Quantitative Vowel Length in English

English has quantitative vowel length, but this is phonetically conditioned. For this reason, it is not phonemic as in other languages. In Finnish, the words tuli (fire) and tuuli (wind), are distinguished by vowel length alone. English also has vowel length, but this never distinguishes words.

The words made and mate are minimal pairs. They have different word-final consonants, but the vowel quantity is also different. The diphthong of made is longer than the diphthong of mate. In the word pair maze/mace, the diphthong of maze is longer than the diphthong of mace. The reason is that vowels become long before tautosyllablic voiced consonants. This can be written as a phonological rule: V → [+long] / _ [+consonant] $.  The symbol $ represents a syllable boundary.

Vowel length also differs before plosives and fricatives. In the pair maze/made, the diphthong is longer before maze than before made. The word maze ends with a word-final continuant. The continuous airflow of the fricative results in a longer diphthong than is the case with made, a word which ends with a plosive.

Here are more examples of words with different quanitative vowel lengths from shortest to longest:

hit hiss hid his
neat niece need knees

The words which end with voiceless plosives have the shortest vowel length. The ones which end with voiced fricatives have the longest. The words with the shortest vowel lengths end with voiceless consonants, and those with the longest vowel lengths end with voiced consonants.

Unlike in languages such as Hungarian and Finnish, vowel length in English is not phonemic. However, English has examples of quantitative vowel length. Vowels are lengthened before voiced plosives, and vowels are longest before voiced fricatives.

Remember

The English poet Christina Rossetti wrote Remember while she was a teenager. Here is the poem:

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of your future that you planned;
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

The poem Remember is a Petrarchan sonnet. As is typical with Petrarchan sonnets, there is a turn at the end of the eight verse and the beginning of the ninth. It consists of 14 verses with ten syllables in each. The ten syllables are further divided into five meters. The rhyme scheme is abba abba cdd ece.

Vanilla Custard

Vanilla custard is easy to make. Known in French as pot de creme, it's baked in a steam bath. Here is the recipe:

1 1/2 cups milk
4 tablespoons sugar
4 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Boil the milk and vanilla.
In a separate bowl beat the egg yolks and sugar.
When the milk has cooled, slowly add to the egg mixture.
Pour the mixture into four ramekins.
Be sure to feel only about 3/4 of the way.
Place the ramekins on a tray filled with water.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.
After baking refrigerate the ramekins for at least four hours.

Lyonnaise Potatoes

Lyonnaise potatoes are boiled, fried and baked. This French dish takes a little time to prepare, but it's well worth the effort. Here's the recipe:

1 kilogram potatoes, peeled
10 tablespoons butter
salt
pepper
2 onions, thinly sliced
parsley

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius.
Put the potatoes in a pot and cover with salted cold water.
Boil for 10 to 15 minutes.
Drain and rinse under cold water.
Slice the potatoes into thin slices.
In a large pan, melt two tablespoons of butter.
Add about 1/4 of the potatoes.
Season with salt and pepper and fry until golden, about 6 minutes.
Continue frying, adding more butter each time.
Add 2 more tablespoons and fry the onions until golden, about 5 minutes.
Return the potatoes to the pan and mix gently.
Cook for 5 minutes to combine the flavours.
Transfer the potatoes and onions to a large baking dish.
Bake at 150 degrees Celsius for about 10 minutes.
Sprinkle parsley over the potatoes and serve.

These potatoes are very good with meat and fish dishes.

Pitch in Different Languages

Pitch varies significantly among languages. Also known as frequency, this varies not only among languages but also between men and women. Most men have a range between 85 and 180 Hertz, and most women between 165 and 255 Hertz.

Languages with low pitch include Hungarian, Greek, Finnish, Catalan and Hebrew. Those with high pitch include Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese, Hindi and Turkish. English has lower pitch than Spanish but higher pitch than Dutch.

With respect to English dialects, the difference in pitch is relatively small. New Zealand English has the lowest pitch, and Irish English has the highest. Spanish demonstrates a much greater difference in pitch among dialects. Argentinian Spanish has the lowest pitch, and Peruvian has the highest. European Spanish has a low pitch and Mexican has a high one.

Tone languages such as Chinese and Vietnamese have a high pitch, but non-tonal languages such as Hungarian and Finnish do not. Related languages often vary significantly with respect to pitch. Though Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are closely related, they are different in pitch- Swedish has the lowest pitch followed by Danish and then Norwegian. Swedish pitch is lower than that of English, but Danish and Norwegian have higher pitch than English does.

The suffix -dom

English suffixes such as -ly and -est (friendly, quickly, fastest, strongest) are very common. In contrast, the suffix -dom occurs in few words. Here's a list of common words with -dom:

boredom
fandom
filmdom
freedom
kingdom
martyrdom
stardom
wisdom

Less common than kingdom is queendom. The suffix -dom combines with either a noun or an adjective. This is illustrated by the following:

boredom A + Af
fandom N + Af
filmdom N + Af
freedom A + Af
kingdom N + Af
martyrdom N + Af
stardom N + Af
wisdom A + Af

The structure of boredom is bored + dom and of wisdom it is wise + dom. Af corresponds to affix.

The suffix -dom also occurs in words which have more common equivalents. For example, the words Christendom, consumerdom and sisterdom are less common than Christianity, consumerism and sisterhood.

The suffix -dom is far less productive than other English suffixes. It can combine with both nouns and adjectives. It can derive nouns from adjectives such as freedom and is thus classified as a derivational affix.

Love of Literature

Here is my latest poem. I hope you enjoy it!

Love of Literature

Love of literature brings new lands,
Exciting journeys, wondrous scenes,
Masterful works of different hands,
Dragons, palaces, kings and queens.

Inside this world we discover
Mystery, suspense, laughter, surprise,
Characters with wit and valour,
Views of different ears and eyes.

Dialogue creates a picture
Aided by imagination.
Time can shift from past to future,
Writers combine word with action.

Works of literature are memories
Of beauty, wisdom, adventure.
They are pages of new journeys
To continue through each chapter.

Literature is art on paper,
Living in our homes, schools and minds.
Literature is part of culture,
Leaving genres of many kinds.