Quality of Low Central and Back Vowels in German and Dutch

German and Dutch are both languages of the West Germanic language family. They share many similarities in vocabulary and grammar. However, their phonology is quite different. This can be observed in the quality of the low central and back vowels.

Both languages have short and long vowels. In Dutch the word raam (window) has a long vowel and appel (apple) has a short vowel. Likewise, the German word Sahne (cream) has a long vowel and Nacht (night) has a short vowel. However, the features of the vowels in the words are different in the two languages.

The vowel in the word raam is a low central vowel, and in the word appel it is low back. The quality of the two vowels is different because the long vowel is low central and the short vowel is low back. This is not the same in German.

The word Sahne has a long low central vowel, and the word Nacht has a low central vowel. In both words the vowel quality is the same. The difference in the two vowels is quantitative. The duration of the long vowel is greater than the duration of the short one.

The phonology of German and Dutch is not identical. The two languages both have short and long vowels, but the low central/low back vowels are different. In Dutch the short and long vowels differ in vowel quality, but in German they differ in vowel quantity. The difference in the vowels of German is thus quantitative, but in Dutch it is qualitative.

Sound Correspondence Between French/Portuguese and Spanish

Portuguese is more closely related to Spanish than to Portuguese, but the phonology of Portuguese is sometimes closer to that of French. The letter g can represent a voiced alveopalatal fricative in both languages, but only before the letters e and i. It is also the sound represented by the letter j. In Spanish, however, the sound is different- it is a voiceless velar fricative. Here is a list of ten French, Portuguese and Spanish words to illustrate the difference:

genuine genuino genuino (genuine)

génération geração generación (generation)

générosité generosidade generosidad (generosity)

geste gesto gesto (gesture)

girafe girafa girafa (giraffe)

jardin jardim jardín (garden)

jeu jogo juego (game)

jeune jovem joven (young)

justice justiça justicia (justice)

juge juiz juez (judge)

The words for genuine, gesture and giraffe are identical in Portuguese and Spanish. Only one word is identical in French and Portuguese, the word for garden. Many French and Portuguese words which are pronounced with a voiced alveopalatal fricative correspond to Spanish words pronounced with a voiceless velar fricative.

German Sharp s

The German sharp s is a letter that is found in no other language. The character for the letter is ẞ. It is used after long vowels and diphthongs. However, is it not used in Swiss German because Swiss German uses ss.

Here are ten German words with the letter:

drauẞen (outside)

dreiẞig (thirty)

Fuẞ (foot)

groẞ (big)

Gruẞ (greeting)

heiẞ (hot)

Spaẞ (fun)

Straẞe (street)

süẞ (sweet)

weiẞ (white)

Since the sharp s is not used in Switzerland, it is replaced with ss. The result is that words such as foot and white are spelt Fuss and weiss. German is the only language which has the sharp s. It can occur in the middle and end of words but never at the beginning. 

Macedonian

The Macedonian language is a Slavic language and is spoken predominantly in North Macedonia. It is most closely related to Bulgarian. Macedonian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet.

Macedonian has five vowel phonemes. Two are front vowels, one is central and two are back. The tongue position of the mid vowels can vary significantly from one speaker to another. Unlike in Russian, the vowels are never reduced.

In words of three syllables or more, Macedonian usually has antepenultimate stress. In a trisyllabic word, it is the first syllable of the word that is usually stressed. In disyllabic words, it is usually the penultimate syllable. 

Macedonian words have a large number of vowels relative to consonants. This is in contrast to other Slavic languages such as Polish, languages which are known for their many consonant clusters. Macedonian is a South Slavic language, and one of the features of South Slavic languages is less palatalization than in other Slavic languages such as Russian, Slovak and Polish. Another is that word-final obstruents are not devoiced.

Macedonian has far fewer speakers than Slavic languages such as Russian, Polish and Ukrainian. This is probably the reason that is not a very well-known Slavic language. It is the official language of North Macedonia.

Puerto Rican /r/

The /r/ of Puerto Rico can be an alveolar flap or trill. This is the same in other varieties of Spanish. However, the /r/ can also be realized with a voiceless velar fricative. The use of the voiceless velar fricative for the /r/ is limited to Puerto Rico.

The voiceless velar fricative is a consonant of Spanish. It occurs in words such as gelatina (gelatin), jardín (garden) and juguete (toy). However, the same sound can be used in Puerto Rican Spanish for the /r/. In Puerto Rican Spanish, the voiceless velar fricative can occur in the following words:

carro (car)

hierro (iron)

perro (dog)

razón (reason)

rey (king)

río (river)

roca (rock)

rueda (wheel)

tierra (land)

torre (tower)

In Puerto Rico, the voiceless velar fricative can be used instead of the voiced alveolar trill. However, in words such as caro (gold), oro (gold) and pero (but), all Spanish dialects use the alveolar flap. The alveolar flap of Spanish only occurs intervocalically.

Puerto Rican Spanish is quite different from other varieties of Spanish. Many Puerto Ricans use the voiceless velar fricative instead of the voiced alveolar trill in words such as those in the list above. The use of the voiceless velar fricative in such words is distinctive of Puerto Rican Spanish.

Hungarian Word-Final Vowels

Hungarian has fourteen vowel phonemes. Certain dialects have fifteen, but the number is fourteen in the standard language. The fourteen vowel phonemes can be classified on the basis of length. Seven are short, and seven are long. The front vowels consist of four pairs, and the back vowels consist of three.

Word-final vowels can be short or long. However, the mid front rounded and mid back rounded vowels are always long when they are word-final. For example, the Hungarian word for snow is hó and the word for grape is szőlő. This restriction does not apply to the other vowels. The word for village is falu and the word for menu is menü.

The vowels of Hungarian can be divided into seven pairs that are short and long. These vowels can appear in all word-positions with the exception of two vowels, the mid front rounded short and mid back rounded short vowels. These two vowels never appear in word-final position. In word-final position, the vowel length of the Hungarian mid vowels is thus neutralized.