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.

Negative Imperative of Danish and Norwegian

Danish and Norwegian are both Germanic languages, and they share many similarities. However, they also have a number of differences. Let us illustrate with the negative imperative.

The imperative with the negative ikke (not) has a different word order in the two languages. Norwegian places the word ikke at the beginning of the sentence, but Danish places it at the end. Compare the following examples:

Ikke kom! (Don't come!)

Kom ikke! (Don't come!)

Ikke gå! (Don't go!)

Gå ikke! (Don't go!)

Ikke skynd deg! (Don't hurry!)

Skynd dig ikke! (Don't hurry!)

Ikke stopp! (Don't stop!)

Stop ikke! (Don't stop!)

Ikke glem! (Don't forget!)

Glem ikke! (Don't forget!)

Though Danish and Norwegian are related languages, they use different word orders for the negative imperative. Danish places the negative adverb ikke at the end of the imperative, but Norwegian places it at the beginning. This is an important distinction between the two languages.

Hedda Gabler

Hedda Gabler is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It is about the experiences of Hedda, the daughter of a general, who is trapped in a house and a marriage that she does not want. Hedda's married name is Hedda Tesman, and Hedda Gabler is her maiden name.

The play begins with Hedda's return to her villa in Olso from her honeymoon. Her husband is Jørgen Tesman, who continued his research during the honeymoon. It is clear that Hedda is not in love with him.

Eilert Løvborg is Jørgen Tesman's academic rival, a writer who just published a bestseller. In a relationship with Hedda's old schoolmate, Thea Elvsted, he shows signs of rehabilitation from his alcoholism. When Hedda and Eilert speak together privately, it becomes clear that they are former lovers.

Eilert is a competitor for the university position Jørgen has been expecting. Jørgen and Hedda have financial problems, and Jørgen tells Hedda that he cannot provide her with a regular housekeeper. When they meet Eilert, they learn he has no intention of competing for the university position, but he has spent years working on his masterpiece, the continuation of his recently published work.

Jealous of Thea's relationship with Eilert, Hedda hopes to come between them. Despite his drinking problem, she encourages him to accompany Jørgen and Jørgen's friend Judge Brack to a party. Jørgen returns from the party and reveals that he found the complete manuscript of Eilert's masterpiece, which Eilert lost while he was drunk.

Jørgen later visits his aunt, and the manuscript is in Hedda's possession. When Eilert sees Hedda and Thea, he tells them that he deliberately destroyed the manuscript. Thea is horrified, and the reader learns that the work was a collaborative effort by Eilert and herself. Hedda says nothing to them. After Eilert leaves, Hedda encourages Eilert to commit suicide, and she gives him a gun that was her father's. Then she burns the manuscript and tells Jørgen she destroyed it to secure their future.

With the news that Eilert killed himself, Jørgen and Thea try to reconstruct the manuscript from Eilert's notes, which Thea kept. Hedda is shocked to learn that Eilert's death was in a brothel, and probably accidental. His painful death contrasts with the beautiful one she had imagined. Another problem is that Judge Brack knows the origins of the pistol. He tells her that if he reveals what he knows, there will probably be a scandal. 

She realizes that he is in a position of power over her.  Hedda then decides to go to a small room and shoot herself in the head. The others assume that Hedda is just firing shots and decide to investigate. The play ends with Jørgen, Thea and Judge Brack discovering her body.

Henrik Ibsen's play explores mental illness. Hedda Gabler, a neurotic woman, is very manipulative. However, the moment Judge Brack assumes a position of power over her, she cannot accept her new circumstances and takes her own life.