Explanation of the Southern Accent with Minimal Pairs

The southern accent is an American accent which is spoken in many states of the southern USA. It differs significantly from that of standard American English. One difference is the pronunciation of the diphthong in words such as time and nice. In the southern accent many speakers use a monophthong. However, it is not the vowel heard in words such as hat and dance. 

The vowel in words such as hat and dance is a low front vowel. However, in words such as time and nice, the southern accent uses a low central vowel. The result is that the following words are clearly distinguished in the southern accent:

a/I

back/bike

bat/bite

cat/kite

fan/fine

had/hide

laugh/life

sad/side

sight/sat

vine/van

A common misperception of the southern accent is that the words illustrated are pronounced the same. However, this is inaccurate. Words such as cat and laugh have a low front vowel, and words such as kite and lfe have a low central vowel. The difference in tongue position results in different pronunciations.

Hungarian Loanwords in Slovak

Hungarian has borrowed many words from Slavic languages. However, Slavic languages have also borrowed words from Hungarian.  To illustrate, here is a list of ten Slovak words borrowed from Hungarian. The Slovak word is on the left, and the Hungarian word is on the right.

ceruza ceruza (pencil)

čizma csizma (boot)

ďumbier gyömbér (ginger)

gombik gomb (button)

jarok árok (ditch)

kefa kefe (brush)

tábor tábor (camp)

palacinka palacsinta (pancake)

ťava teve (camel)

vidiek vidék (countryside)

The words are very similar. In fact, three are identical. Though Hungarian has undoubtedly borrowed more words from Slovak, it is clear from the list that Slovak has also borrowed words from Hungarian.

The Goose and the Golden Egg

One of Aesop's fables is The Goose and the Golden Egg. The fable tells us that we should be satisfied with what we have. If we become greedy, we may lose what we have.

In the fable, a farmer has the most wonderful goose he can imagine. Every day he visits the nest, and it leaves him a beautiful, glittering golden egg.

The farmer takes the eggs to the market, and he soon becomes very rich. But it is not long before he becomes impatient with the goose because it gives him only a single golden egg a day. He feels he is not becoming rich fast enough.

One day, after he has finished counting his money, the idea comes to him that he can collect all the golden eggs at once by killing the goose and cutting it open. However, he does not find a single egg and realizes that his precious goose is dead. His greed is the reason he has no more golden eggs.

The fable teaches a valuable lesson. It is to be grateful for what we have and to be patient. If the farmer had been wiser, he would not have  killed his goose.

Croatian Word-Initial Consonant Clusters

Croatian is a Slavic language. One characteristic of Slavic languages is the large number of consonant clusters. Let us illustrate the permissible word-initial consonant clusters of Croatian with ten words.

gdje (who)

hvala (thank you)

knjiga (book)

mlijeko (milk)

ptica (bird)

tko (who)

vjelar (wind)

zdravo (hello)

žlica (spoon)

zvijezda (star)

The ten words have consonant clusters which do not occur in English. Many Croatian consonant clusters also appear word-medially and word-finally. All Slavic languages allow a large number of consonant clusters. This is evident in the list of Croatian words.

German False Cognates

German and English are both Germanic languages. They share many common words. However, a number of words are false cognates. They look the same as English words, but they do not have the same meaning. Here is a list of ten false cognates:

also (thus)

bald (soon)

fast (almost)

das Gift (the poison)

die Hose (the pants)

der Hut (the hat)

die Pest (the plague)

der Rat (the advice)

der Sender (the broadcaster)

die Wand (the wall)

German nouns are always capitalized. The article das is for neuter nouns, die is for feminine ones, and der is for masculine ones. Most of the false cognates from the list are nouns, but three are adverbs.

Norwegian Dialects Without Retroflex Consonants

Many Norwegian dialects have retroflex consonants. Retroflex consonants are pronounced with the tip of the tongue curled upwards and a little bit retracted. In such dialects, words such as gjerne (gladly) and hvordan (how) are pronounced with retroflex consonants. However, a number of Norwegian dialects lack retroflex consonants.

Dialects which use a uvular fricative or uvular trill do not have retroflex consonants. The uvular consonant maintains the same manner of articulation. This is true for the southwestern dialects of Bergen and Stavanger. However, the dialect of Arendal, a city in southern Norway, is an exception. It has a uvular consonant but also uses retroflex consonants.

Other dialects which lack retroflex consonants occur in western Norway. They have an alveolar trill and use it in all words. Dialects with the alveolar trill and no retroflex consonants include the dialects of Sogn og Fjordane and Sunnmøre.

Retroflex consonants are common in many Norwegian dialects. They are also used in many Swedish dialects. The dialects with a uvular fricative or trill usually lack retroflex consonants. However, the dialect of Arendal is an exception because it has a uvular consonant and also has retroflex consonants.

Pronunciation of Old French

Old French was spoken between the eighth and fourteenth centuries. The pronunciation was quite different from that of today. Though scholars cannot say precisely how it was pronounced, the spelling was a better indication of pronunciation than it is today.

The r was almost certainly an alveolar trill, the sound that is heard in languages such as Italian and Spanish. The ll was not a palatal approximant but a palatal lateral, and the ch was a voiceless alveolar affricate, a common sound in many languages. Today the letters ch represent not a voiceless affricate but rather a voiceless alveopalatal fricative. The process which changed the affricate to a fricative is known as spirantization.

The pronunciation of Old French was closer to the spelling than the pronunciation of modern French. For example, the word beau (beautiful) is pronounced with only one syllable. However, in Old French, it was two syllables. It consisted of a voiced bilabial plosive and monophthong in the first syllable and a diphthong in the second syllable.

The pronunciation of French has changed signifcantly through the years. Though the pronuncation of French changed, the spelling did not reflect the changes in the pronunciation. The result is that French spelling is not very phonetic. In this respect, French and English are similar.