German z

 he German z is a voiceless alveolar affricate. In comparison to other Germanic languages, the German affricate also occurs word-initially. It occurs in many words. Here is a list of ten which begin with the German alveolar affricate:

zehn (ten)

Zeit (time)

Ziel (goal)

Zigarette (cigarette)

Zimmer (room)

Zink (zinc)

Zug (train)

zwischen (between)

zwei (two)

zwölf (twelve)

The German z is never pronounced as in English. It is an affricate, and it is always voiceless. The German voiceless alveolar affricate serves to distinguish German from other Germanic languages.

Irregular Plurals in English

Regular plurals in English end with -s or -es. However, irregular plurals have four main patterns. They are an alternation of the vowel, a change of f to ves, the addition of -en and no change in the singular and plural.

Words with an alternation of the vowel include man/men, foot/feet and mouse/mice. The words leaf/leaves and knife/knives change f to ves. In the words child/children and ox/oxen the plural ends with -en. Word pairs such as deer/deer and moose/moose are the same in the singular and plural.

A few plurals do not follow those patterns. The plural of cactus is cacti, the plural of phenomenon is phenomena and the plural of die is dice. Other examples include analysis/analyses and thesis/theses. 

English plurals are quite regular. However, a few do not end with the suffix -s/-es. A number of irregular plurals have an alternation of the vowel.

Romanian Articles

Romanian articles are postnominal. This means that they do not precede the noun, but rather they follow it. This makes Romanian different from other Romance languages. Another difference is that Romanian has three genders- masculine, feminine and neuter, as was the case in Latin. Other Romance languages only have masculine and feminine. Let us look at examples of Romanian nouns and articles.

The Romanian word for dog is câine. It is a masculine noun. The Romanian word for cat is pisică. This word is a feminine noun. The word for hotel is hotel, and it is a neuter noun. Now let us look at these nouns when they are combined with articles.

dog câine

the dog câinii

the dogs câinele

cat pisică

the cat pisica

the cats pisicile

hotel hotel

the hotel hotelul

the hotels hotelurile

Romanian articles are suffixes. This makes them different from the articles of other Romance languages. In Romanian the combination of a noun and article is written as not one word but two.

Pronunciation of y and ll in Argentina

In most Spanish-speaking countries, the y and ll are palatal approximants. However, in Uruguay and in a large part of Argentina, they are voiceless alveopalatal fricatives. However, the voiceless alveopalatal fricative is not used in all parts of Argentina. It is common in Buenos Aires and many other areas, but not everywhere.

In Cordoba, a city in central Argentia, the voiced fricative is common. The voiced fricative was once common in Buenos Aires, but now it is far more common to use the voiceless counterpart. The fricative used in Cordoba reflects an earlier pronunciation.

However, in Mendoza, a city located close to the Chilean border, the y and ll are not fricatives. They are palatal approximants. In other words, they are pronounced as they are by most Spanish speakers.

The pronunciation of the y and ll is the same in Uruguay and much of Argentina. The Spanish of Uruguay and Buenos Aires is often called Rioplatense Spanish. In Cordoba, the fricative is voiceless, and in Mendoza, the palatal approximant is used. The pronunciation of the y and ll in Argentina varies.

Three Pronunciations of Danish Word Af

The Danish word af means off. In certain cases, it also means by. It can be pronounced in three distinct ways. Let us illustrate with examples.

When af is a prefix, it is always pronounced as a diphthong. In the words aftale (agreement) and affald (garbage), the first syllable is a diphthong.

In the other two cases, the word af is a vowel. The final letter f is silent. Before a noun phrase, the vowel is short, but in isolation or before a word such as an adverb or preposition, it has a longer pronunciation.

In the sentence, Vi skal af toget her (We must get off the train here), the word af comes before the noun phrase toget (the train). For this reason, it is pronounced short. However, in the sentence, Vi skal af her (We must get off here), the word af comes before the adverb of place her (here), and thus it is pronounced long.

The word af can also mean by. This is the case in the word Frygt og Bæven er skrevet af Søren Kierkegaard (Fear and Trembling was written by Søren Kierkegaard). Here the word af comes before a noun phrase. For this reason it is pronounced with a short vowel.

The pronunciation of the word af depends on the context. When it is a prefix, it is a diphthong. Before a noun phrase, it is pronounced with a short vowel, and in isolation, it is pronounced with a long one. Thus the Danish word af has three different pronunciations.

Two Romanian Vowels

Romanian has seven vowels. Five are the same vowels found in many languages, but two are less common. One is the mid central unrounded vowel, which is written ă, and the other is the high mid unrounded vowel, which can be written â or î. The vowel ă is similar to the English schwa. Both vowels can occur in both stressed and unstressed syllables.

The mid central unrounded vowel occurs in the word casă (house), and the high mid unrounded vowel occurs in înger (angel). These two vowels did not occur in Latin. In fact, the high mid unrounded vowel does not occur in any other Romance language.

Romanian is a Romance language, and five of the vowels are common not only in Romance languages but in many languages of the world. Languages such as Spanish have a vowel system that is known as the five-vowel system. However, Romanian has two vowels that are less common.

Comparison of Finnish and Estonian Numbers

Finnish and Estonian are both Uralic languages. They belong to the Finnic-Ugric subfamily. The similarity of the two languages is evident in a comparison of the numbers. Here are the numbers from one to ten in the two languages:

yksi üks

kaksi kaks

kolme kolm

neljä neli

viisi viis

kuusi kuus

seitsemän seitse

kahdeksan kaheksa

yhdeksän üheksa

kymmenen kümme

The high front rounded vowel is y in Finnish and ü in Estonian. Many of the Finnish numbers have word-final vowels, but the Estonian numbers for one to six end with consonants. All the Estonian numbers are shorter than the Finnish ones. However, despite the differences, it is clear that the Finnish and Estonian numbers are similar.