English has voiced and voiceless interdental fricatives. The only other Germanic language to have both is Icelandic. Danish has a voiced alveolar lateralized fricative but no voiceless counterpart. The interdental fricative of English often corresponds to an alveolar plosive in German and Dutch.
Here is a list of English words with interdental fricatives and their equivalents in German and Dutch:
bath bad (Dutch) Bad (German)
brother Bruder (German)
earth aarde (Dutch) Erde (German)
father vader (Dutch) Vater (German)
fourth vierde (Dutch) vierte (German)
leather Leder (German)
mother moeder (Dutch) Mutter (German)
thirst dorst (Dutch) Durst (German)
three drie (Dutch) drei (German)
weather Wetter (German)
The interdental fricative of English is often an alveolar plosive in Dutch and German. In fact, the interdental fricative of English often developed from an alveolar fricative. The word father was fader in Middle English. The form father was the result of lenition. This sound change never occurred in Dutch and German.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
-
Most English compound nouns are endocentric. This means that the central meaning of the compound is carried by the head. The head of English... -
The opera Turandot features an Asian princess who many men wish to marry. However, if they wish to do so, they must answer three riddles c...
-
All English sentences can be classified as canonical and non-canonical clauses. Canonical clauses are the most basic sentences we can constr...
No comments:
Post a Comment