2649: Laryngitis Mar 19, 2022
Most people will have experienced losing their voices, but they may not know everything that is going on with that. Laryngitis, which maybe sounds more severe than it really is, may be caused by a viral infection, irritation, or overuse, but normally doesn't last more than a week. This causes the larynx to become inflamed and will distort the normal sound of air as it travels out. Particularly voiced sounds, which involve the larynx vibrating, may be more hoarse sounding.
2585: Rhotacism in Latin 'esse' Jan 11, 2022
Rhotacism in Latin, a process in which [s] and [z] in Archaic Latin would develop into [r] in Classical Latin. This was not universal, and some lingering traces existed because of the oppositional phenomenon of zetacism. This led to the Archaic Latin verb 'esō' ('to be') having the 3rd infinitive form of 'esse' in Classical Latin, but the imperfect and future forms of the word all have a root with 'r', such as 3rd person future 'erit'.
2583: Latin -ere Ending Jan 9, 2022
Rhoticism in Archaic Latin did not describe the mere pronunciation of the consonant of [r] in words as that term would be used in English, but rather the process of transforming [s] and [z] into [r]. This didn't happen in every case (1), but perhaps the most notable is in the '-ere' ending, and its derivative forms -āre, -ēre, and -īre. These were originally *-ezi in Proto-Italic, reconstructed as *-esi in Proto-Indo-European.
2560: Iotacism Dec 16, 2021
Iotacism, also referred to as 'itacism' describes the shift of diphthongs or groups of vowels converging into the [i] sound. This pattern is not named for a speech impediment like with sigmatism or lambdacism, but for communitywide sound-shifts as on the naming pattern of rhotacism or zetacism. Greek is notable for its iotacism, since in Modern Greek, the letters and letter pairs which used to represent all totally different sounds ι, η, υ, ει, οι, υι are all said now as [i].
2559: Sigmatism Dec 15, 2021
Although many conditions and linguistic phenomena are named with a Greek letter plus '-cism', they aren't always named for the same reasons. 'Sigmatism', like 'lambdacism' describes a speech impediment that regularly affects one sound, in this case [s], though that can denote either the over- or underproduction of it. This can be an appropriate term to describe the effect of a lisp, though not necessarily.
2556: Zetacism and Lambdacism Dec 12, 2021
Rhotacism, named from the Greek letter Ρ, ρ (rho), is the process of sounds shifting and becoming like /r/. Other terms with names taken from this pattern like zetacism or lambdacism do not always have the same implication. For instance, zetacism occurs when /z/, the most common sound to be effected to /r/ via rhotacism, remains not rhotacized even though it would be expected to. Lambdacism can refer, rather counterproductively, to either a difficulty pronouncing the /l/ sound, or an overproduction of the /l/ sound especially in place of /r/. This happens in some varieties of Carribean Spanish, such as saying 'Puelto Rico'.
2537: "Change" in Hebrew Root Letters Nov 23, 2021
Broadly speaking, Hebrew uses a system of 3-consonant roots are modified in various ways that change the meaning etc.. It is therefore important to retain these 3 letters as the core of the word, though there are some exceptions. Roots can end with a vowel sound for instance, and that will have certain implications, but sometimes the spelling conventions will change for a less grammatical reason. The for עשאה (ʔasa'ah) meaning 'make it' exists from the root letters ע-ש-ה meaning 'to do' but the א is added only because normally it would be another ה, either of which at the end are silent, usually. In actual fact, the final ה has aspiration in some cases (as is the case here) like the H in the 'house'. To retain the silence of what would be the first ה of עשהה, it is changed to עשאה.
2535: Why 'Un-' Doesn't Assimilate Like 'In-' (Ir- Il- Im-) Nov 21, 2021
The prefix 'in-' assimilates to different sounds depending upon the context, becoming 'im-', 'il-', and 'ir-', but this is not true of 'un-', which is similar both semantically but more importantly, phonetically. For instance, 'in-' + 'responsible' is 'irresponsible', but 'un-' + 'responsive' is 'unresponsive'. This was true of the negating prefix 'in-' in Latin whence this use was borrowed, and while 'un-' is distantly related to this, it is really considered to be of a Germanic root where this does not happen.
2519: Germanic Stress Rule: Morae & Dreimorengesetz Nov 5, 2021
While the penultimate stress rule describes the stress accent for Latin, a similar rule for Germanic languages was proposed, called Dreimorengesetz (three-mora rule), wherein the stress is placed 3 morae before the end of each word; a mora is a unit for which a light syllable (generally a short one) is one mora and a heavy syllable (generally a long one) is two morae. This has its own problems, especially in the way it necessitates categorizing the final syllable as always light, but it does provide somewhat of a sense of Germanic languages' stress.
2518: Penultimate Stress Rule Nov 4, 2021
Languages often have inbuilt rules for how each word will take stress, such as Finnish or Proto-Italic were stress is indefinitely on the first syllable, but other times it is dependant on other factors in the environment. Even in Classical Latin, which is slightly more standard, the penultimate stress rule states that if the penultimate syllable is naturally long or if it ends with a consonant it will have the stress accent, and otherwise the stress accent falls on the third-to-last syllable. There are some exceptions, especially around sounds that have been elided or historically syncopated (or of course, doesn't have enough syllables), but this will cover the vast majority of Latin words, and words of other languages.
2516: Rhotacism & Dissimilation Nov 2, 2021
The word 'meridian' in English, or more directly even 'ante/post meridiem' (a.m./p.m.) is from the Latin word 'merīdiēs' meaning 'midday; noon'. This is from a corrupted phrase 'medīdiēs' which is just an contraction of 'medius' (middle) and 'diēs' (day). The R in the middle of 'merīdiēs' therefore is a bit odd at first glance. In fact, this is a fairly normal occurrence of rhotacism in the transition into Classical Latin. This normally happens to the sounds [s] or [z]—not [d]—that they should turn into [r] and really this is a process of dissimilation because it is followed by another [d].
2505: duel & bellum: √; duel and dual: X Oct 21, 2021
The word 'duel' may seem unassuming, but it's actually a preserved version from Archaic Latin, used before the 1st century BC. The word morphed into the Classical Latin 'bellum' (war), but the form was revived in Medieval Latin from its perceived association with 'dualis' (of two) and 'duo' but this is not accurate. The word is from the Proto-Italic *dwellom (to injure; destroy) related to other words like the Ancient Greek δαίω (daíō) meaning 'to burn' or δύη (dúē) for 'pain'. In fact, this 'du-' to 'b' transformation led to 'bis' from 'duis' meaning 'twice', further complicating that medieval folk etymology. This is also seem in Archaic Latin 'duonus' to 'bonus'.
2504: Retracted -S- Across Languages Oct 20, 2021
It is common for languages that don't have the [ʃ] sound (as in 'SHe') to use a retracted [s] as opposed to a laminal [s̻], i.e. it will not be produced using the blades of the tongue (or 'lamina') touching the alveolar ridge at the top of the mouth. Instead, the retracted [s̠] is produced further back in the mouth, and as sounds somewhere in between [s] and [ʃ]. It is rare therefore to see the retracted version exist with the others, but not impossible by any means, as in Modern Greek which has both forms of [s] described above. German used to have a retracted [s̠], but these have shifted to become either [s] and [ʃ], because these are easier to distinguish.
2480: Latin Vowel Length: Different Vowels? Sep 26, 2021
Latin, like many languages but unlike English, distinguished between long- and short-vowels. In some languages, these are merely the same vowels but said for roughly double the amount of time, which affects things like meter and syllable length. In Latin, even with Classical pronunciations, these vowels were qualitatively different. For instance, the letter I would be realized as [iː] (the symbol ː just indicates lengthening) when long like the vowel in 'seat' but long, whereas when short it was realized as [ɪ], like the vowel in 'sit'. Indeed, for all the basic letters vowel AEIOU, only A was qualitatively the same vowel, just lengthened [aː] and [a].
2479: Swedish Tones Sep 25, 2021
While people tend to associate tonal languages which use pitch to distinguish between words otherwise pronounced the same with East Asia, there are languages around the world, such as Swedish (with Norwegian included), which also have some form of this. Swedish has two tones, the acute and grave tones, which are often distinguished by stress, as in English 'a rebel' and 'to rebel' but in Swedish there are genuine, noticeable pitch changes in terms of the individual vowels outside of mere stress. As a result, there are pairs of words differing only by these tones that have totally unrelated meanings, like 'boken' (the book) with acute tone, and 'boken' (spoilt) with a grave tone. In Swedish dialects spoken in Finland, these pitches are virtually nonexistent.
2469: -kin, -tje, and Afrikaans 'oke' Sep 15, 2021
The Dutch diminutive suffix -kin (found in English with the borrowed 'mannequin') is highly productive, and its related form '-tje' morphs into different forms. Depending upon the sound of the word it is affixed onto, it can appear as '-je ' before a fricative, '-etje' before a sonorant, '-tje' before long vowels and diphthongs, '-pje' with stressed vowel or before [m], or '-kje' before '-ng', though then this becomes '-nkje'; some of these can appear as simply '-ie' in slang. Further, in Afrikaans slang, 'ou' (i.e. 'old') took the diminutive form 'outjie' but was reduced as 'oke' in modern slang meaning 'guy; dude; bro'. This is therefore unrelated to 'bloke' of English slang, despite similar sound and meaning.
2464: C-K-Q were Redundant, Even in Ancient Times Sep 10, 2021
In English C, K, and Q may seem redundant together, but this is not actually new. Etruscan used C before front vowels, K before the vowel [a], and Q before back vowels. Effectively, this would be as if English used two different letters for the T in 'tail' as compared to 'trail', which also changes due to the linguistic environment. These Etruscan letters were therefore not phonemic—the sounds, if theoretically used in each other's places would not have changed the meaning of any word—and were in that sense basically redundant even back then. In Etruscan this may have been phonologically redundant, but there is a very minor, allophonic change that happens going from [ki] to [ka] to [ku] in where the consonant is pronounced in one's mouth. You can try this out yourself.
In Latin, which inherited these letters but did not distinguish between back and front vowels in its spelling, this redundancy was present, and some writers commented on it at the time even. Eventually C morphed into a fricative before E and I, like how it is found in Spanish or Italian today. This therefore made the letter K relevant to distinguish when one wanted to indicate the [k] sound in any context, but still it was not terribly useful.
2454: Neutral Position of Articulators Aug 30, 2021
The neutral position of an articulator—which is to say where one rests one's tongue, lips, etc. when not speaking—will actually vary notably between speakers of different languages. For instance, Russia speakers tend to leave their tongues flat on the floor of their mouths, while English speakers keep them towards the middle, pointed to the alveolar ridge (sometimes called 'teeth-ridge'). More remarkable even, bilinguals can be seen making adjustments relative to the language in question such as when presented with linguistic stimuli that switches languages in an MRI machine. Again, this happens even when the person is not speaking or even necessarily planning to speak.
2453: Secunda Aug 29, 2021
One of the best ways that Biblical Hebrew phonology is understood is from the Secunda, of the Hexapla. This is part of a 6-level interlinear translation into Greek of which the Secunda is a Greek-alphabet transliteration of the Hebrew text, written in about AD 3rd century. Obviously this has its own issues for basing one's understanding of the sounds of Biblical Hebrew, but it does lend some insight. Certain sounds represented in the Greek lettering are significantly different to the modern or modern liturgical varieties of Hebrew, each having their own differences anyway. This is especially useful to glean from local place names, but again, is limited insofar as any writing system will be when used by foreigners for a language with no major similarity.
2451: Re-Latinization of (Vulgar) Romance Languages Aug 27, 2021
The modern standard Romance languages associated most as descendants of Latin would include French, Spanish, and Italian. Of those, each has varied over time to different degrees, but one of the reasons that Italian has diverged less than French for instance is that there were simply more, usually educated people who over time re-latinized the language. For instance, usually in French the 'al-' becomes [o] and this happens too in Spanish, such as 'alter' (Latin for 'other') becoming 'autre' in French, 'otro' in Spanish, but 'altro' in Italian. Even medieval Spanish is less like Latin in certain phonological ways than today due to similar efforts to transform Castilian in particular which is why some medieval text will use the form 'oto' for the Modern Spanish 'alto', from Latin 'altus' (high) but in French it is still 'haut(e)'.