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English Phonemics Comparison discrepancies and affinities with other languages

Glossary

Phoneme

A phoneme is the smallest distinctive unit of sound in a language that can differentiate words and meanings.

Mother Tongue

A mother tongue is the first language a person learns from birth, often used for communication in the home and reflecting one's cultural and ethnic identity.

Monolingual

A monolingual individual is someone who speaks and understands only one language.

Preamble

Given that most people are monolingual, it can be quite surprising for them to discover that different languages exhibit distinct acoustic characteristics. I.e. each language possesses unique phonemes and often lacks the phonemes present in other languages.

Naturally, if you wish to speak another language and want others to understand you, it is crucial to first comprehend the phonetic differences between your mother tongue and the target language. Additionally, it is essential to learn how to vocalize and articulate the new sounds from the other language.

Often, when you attempt to speak another language using the phonemes of your mother tongue, it can sound quite strange and confusing to your listeners. Moreover in most cases it sounds so puzzling that they can't understand you at all.

In other words:

While it is possible to speak another language using the sounds of your mother tongue, you may be the only one who understands what you're talking about.

The English Phonemical Hallmarks

These phonemes below are particularly distinctive in English and can pose challenges for speakers of other languages when learning English pronunciation.

/θ/: The voiceless dental fricative, as in the word "think."

/ð/: The voiced dental fricative, as in the word "this."

/ɹ/: The post-alveolar approximant, as in the word "red."

/æ/: The near-open front unrounded vowel, as in the word "cat."

/ʌ/: The open-mid back unrounded vowel, as in the word "cup."

/ŋ/: The voiced velar nasal, as in the word "sing."

Arabic

Arabic contains emphatic consonants such as /sˤ/, /dˤ/, and /tˤ/, which have no equivalent in English. Arabic features the pharyngeal sounds /ʕ/ and /ħ/ that are absent in English. The uvular sounds like /q/ and /ʁ/ are present in Arabic but not in standard English.

Conversely, English includes the interdental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/, which are not found in Arabic. English utilizes a broad set of vowel distinctions, like /ɪ/ and /æ/, while Arabic tends to have fewer distinct vowel sounds.

Rhotic /ɹ/ in Arabic:

The rhotic /ɹ/ sound, common in many varieties of English, does not exist in Arabic. Arabic typically uses the rolled or trilled rhotic /r/, which is distinct from the English /ɹ/.

Nasal /ŋ/ in Arabic

The nasal /ŋ/ sound, as in the English word "sing," does not exist as a distinct phoneme in Arabic. Arabic primarily uses the nasal sounds /m/ and /n/, with no dedicated /ŋ/ sound.

German

Although German and English belong to the same language family, the phonemic differences are remarkable: German lacks the rhotic /ɹ/ sound, the nasal /ŋ/, and /θ/ sounds.

Conversely, English does not use an explicit /r/ sound as pronounced in certain other languages.

Russian

Naturally, Russian is phonemically closer to German: it does not contain the rhotic /ɹ/ sound, the nasal /ŋ/, or the /θ/ sounds. Additionally, it lacks the /f/ sound as well.

In contrast, English lacks a range of soft consonants and the specific for Slavic languages phoneme /ɨ/.

Portuguese

Portuguese includes nasal vowels, such as /ɐ̃/=/, =/ẽ/, and /õ/, which are absent in English. Portuguese has a range of palatal consonants like /ʎ/ and /ɲ/, which do not occur in English.

Conversely, English features the interdental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/, which are not found in Portuguese. English also employs the rhotic sounds /ɹ/ and /ɾ/ (in some accents), which differ from the Portuguese sounds /ʁ/ or /ɾ/ commonly used in various Portuguese dialects.

The nasal /ŋ/ sound, found in English at the end of words like "sing," does not exist as a distinct phoneme in Portuguese. In Portuguese, nasal sounds are usually represented by nasal vowels or are not as consistently produced with a velar nasal as in English.