Vowel Retraction of Low Front Vowel in Western Canada

The low front vowel [æ] tends to be retracted before nasals in western Canada. In a study conducted by Hall (2000), participants from Vancouver produced a central vowel, but participants from Toronto did not.

The following words were produced with vowel retraction by partcipants from Vancouver:

bank
can
ham
hand
jam
lamb
land
man
pan
pants

Vowel retraction of the low front vowel before nasals appears common in Vancouver. The low central vowel is considered less marked than the low front. The phenomenon of vowel retraction in western Canada is an example of language change in progress.

Mate in 13 Moves

In a game of speed chess against Maryder of the USA, I mated in thirteen moves. My opponent played black. Here are the moves of the game along with my commentary:

1. e4 e6
2. d4 c6
3. Nf3 d5

Black challenges my centre.

4. exd cxd
5. c4 dxc
6. Bxc4 Nc6
7. Nc3 g6
8. d5 Nb4
9. 0-0 e5

The black king is exposed.

10. Bb5+ Nc6
11. Re1+ Ne7
12. Nxd5 a6

Both black knights are pinned. Black has no time to play a6. He needs to play Bg7 to prevent my next move.

13. Nf6#

Black gains a pawn early but fails to prevent mate. On my thirteenth move, he probably expects Ba4 or Bc4. My thirteenth move takes away the black king's only escape square.

Scots and the Great English Vowel Shift

The Great English Vowel Shift refers to a series of changes in the pronunciation of English vowels.  However, in Scots the vowels were not affected the same as in English. Two differences were with the back vowels [u] and [o]. The vowel [u] remained unaffected and did not diphthongize to [aʊ] and the vowel [o] first became the front rounded [ø] and later the vowel [e].

In Scots  the following words have the vowel sound [u]:

about
brown
cow
down
house
how
mouse
now
round
sour

In Scots the following words have the vowel sound [e]:

bone
broad
drove
home
no
oak
rope
soap
stone
whole

Many Scots words with [u] and [e] are similar to words in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Compare the following:

brown brun (Danish/Norwegian/Swedish)
house hus (Danish/Norwegian/Swedish)
how hur {Swedish)
mouse mus (Danish/Norwegian/Swedish)
round rund (Danish/Norwegian/Swedish)

bone ben (Danish/Swedish) bein (Norwegian)
home hem (Swedish) hjem (Danish/Norwegian)
no nej (Danish/Swedish) nei (Norwegian)
rope rep (Swedish) reb (Danish)
stone sten (Danish/Swedish) stein (Norwegian)

The Great English Vowel Shift did not change the vowels of Scots to the same extent as in English. The high back vowel did not change and the mid back vowel became the mid front vowel [e]. The result is that many words in Scots are pronounced similarly to words in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish.

Vowel Formants

Vowels can be represented by their frequencies. They have a different distribution of acoustic energy. Their formant values are the acoustic resonances of the vocal tract and are represented as dark bands in a spectrogram. Each vowel can be identified by the unique frequencies of the first and second formants.

Here are the approximate values of the first and second formants of five vowels:

[u] F1 300 Hz F2 800 Hz
[o] F1 500 Hz F2 1000 Hz
[i] F1 320 Hz F2 2500 Hz
[e] F1 500 Hz F2 2300 Hz
[a] F1 1000 Hz F2 1400 Hz

The low vowel [a] has the highest frequency at the first formant, but at the second formant, the vowel [i] has the highest. The high back vowel [u] has the lowest frequency at both formants. The vowel with the greatest difference in frequency between the two formants is [i].

In addition to articulatory characteristics, vowels can also be identified by their acoustic properties. All vowels have a different distribution of acoustic energy. Their formant values vary from speaker to speaker. However, the frequencies of the first and second formants are sufficient to identify every vowel.

Swahili Numbers

Swahili is a Bantu language. It is the official language of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, and it is widely used throughout East Africa. Here are the numbers from one to ten in Swahili:

moja
mbili
tatu
nne
tano
sita
saba
nane
tisa
kumi

The /t/ is aspirated in all positions. The word for two, mbili, consists of a word-initial homorganic consonant cluster. The word for four, nne, has a word-initial syllabic nasal.

Swahili is a language which is widely-spoken in East Africa. It belongs to the Niger-Congo language family, a large family which includes most of the languages of Africa. The numbers from one to ten clearly indicate that Swahili is very different from Indo-European languages.

Father-Bother and Cot-Caught Mergers

Two common mergers in English are the father-bother and cot-caught mergers. The first is almost universal in North America. The second is almost universal in Canada and common in the western and southern United States. In the United Kingdom, many speakers lack the merger. Let us explore the differences between the two mergers.

Received Pronunciation does not have the father-bother merger or the cot-caught merger. Here are the phonetic transcriptions of these four words in Received Pronunciation:

father [fɑðə] bother [bɔ:ðə] cot [kɒt] caught [cɔ:t]

In Received Pronunciation father has an unrounded vowel and bother has a rounded one. However, in the case of cot and caught, both words have a rounded vowel.

In North America, many speakers have the two mergers. However, speakers in New York and Boston do not. However, these speakers  lack the low back rounded vowel of Received Pronunciation. They use the low back unrounded vowel in father instead.

Almost all speakers in Canada as well as those from the western and southern United States have the father-bother and cot-caught mergers. Here are the phonetic transcriptions of the four words for those with the mergers:

father [fɑðɚ] bother [bɑðɚ] cot [kɑt] caught [kɑt]

Speakers who have the father-bother and cot-caught mergers use the same vowel in all four words. On the other hand, those who lack the merger such as speakers of Received Pronunciation, use different vowels. In Received Pronunciation, bother and caught have the same vowel, but father and cot do not. In cot, Received Pronunciation uses a vowel which North American English does not have.

Dutch Dialects

Dutch is a language with many dialects. It can be classified into six main ones. Five are in the Netherlands and one is in Belgium.

Here are the six main dialects of Dutch:

Brabantic

Flemish

Hollandic

Limburgish

South-Geldric

Zealandic

Flemish is spoken in northern Belgium and can be further divided into West Flemish and East Flemish. The other dialects are spoken in the Netherlands. The Dutch spoken in Amsterdam is part of the Hollandic dialect group. Though Belgium and the Netherlands comprise a relatively small area, they are home to many dialects of Dutch.

R-coloured Vowels

R-coloured vowels are vowels with an immediate change in quality when followed by the consonant /r/. These vowels occur in less than 1% of the languages of the world. Though they are rare, they occur in rhotic varieties of English, Brazilian Portuguese, and Mandarin Chinese.

R-coloured vowels occur in most rhotic varieties of English, including Canadian, American and Irish. Here are examples of English words with r-coloured vowels:

car
early
force
start
war

Other names for r-coloured vowels are rhotacized vowels, rhotic vowels and retroflex vowels. R-coloured vowels are analyzed as one vowel modified by the rhotic consonant. In non-rhotic varieties of English such as Received Pronunciation r-coloured vowels do not occur.

Phrasal Verbs with Up

Many English phrasal verbs are formed with the particle up. In many cases the particle up has the meaning of completion or intensity. Here are examples of phrasal verbs with the particle up:

clean up
drink up
eat up
finish up
heal up
light up
save up
sweep up
use up
wake up

Phrasal verbs such as eat up and finish up express completion. Others such as light up and save up express intensity. Many English phrasal verbs are formed with the particle up.

Umlaut

The word umlaut comes from German and refers to the change in sound of a vowel. It also refers to the diacritic, which is two dots side by side above a vowel. Languages which use the diacritic include Finnish, German, Hungarian, Swedish and Turkish.

Here are examples of German plurals which have the umlaut:

Hand Hände (hand) (hands)
Haus Häuser (house) (houses)
Mutter Mütter (mother) (mothers)
Wort Wörter (word) (words)
Zug Züge (train) (trains)

Languages such as German, Hungarian and Swedish use the umlaut, a diacritic placed above a vowel to indicate a sound change. In addition to the diacritic, the words also refers to the sound change. In English, irregular plurals such as feet, geese and teeth are the result of a process known as i-umlaut.