Spelling of Long Vowels in German and Dutch

German and Dutch both have short and long vowels. In both languages, the letter which represents the vowel can be doubled to show it is long. This is the case in aal (eel) and boot (boat), words which are spelled the same in both languages. However, in many cases, the Dutch word has a doubled letter and the German word has an h after the vowel to indicate it is long.

Here is a list of ten words with the Dutch spelling followed by the German:

baan Bahn (lane)

boon Bohne (bean)

jaar Jahr (year)

kool Kohl (cabbage)

meer mehr (more)

oor Ohr (ear)

uur Uhr (o'clock)

waar wahr (true)

zeer sehr (very)

zoon Sohn (son)

The convention of using doubled letters to indicate vowel length is more common in Dutch than in German. However, the letter i is not doubled to indicate length. In this case, both languages use the letters ie as in the word hier (here). Long vowels are often spelled differently in German and Dutch.

Front Rounded Vowels of Micaelense Portuguese

The Portuguese spoken in the Azores is quite different from that of other parts of Portugal. However, the Portuguese spoken in the Azores is not uniform. In fact, each island has its own accent. The Portuguese spoken on the island of Sao Miguel is known for its front rounded vowels.

In standard Portuguese the words azul (blue) and fruta (fruit) have a high back rounded vowel. In Micaelense Portuguese, however, they have a high front rounded vowel. They are pronounced [azyl] and [fryta]. This vowel does not exist in Standard Portuguese.

Other words which are pronounced differently are oito (eight) and pouco (little). The first word has a diphthong in standard Portuguese. The second one has a diphthong in northern Portugal and a monophthong in central and southern Portugual. In Micaelense Portuguese, both words have a mid front rounded vowel and the word-final vowel is not pronounced. The two words are pronounced [øt] and [pøk].

Of the accents spoken in the Azores, the one spoken on the island of Sao Miguel is particularly distinctive. It is known for front rounded vowels. They occur in languages such as French and German but are not part of the phoneme inventory of standard Portuguese.

Cockney Diphthongs

Cockney English is a variety of English that is spoken in London. One of the most characteristic features of the dialect is the pronunciation of words such as grey and rain. The diphthong is quite different from that of many other dialects. However, it is not the same diphthong used in words such as hi and time.

The diphthong in grey has a front or central vowel in the first component of the diphthong. In the word hi, the first component of the diphthong is a back vowel. It is more retracted.

The following words have distinct pronunciations in Cockney:

bake/bike

day/die

late/light

main/mine

pay/pie

say/sigh

stale/style

tray/try

vain/vine

wait/white

The diphthongs of Cockney English are different from those of many other varieties of English such as Received Pronunciation. In the movie My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle practises the sentence The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain. The sentence has many words with the characteristic diphthong of Cockney English.

Differences in Grammatical Gender of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish

Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are similar languages. Most nouns have the same grammatical gender in all three languages. This is the case with words such as bil (car), hus (house) and år (year). The first two have common gender and the last one has neuter. The phrases a car, a house and a year are en bil, et hus and et år in Danish and Norwegian and en bil, ett hus and ett år in Swedish.

Danish and Swedish have two genders. They are neuter and common. Norwegian, however, has three genders. They are neuter, common and feminine. In the Bergen dialect, though, feminine gender is not used and there are only two genders, the same as in Danish and Swedish.

The phrase an island is en ø in Danish and en ö in Swedish. In Norwegian it is ei øy or en øy. Both forms are possible, but with the definite article the ending -a must be used. The phrase øya means the island.

Here is a list of ten nouns with different grammatical genders in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish:

(a camera) et kamera et kamera en kamera

(a coffee) en kaffe en kaffe ett kaffe

(a friendship) et venskab et vennskap en vänskap

(a helicopter) en helikopter et helikopter en helikopter

(an insect) et insekt et insekt en insekt

(a kiss) et kys et kyss en kyss

(a meal) et måltid et måltid en måltid

(a minute) et minut et minutt en minut

(a second) et sekund et sekund en sekund

(a wine) en vin en vin ett vin

Danish and Norwegian usually share the same grammatical gender. From the list of examples the only word which differs in those two languages is helikopter (helicopter) with common gender in Danish and neuter in Norwegian. More differences occur between Swedish and the other two languages than between Danish and Norwegian. The examples illustrate that the grammatical gender of words in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish is not always identical.

Rules of Spanish Stress

Many Spanish words have penultimate stress. This is the case with uno (one), cuatro (four) and cinco (five). However, many words are stressed differently.

Spanish has two important rules for stress. They are:

1) If a word ends in a vowel or in n and s, the penultimate syllable is stressed.

2) If a word ends with a consonant other than n or s, the final syllable is stressed.

Accent marks are used to indicate stress in words which do not follow the two stress rules. For example, the word sábado (Saturday) has antepenultimate stress. An accent mark is placed over the first vowel to indicate stress.

Accent marks are also used to distinguish words which have different meanings but are pronounced and spelled identically. These words can be called homonyms. Examples include mi (my) and mí (me), el (the) and él (he), and si (if) and sí (yes). 

Accent marks in Spanish are used to indicate the stress of words which do not follow the two stress rules. For words which follow the stress rules, no accent is needed. However, accents are also used for words which are spelled and pronounced the same but have different meanings. The use of accent marks is an important part of Spanish orthography.

Accents of Northern and Southern Portugal

The Portuguese of Portugal is called European Portuguese. It is distinct from the other main variety, Brazilian Portuguese. In Portugal there are many accents. However, they can all be divided into northern and southern. The city of Porto is in the north and Lisbon is in the south. Though Lisbon is actually in central Portugal, it is not part of the northern accents and can thus be classified as a southern one.

In the northern accents, the word vinho (wine) is pronounced with [b] instead of [v]. This also occurs in Spanish. In the south, the initial segment is [v].

The word ouro (gold) is pronounced with a diphthong in the north. In the south, however, it is pronounced with a monophthong. The words couro (leather) and coro (choir) are distinct in the north, but not in the south.

Vowel lowering occurs in many parts of the south in words such as bem (well) and coelho (rabbit). This is also true in Lisbon. However, in the north vowel lowering does not occur in these words.

The word roda (wheel) has an intervocalic fricative in the north. The fricative is also used in central Portugal. This is the result of lenition. However, in the south, it is a plosive. The same process occurs in Spanish. This process also occurs with intervocalic [b] and [g] as in lobo (wolf) and lago (lake).

Another difference that distinguishes the accents of the north and south is vowel quality. The vowels tends to be more open in the north. Nasalization is also absent in many northern varieties. The word manhã (morning) has no nasal vowel in many northern varieties. This process is known as denasalization.

All accents of European Portuguese can be classified into two, northern and southern. The accents of central Portugal include those of Lisbon and Coimbra. Though it is usually classified as part of the southern accent, the central accent of Portuguese also lenites the voiced plosives intervocalically.

Finnish Vowel Length

Finnish has short and long vowels. Unlike in many languages, however, Finnish does not use accent marks to indicate long vowels. It simply uses two letters for long vowels, and only one letter for short ones.

All Finnish vowels can be short or long. Short and long vowels can appear in any syllable of the word. The difference between short and long vowels is quantitative. The vowel quality does not change.

A famous pair that illustrates the difference between short and long vowels in Finnish is tuli/tuuli. The word tuli means fire and tuuli means wind. Another example is te/tee. The word te means you (plural) and tee means tea.

Long vowels appear in the words viisi (five) and kuusi (six). However, in numbers such as yksi (one) and kaksi (two), only short vowels appear. In the word syyskuu (September), long vowels appear in both syllables. 

Sometimes the vowels of nouns double with affixation. For example, I'm flying to Toronto is Minä lennän Torontoon. The word Torontoon means to Toronto. The word Toronton has a different meaning- of Toronto. The phrase museums of Toronto is Toronton museoita in Finnish.

Finnish has vowel length and it is phonemic. In many languages vowel length is qualitative but in Finnish it is quantitative. Vowel length is an important feature of Finnish phonology.