More digraphs: TH and WH

The TH sound

Continuing on the topic of digraphs, "th" is a example of a digraph that is used very frequently in English. There are two kinds of th sounds in English. What follows will be the IPA symbol used to represent the sound and some example words.



This symbol (called theta) represents the soft "th" sound occurring in words like thin, thigh, with, and breath.



This symbol (called eth) represents the hard "th" sound in words such as then, thy, there, and breathe.

There is no set rule for determining if the soft or hard "th" is used, it must be memorized.

The main difference between these two sounds is that the former is voiceless and the latter is voiced, just like [s] is voiceless and [z] is voiced.

The "th" sound is not at all common in many languages, despite being used very frequently in English. For speakers of languages that do not have the "th" sound, it is often perceived as an [s] or [z].


WH-words

Another common digraph in English is WH. You know many of them as interrogative pronouns, sometimes called the "5W" words (who, what, where, when, why).


WH and HW

Most people see WH-words as taking just a [w] sound and leaving the [h] to be silent. However, did you know that for some dialects of English, the WH digarph is pronounced as if it were spelled "HW"?

This phenomenon is known as the whine/wine merger, as the h in WH words used to always be pronounced as [hw]. It is named as such because those words are no longer homophones after WH was realized with just a [w] sound and not [hw].

Note: for the "5W" words (who, what, where, when, why): this does not apply to the word who since it takes an [h] sound all the time (with the W silent) and not a [w] sound like the other four words.

For those that are using the "HW" sound, the [h] is often hard to notice, you have to listen very carefully as there is an initial, brief burst of air. Speakers that ignore the H in WH words often cannot tell if the other person is pronouncing the H.
Most of the time it is not a true [h] sound (as in the word hill), so a special IPA symbol is used, an upside-down w [ʍ] to represent the [hw].

2 letters, 1 sound: Digraphs

Two letters (in written form) can represent a single sound. These are known as digraphs. You probably know them as ch, sh, th, and the like.

English doesn't have a single letter to represent the initial sound ("ch") of the word child, so it must use two letters. Recognizing a digraph is one of the many difficulties in learning a language. For example, take the "ch" sound as mentioned above. One CANNOT simply read it as "a 'c' sound followed by an 'h' sound" - it is a completely different sound altogether.

Here's how the some of the digraphs are represented in phonetic transcription (e.g. using IPA):
Most of the time, only one symbol is used because it represents just a single sound, even though it takes two letters in the written form.

The "sh" sound (as in shell) is represented by [ʃ].
The "ch" sound (as in church) is represented by [tʃ]. Two symbols are used but it is still a single sound. It is actually a combination of the "t" and "sh" sounds. Try making a "t" sound and a "sh" sound simultaneously and the result will be a "ch" sound.

In some dictionaries and texts, [š] and [č], are used to denote the "sh" and "ch" sounds, respectively.

There are many more digraphs, and they also exist in languages other than English.

Consonants and Vowels

What's the difference between a consonant and a vowel?

In grade school, I'm pretty sure you've been taught that there are 5 vowels: AEIOU. The rest are consonants. However, this distinction fails to take into account the sounds of the letters. There are more sounds in English than there are letters (in the written form). The sounds and letters of a particular language do not always form a 1 to 1 correspondence, and this is why we must use 2 letters to represent a single sound (such as "sh").

How we produce speech sounds

The process in which we produce sound by using our vocal tract is much like that of a wind instrument. Each sound differs from another sound by a unique combination of features: the way you shape your mouth and tongue and move parts of the vocal apparatus when you make the sound. Air coming from the lungs passes through the vocal tract, which shapes it into different sounds. Then the air exits the vocal tract through the mouth and/or nose.

What differentiates a consonant and a vowel in terms of speech sounds?

Quite simply: Consonants are pronounced by obstructing the airflow through the vocal tract.

(Note: the details of how to pronounce every sound is beyond the scope of this site)

Example:
The [p] sound is made by obstructing air at the lips. When you say the word put, air is built up behind the lips and then released.

On the other hand, vowels are different from consonant sounds in that they are produced by passing air through different shapes of the mouth and different positions of the tongue and lips.

Examples:
For the "ahhh" sound (the vowel in the word pot, IPA [ɑ]) the tongue's position is in the lower back of the mouth.
For the "eeeee" sound (the vowel in the word be, IPA [i]) the tongue's position is in the upper front of the mouth. (This is why we say cheese when we take pictures!)

Phonetics

The study of human speech sounds is called phonetics.

Phonetic alphabets are used to represent the sounds we speak. Words can have more letters than sounds and vice versa. In English, what is written can vary greatly from what is pronounced. The number of sounds and letters in a word are not always equal.

Words that contain the same number of sounds and letters:
car
bat
stop

Words that contain more letters than sounds:
laugh
cough
where


The need for a phonetic alphabet

An example of a phonetic alphabet which is widely used is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Dictionaries often uses a modified version of this phonetic alphabet in their pronunciation keys, since it easier to read than IPA. By writing in a phonetic alphabet, one can determine the pronunciation of ANY word, no matter the language.

Of course, not every language uses ALL the sounds that are possible.

There exist sounds in other languages which do not occur in English. How this affects borrowed words is that we usually 'approximate' the sounds that don't exist into the closest sound the does exist in English. Example: the final consonant sound in the German word Bach is usually pronounced with a [k] sound in English, but is actually a different (although similar) sound, represented by [x] in IPA.

Conversely, there are sounds that occur in English that do not occur in other languages. Example: French does not have the "th" sound as in thin or the (IPA [θ] and [ð], respectively) so French speakers may perceive such words as having an [s] or [z] sound.

Sounds vs. spelling

Pronunciation is not predictable in English. It may be more predictable in other languages, but there are many situations in English where the same sequence of letters can make a different sound altogether. The obvious disadvantage is that it can make the language much more difficult to learn. However, there is an advantage to unpredictable pronunciation. It can improve reading comprehensibility by keeping the spelling stable. Here's an example: note the different sounds of "s" for the words cats and dogs. The former takes an s sound and the latter takes a z sound, but both are spelled with s.

Some more fun with sounds and spelling

Note the bolded letters in the following sentence all make a different sound, despite the identical spelling:

She said you laid the plaid tie on the chair.


In the following word pairs, just one letter is changed but the pronunciation is significantly altered:

encourage -> entourage
revenges -> revenues
karate -> karats
hideous -> hideout
ballets -> bullets
telephone -> telephony

How negative prefixes are determined in English

Ever wonder why certain words use im- and others use in- for their negative prefixes?

This topic requires a bit of knowledge on phonetics and phonology, which was initially discussed in this post about phonetics.


im-
Example words: impractical, imbalance, improper, impressive

Notice how words that take the im- negative prefix start with p and b. The p and b sounds are made with the lips, and this is the same place of articulation as the m sound. This is known as assimilation: the place of articulation of the final sound of the prefix ("m") matches the place of articulation of the initial sound of the root word.

in-
Example words: inaccessible, involuntary, insincere, infamous

In most other cases, the in- negative prefix is used. This is because n is an alveolar consonant, pronounced with the tongue against the area just above the upper teeth. Unlike the p and b sounds, this is a central area, and thus the in- prefix can "handle" many other sounds.

il-, ir-
Example words: illogical, illegal, irrational, irresponsible

The l and r sounds are known as liquids. Just like the im- prefix, assimilation happens here. In this case, the l or r is simply doubled up in forming the prefix.

Spelling vs. pronunciation

A common complaint relating to the English language is that a lot of words are not spelled the way they are sound. Should all words be spelled like they are pronounced? I'm sure that in elementary school you once complained that spelling is too chaotic, and that the word school should be spelled skool, and through be made into thru.

The reason for this chaos is that in writing, a particular letter can have more than one sound associated with it, depending on the context (its surrounding letters for instance). A good example of this is the letter "C": it can represent either a [k] sound or an [s] sound. Furthermore, some sounds in English are not represented with a single letter, and we must use two letters to write them. The [sh] sound in shout is an example of this.

There are many arguments for keeping English spelling as it is. Reading comprehension will suffer if all words are spelled exactly as they are sounded. Many words change their pronunciation when inflected forms of the word are used. Consider what a mess it would be to read musical as muzikal and musician as muzishan. Also, there can be stress changes on different forms of the same word, like photograph and photographer.

English spelling, although many find it tricky, should be kept as it is. Proponents of "English spelling reform" have been somewhat successful, as we sometimes see signs that say "nite", "thru", and more rarely "foto".

Phonetics: Why we say 'cheese'

Phonetics is defined as the study of sounds made in the production of human languages. It is important to note that sounds and spellings of the English language are quite different. Not all English words are spelled the way they are sounded. Words such as "through" and "night" have more letters in them than sounds. Spelling vs. sound will be brought up again, for now I want to concentrate on the basics of phonetics.

As human beings, we produce sounds using our vocal tract. Where we make the sound (known as the place of articulation) matters. For instance, the [p] and [b] sounds use the lips. I won't bore you with a full list of the locations of each of the sounds, but I'll present an interesting factoid.

When pronouncing the long E vowel sound (IPA symbol [i]), which occurs in words such as "seat" and "meet", the relative position of the tongue is toward the front of the mouth. Furthermore, the lips are not rounded when pronouncing this sound (unlike the [o] sound in "go" which causes the lips to be round). Thus, when you say "cheese", it forces your mouth to be in a position which kind of looks like you are smiling.

Phonetics has even more uses than you might think. Ever think about why your dentist tells you to open your mouth and say "ahhhh"? This is because the "ah" sound is pronounced with the tongue in the back of the mouth, thus preventing your tongue from getting in the way of the dentist's work!