Two Distinct Pronunciations of Here and There in Danish

The words her and der mean here and there in Danish. However, in many dialects, the two words have distinct pronunciations. Let us explore the difference between them.

When the words are emphasized, they are pronounced with a mid front unrounded vowel and a glottal stop. In English, emphasis can be given with more stress and longer duration. To emphasize that someone is in a particular location, we can say "He is here". In this situation, we can emphasize the word here.

However, the sentence "He is here" may simply be to confirm that someone is present. In this case, no emphasis is needed. Then the words her and der are pronounced [ha] and [da].

Danish has two pronunciations for the words her and der. One is used for emphasis, and the other is used when no emphasis is needed. The words for emphasis have a mid front vowel, and the other ones have a low central vowel.

Swedish Directional Adverbs

Swedish directional adverbs express location and motion to and from a place. They have two forms, one for location and the other for motion. Swedish has a number of directional adverbs. Here are a few examples:

Jag bor här. (I live here)

Han kommer hit. (He's coming here)

Vi arbetar uppe på taket. (We are working up on the roof)

Jag steg upp på taket. (I stepped up on the roof)

Jag är hemma. (I am home)

Nu flyger jag hem. (Now I'm flying home)

Jag är född där. (I was born there)

Jag cyklar dit. (I'm cycling there)

Han är borta. (He is away)

Han sprang bort. (He ran away)

Directional adverbs in Swedish have two forms. One form is for location, and the other is from direction to and from a place. The form for direction is always shorter than the one for location. Directional adverbs in Swedish express a distinction which is not expressed in all languages.

Pronunciation of the Dutch r

The Dutch r can be pronounced in many ways. In Belgium most speakers use an alveolar trill, but some use a uvular fricative. In the northern Netherlands, most speakers use an alveolar trill. However, many Dutch speakers use an alveolar approximant in the coda. In the city of Leiden, the alveolar approximant can be used in both the onset and coda, and in the Hague, many speakers vocalize the r in the coda. In the southern Netherlands, many speakers use a uvular fricative or trill.

The variations of the Dutch r can be illustrated with the word rivier. The word means river. It has an r in the onset and in the coda. This word can be pronounced in a number of different ways. Here are a few:

1) alveolar trill + alveolar trill (common in the northern Netherlands)

2) alveolar trill + alveolar approximant (common in the western Netherlands)

3) alveolar approximant + alveolar approximant (common in Leiden)

4) uvular trill + alveolar approximant (common in Utrecht)

5) uvular trill + vowel (common in the Hague)

6) uvular fricative + uvular fricative (common in Ghent)

In Dutch the letter r has many pronunciations. This can be exemplified with the word rivier, a word with one r in the onset and one in the coda. The same r can be used in both positions, but many speakers use a different sound in the onset and in the coda.

Sound Correspondence Between Swedish and Danish/Norwegian

Many Swedish words with the letter å, a letter that is pronounced similarly to the letter o in English, correspond to words with the letter a in Danish and Norwegian. The letter å is also used in Danish and Norwegian and also appears in identical words. The following list of ten words illustrates the pattern:

ålder alder (age)

då/da (then)

fångst/fangst (catch)

gång/gang (time)

lång/lang (long)

långsam/langsom (slow)

många/mange (many)

sång/sang (song)

stång/stang (pole)

tång/tang (seaweed)

In many cases, the letters a and å appear in identical words in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Examples include far (father) and ål (eel). In the pair hand/hånd (hand), the Swedish word has a and the Danish/Norwegian word has å. The list provides ten words with different vowels, å in Swedish and a in Danish and Norwegian.

Schwa in Catalan

Unlike Romance languages such as Spanish and Italian, Catalan has a schwa. As in English, it occurs in unstressed vowels. The schwa is a common vowel of Catalan.

Words in which the Catalan schwa occurs are casa (house), home (man) and pare (father). The same words are casa, hombre and padre in Spanish. However, in Spanish, the word-final vowel of each word is not a schwa. In western dialects of Catalan, unstressed vowels are not reduced to a schwa, but the eastern dialects are the most widely spoken and include the largest city of Catalonia, Barcelona.

Catalan is a Romance language. One of the vowels of Catalan is the schwa, a vowel that does not occur in Spanish. The schwa in Catalan always occurs in unstressed syllables.

Identical Words in Finnish and Hungarian

Though Finnish and Hungarian are both Finno-Ugric languages, few words are identical in the two languages. The Finnish word mesi (honey) is méz in Hungarian, the Finnish me (we) is mi and veri (blood) is vér.  They are similar but nevertheless not identical. The following ten words are identical in the two languages:

algebra (algebra)

dilemma (dilemma)

energia (energy)

gorilla (gorilla)

internet (internet)

kamera (camera)

kenguru (kangaroo)

lista (list)

neon (neon)

paprika (paprika)

Though these words are identical, they are all loanwords. In fact, six of them are identical to English, and the other four are quite similar. The fact that it is a challenge to find identical words in Finnish and Hungarians indicates that the two languages are not so closely related to one another.

Pronunciation of First Person Singular Pronoun in German

The first person singular pronoun in German is ich. It is the pronoun that is used in Standard German. The consonant is a voiceless palatal fricative. However, other pronunciations also exist.

In northern Germany and in Berlin, the pronoun is often pronounced with a /k/. This pronunciation is identical to the pronunciation of the pronoun in Dutch. In Dutch, it is ik.

In Switzerland the pronoun is often pronounced with a velar fricative. In Standard German the velar fricative occurs after back vowels. However, in Swiss German, it also occurs after front vowels.

The pronoun is often pronounced with an alveopalatal fricative in cities such as Cologne and Frankfurt. In this part of Germany, the alveopalatal fricative is often used instead of the palatal fricative. 

Another variant is used in southern Germany and Austria. It is the combination of a glottal stop and high front unrounded vowel. This variant has no word-final consonant.

Though the pronoun ich is used in all of Germany and is considered standard, other variants are used. They are rarely used in written German but are common in spoken German. The variants are especially common in informal situations.