I can't think of an equivalent.

Ah! That's what I was trying to express!

can't has a mosquito whine, just like you say ant.
can sounds more like a person who's not complaining.