IPA Basics: Voicing
Voicing involves using the voice box while pronouncing a letter. It is the difference between k and g, between t and d, between s and z. Some languages have only one of a voicing pair, but others will have both. English has both a voiced and unvoiced “th” sound, but many other languages that have […]
Minority languages
All languages are cool! Spanish has an awesome rhythm and sound to it. Arabic is a very interesting language with some sounds we don’t hear in English. But minority languages are also awesome. You probably don’t hear these languages spoken where you are because of how small they are, but if you can find some […]
Click consonants
Only languages in Southern Africa, and one language in Australia have clicks. It is rather unusual for a sound to be so rare in world languages. Some linguists think these sounds are so rare because they came from one of the first human languages and has stuck around in language in Southern Africa. Whatever the […]
30 dialects of the English language in the UK
All languages display interesting variation. English is no exception. The variation is much larger in the place of its birth, England. Here is an overview of 30 dialects of English in the United Kingdom. I find dialects very interesting. Sometimes it is not just pronunciation that is different, but words too.
Why Bernie Sanders tawks that way
Bernie Sanders grew up in Brooklyn. The place you grew up and who you spent time with as a child has a huge affect on your speech. The Brooklyn accent is starting to go away now, just as all the accents in America are homogenising. But it is still very present in the older people […]
These are not vowels
We grow up being told at a, e, i, o and u are vowels. But that is not the whole story. These letters are used in multiple ways to make multiple vowels sounds. English has many vowels sounds such as the sound “ow” in cow, “ew” in new, “ei” in weight and so on. The […]
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