At the start of a word, both English and German have one sibilant that can appear in some positions where no other consonant can appear. That sibilant is /s/ in English but /ʃ/ in German (pronounced roughly like <sh-> in English she). The position where only English /s/ or German /ʃ/ can appear is at…… Continue reading English and German sibilants at the start of words
Tag: Phonotactics
Rhotic consonants
Sounds similar to the English sound spelled with the letter <r> are called rhotics. This post looks at rhotics. Rhotics are named after the Ancient Greek letter ρ (rho). Rhotics vary greatly in their: manner of articulation; and place of articulation. Manner of articulation Different rhotics are produced in different manners: as a trill (repeated…… Continue reading Rhotic consonants
Sounds of Vietnamese
Vietnamese (tiếng Việt) is in the Vietic subgroup of the Austroasiatic language family. Vietnamese is spoken as a first language by around 85 million people, mainly in Vietnam, where it is the official language. It has several times as many native speakers as all other Austroasiatic languages combined. This post covers: syllable structure word structure consonants vowels reduplication…… Continue reading Sounds of Vietnamese
Importing a foreign consonant into Finnish
I found an interesting little example about foreign loan words in Finnish in New Perspectives in Historical Linguistics, Paul Kiparsky, in The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics, edited by Claire Bowern and Bethwyn Evans (2014). The example is on foreign words containing /f/. I summarise below what Kiparsky says about 2 strategies for dealing with…… Continue reading Importing a foreign consonant into Finnish
English has all the syllables it needs
In this post, I consider whether English has enough distinct syllables to create all the words it needs. Actual, possible and impossible syllables If we look at the sound system of a language, we can identify 3 types of syllable: syllables in words that exist in that language. An English example is brick /brik/. syllables…… Continue reading English has all the syllables it needs
Xmas with kids
Spending a week with our grandchildren between Christmas and New Year, I noticed a few things about how they use language. Strong verbs I came across 2 more examples of some creative formations of a past participle and of a simple past tense from strong verbs: our middle grandson (now 7 years 0 months) produced…… Continue reading Xmas with kids
Japan to change official romanisation?
Recent press reports suggest that the Japanese government is thinking of changing the officially recommended system for romanising Japanese. Romanisation is writing Japanese in roman characters (known in Japanese as rōmaji). There are 2 main romanisation systems for Japanese: Hepburn, devised by an American Missionary James Curtis Hepburn (1815-1911). Kunrei, issued by the Japanese government…… Continue reading Japan to change official romanisation?
Word frequencies and Zipf’s law
There is a well-known relationship between the frequency of words in a text and the ranking of those frequencies. The relationship is known as Zipf’s law and is one example of a relationship called a power law. Power laws crop up in many other settings. For example, they arise in investigating the distribution of populations…… Continue reading Word frequencies and Zipf’s law
Language sketch: Maori (1)—sounds
Maori is the language of the Māori people of New Zealand. It is known in Maori as te reo Māori (‘the language Maori’) or simply te reo (‘the language’) for short. Te reo Māori was made an official language in New Zealand in 1987, along with New Zealand Sign Language. There is a useful short…… Continue reading Language sketch: Maori (1)—sounds
How German speakers pronounce English
Someone’s first language tends to cause consistent errors when they speak a second language. I’ve always found it interesting see what types of error people make in speaking (or writing) English they have learnt as a foreign language. Those errors can be useful pointers to the features of the speaker’s first language. Spotting those errors…… Continue reading How German speakers pronounce English