Words borrowed from foreign languages that retain both the spelling and pronunciation as found in original language.

Greek words: 

Atlas, bacterium, cynicism, chaos, cloth, chronology, herculean task, galaxy, membrane, rhinoceros, Europe, and many more.

Some prefixes also come from Greek like anti-, bio-, centro-, dys-, pseudo- 

Latin Words: 

Acumen, agony, atrocity, avarice, aplomb, insipid, mundane, novice, nocturnal, optical, perturb, rapport, sacrosanct, ubiquity and many more

Most of the medical terms have been borrowed from Latin, like  benign, malignant, biopsy, cardiology, ophthalmology, nephrology, physiology, pediatrics, dermatitis, and many more.              

French words:

Attache’, avant garde, apostrophe, au revoir, avenue, avalanche, ballet, baguette, bon voyage, cabaret, connoisseur, detour, deja vu, elite, fait accompli, faux pas, laisse faire, massacre, papiermache , zest, and many more .

German words: 

Angst,  kindergarten, festschrift, iceberg /eisberg, uber, Volkswagen, Gestapo , café etc.

Japanese words: 

Bonsai, kaftan, karaoke, kimono, geisha, origami, sayonara, sudoku, sumo, tofu, tycoon, zen.

Italian and Spanish words:

Balcony, bonanza, cafeteria, confidant, Fiesta, pasta, pizza, macaroon, cappuccino, graffiti, persona, opera, tango etc.

Korean words:

digital, burberry,   manicure, surf, etc.

Indian words in English:

Avatar, Arya, bhai, bhakti, bungalow, Buddha, chat, chai, chutney, cheetah, dharma, dosa, Geeta, haldi,  jungle, maharaja, mahatma, masala, neem, pakka, pardah, pajama, samosa, sambar, raita, roti, etc. OUP has a dedicated a full section to include words from Indian languages.           

This was the final part of the blog series. I hope it was useful to the readers. I would love to hear from you; how useful it was, what I can add to it, any corrections, etc. I am very curious about how the blog series has been received, very eager to read all the feedback, good and bad.

Hoping to publish this into a booklet soon. Thank you for reading.

All the vowels and a few consonants like /c/ and /g/ are example of one significant sound that has many representations in script. 

Many letters, one sound :

/awe/ is read as /ᴐ/, /owe/ is /ou/ which is a diphthong, /should/ is read as /ʃud/, could is /khud/, would is /wud/.

Same set of many letters,  many pronunciations :

/ough/ tough /thuf/ (where ‘t’ is in initial position so the sound gets aspirated) , through  /θru/.

‘Though’ is pronounced as /ðou/ where /ou/ is a falling diphthong, ‘thought’ is /θᴐt/, ‘thorough’ is /θǝrǝ/.

 eat is /i:t/, ear is /iǝ:/, earth is /ǝ:θ/, heart  /ha:t/ , health  /helθ/, bear is /beǝ:/

Sounds/phoneme which do not have any letter :

/ʃ/ ship is read as /ʃip/, caution as /kᴐʃǝn/, ocean as /oʃǝn/, cautious /kᴐʃǝs/, conscience /kᴐnʃens/, facial /feʃiǝl/.

/θ/ think /θiŋk/, thought /θᴐt/, author /ᴐθǝ:/, anthem /ꬱnθm/ maths /mꬱθs/, fifth /fifθ/.

/ð/ this /ðis/, that /ðꬱt/, bother /bᴐðǝ:/, brother /brǝðǝ:/, although /ᴐlðou/.

/tʃ/ church /tʃǝ:tʃ/, charm /tʃa:m/, chat /tʃꬱt/, chip /tʃip/.

match /mꬱtʃ/, search /sǝ:tʃ/, stitch / stitʃ/ .

/dʒ/ judge /jǝdʒ/, edge /edʒ/, ledger /ledʒ:/, lodge /lᴐdʒ/ .

/ʒ/ pleasure /phleʒǝ:/, vision /viʒan/, luxary /lǝʒri/.

Silent letters:

/e/ is silent in age /ej/, cage/kej/, else /els/, name /nem/, mare /mꬱr/, sole /sol/ role /rol/.

/b / is silent in doubt /daut/ here /au/ is diphthong, debt /det/, subtle /sǝtl/ .

/p/ in psychology /saikᴐlǝji/, here /ai/ is a falling diphthong,  pneumonia  /nyumonia/, pneumatic /nyumꬱtic/ , receipt /risi:t/.

/l/    palm /pham/, psalm /sam/, almond /amǝnd/, hymn /him/,  salmon /samǝn/,  talk /thᴐk/, walk /wᴐk/.

/k/ is silent in know /no/, knee /ni:/, knot /not/, knob /knob/.

/n/ column /kᴐlǝm/, solemn /sᴐlǝm/, hymn /him/.

/h/ hour /awǝ:/, honour /ᴐnǝ:/, honest /ᴐnest/.

 Words with same spelling but different pronunciation:

read /ri:d/ present form, read /red/ past tense form of read.

live /liv/ present form of ‘to live’ /laiv/ one which has life as in ‘live show’ or ‘live wire’.

wind /wind/ is ‘strong breeze,’ and /waind/ ‘to roll’ something.

wound /wund/ or    /waund/ Is past tense of wind .

 Words with same pronunciation but different spelling:

see/si:/and sea /si:/; sun /sǝn/and son /sǝn/.

tale /theil/ and tail /theil/ where /ei / is diphthong.

reed /ri:d/ and read /ri:d/ and many more.

Words with same spelling, same pronunciation but different meaning:

‘Page’  is page of a book vs  ‘page’ is personal servant.

‘Watch’ is a time showing device as in ‘wrist watch’, another ‘watch’ is to see carefully as in ‘watch a step, or watch a game’

‘Ring’ which is worn on finger, and ‘ring’, sound of bell (it’s a verb here)

‘Right’ is correct, ‘right’ that which is not left and many more.

‘Worn’ is past tense of wear, ‘worn’ tattered cloth, worn out cloth

‘Rest’ to take respite, ‘rest’ is everything else as in ‘rest is history’ 

 In the previous chapter, we saw one letter and its pronunciations. In that chapter, we found that some consonant letters are pronounced or silent. Some letters have multiple pronunciations. This is very true of all the vowels, but also for some consonants (such as ‘c’ and ‘g’ which have multiple pronunciations).

We have already seen in the preface that English has 26 letters and 44 significant sounds which in technical language are called phonemes and the system itself is called phonology. Each language has its own phonological system. In this chapter we will see the phonological system of English and all the phonemes, as well as their role in English phonology. 

The English language has 12 vowels, 8 diphthongs, and 24 consonants.

Vowels

The vowels are those significant sound (vowel phonemes) where outgoing air goes out easily. It is not stopped at any point nor do any organs restrict the outward flow of air. Vowels can be oral or nasal, but English only has  oral vowels. All the vowels are voiced, which means the vocal cords are close by and outgoing air makes them vibrate to create the sound. Vowels can occur independently without any consonant.    

The vowels in English are divided into three parameters: 

1. Place in the mouth
2. Tongue height
3. Position of the jaw 

              Front             Central         Back

High      i:                                          u:

High Mid   I                      ǝ                         u

Mid            e                     ǝ:                    ᴧ    ᴐ

Low            ꬱ                    a                           ᴐ:

While pronouncing the front vowels, the lips are spread, when pronouncing the central vowels, the lips are in neutral position, and while pronouncing the back vowels, the lips are rounded. Only when /ᴧ/ is pronounced, though it is a back vowel, are the lips in neutral position and not rounded.

Front Vowels: They are called front vowels because they are spoken with the tip or front of the tongue. The jaw slowly opens to give a different height to the tongue like

/I:/ in be, beat, complete, conceive, , key, mean, teen, theme, seat.

/I/ in bit, begin, city, fix, logic, hit, photography, tin, sit.

/e/ in bet, clever, head,  health, let, pen, said, set, spelling, threat, test.

/ꬱ/ in at, and  bat, clap, dam, fact, gather, has land, man,   nanny, sad, sand.

In the pronunciation of these sounds, the tip or front of the tongue is involved and the jaw opens the mouth and the tongue moves downward.

Central Vowels: Vowels are pronounced with the middle of the tongue in central vowels. The middle of the tongue is raised near the middle of the palate, and that is why these vowels are called the central vowels. In such cases, the jaw is in neutral position, i.e. the jaw is neither open nor closed. Examples:

/ǝ/ in along, other, mother, burrow, sphere, favor.

/ǝ:/ in earth, err, curt, her, hurt, girl, mirth, shirt, sir, thorough.

/a/ in arm, charm farm, father, heart, master, smart.

Back Vowels: In the back vowels, the back of the tongue is raised towards the back of the palate i.e. towards the soft palate. The lips are rounded and the jaw moves from a closed to open position. Examples:

/u:/ in cool drool, fool, food, proof, ooze smooth, suit,  foot, put, rule.

/u/ in foot, put, should, woman.

/ᴐ/ in audible, autumn, cot, fall, flaw, got, ought, rot, yacht.

/ᴐ:/ in applaud, broad, cork, caught, sauce, ward.

There is one more back vowel which is not rounded and has the symbol as /ᴧ/, as in

bus, but, button, cut, hut, gut, such.

Diphthong

In a Diphthong two vowels come together, one of which  is sonorous and can be clearly heard, it is also called a strong vowel and the other vowel is a weak vowel and cannot be clearly heard. There are two types of Diphthongs: a falling one and a rising one. When the first vowel can be clearly heard, it is called a falling diphthong. When the second vowel can be more clearly heard, it is called a rising diphthong. Examples:

Falling Diphthong:  

/ei/ in day, date, tale, tail.

/ai/ in find, I, die, kite, right.

/au/ in cow, crown, brown, fowl, sound.

/ǝu/ in coal, don’t,  dough, no, so.

/ᴐi/ in oil, boy, choice, coy, soy, voice.

Rising Diphthong: 

/iǝ/ in cheer, near, tier, jeer.

/eǝ/ in chair, lair, bear.

/uǝ/ in poor, sure, cure.

Consonants

Consonants are those sounds in which the outgoing is either stopped in the mouth at some point or some obstacle is created in the airstream which is going out of the mouth. Consonants may be either oral or nasal, or they may be voiceless or voiced. Consonants can be classified according to their place of production or the manner in which they are produced.

Consonant Stops: When outgoing air is completely stopped at some point, we get stop consonants. They are both oral and nasal. They are as follows:

Voiceless stops      bilb.       alveol     velar

 /p/         /t/          /k/  

All the voiceless stops are aspirated in beginning of the word. This peculiarity is in seen only a spoken word and not written

          pot /phᴐt/   taught  /thᴐt/   cot /khᴐt/ 

Voiced    stops        /b/         /d/         /g/

                                bought /bᴐt/, dot /dᴐt/, got /gᴐt/

Nasal voiced stops          /m/       /n/         /ŋ/

                                          ram /rꬱm/, ran /rꬱn/, rang /rꬱŋ/

Fricatives: While pronouncing fricatives, the passage in the mouth is made so narrow with the help of some vocal organs that the outgoing air has to brush through the vocal organs by creating friction in it. The outgoing air creates friction, hence these sounds are called fricatives. Fricatives are both voiceless and voiced.

                     vl        /f/     /θ/   /s/  /ʃ/      

                                 Fought /fᴐt/, thought /θᴐt/ sought /sᴐt/,  shot /ʃᴐt/

                        Vd     /v/    /ð/ /z/ /ʒ/   /h/

                                Move /mu:v/, mother /mǝðǝ:/, maze /meiz/, visual /viʒual/, hymn /him/ 

Affricates:  Affricates are made of a combination of stops and fricatives. Outgoing air is at first stopped and then slowly released to create a narrow aperture to let the air go. We find only the palatal affricates in both voiceless and voiced types.

                       vl                            /tʃ/ 

                                                        church /tʃu:tʃ/

                         Vd                          /dʒ/  

                                                        judge /dʒǝdʒ/   

Lateral: Laterals are the consonant in which outgoing air is stopped by the tip of tongue and the air is released from its sides.      

                                 vd              /l/

                                         lust  /lust/

Trill: While pronouncing a trill in British English, the lips are rounded, the tip of the tongue. In US the tip of the tongue raps against the teeth ridge.   

    /r/                                         rust, /rǝst/

Semi Vowels: In this, the outgoing air stream the organs come so close together that the outgoing air has to push itself out of the mouth. 

     /w/                  /y/                                            Wet /wet/        yet /yet/

 Here, while speaking the /w/, the raised lips are rounded and the tip of the tongue is involved while the lips are spread and the middle of the tongue is raised. This is to make the passage very narrow at the palate, so that outgoing air can barely go out. 

S

S is a consonant and has four pronunciations:

S as /z/ in is, cause, dose, chase, wise. It doesn’t seem to occur in the initial position.

S as /ʃ/ in sure, sugar, ship, show, mission, mash, wash. 

S as /ʒ/ in casual, measure, treasure, visual, vision.

S as /s/ in simple, sentiment, set, sort, cost, massive, mouse, moose, with, cross. This pronunciation of S is the most common.

Example of S in a sentence –

Sally was a great collector of sea shells. She preserved them by washing them with some clean water and placing them in a glass jars. This collection of sea shells was a great source of pleasure for her.

T

T  is a consonant which is represented in different ways, as you can see in the following words:

T with ‘h’ as /θ/ in think, through, with, moth, south, mythology, ethics.

T with ‘h’ as /ð/ in this, that, though, weather, together, gather, breathe.

T as /ʃ/ with ‘io’ in action, nation, relation, option.

T as /t/ in talent,  twist, tall, Saturn, settle, water, hat, hot, hurt, different.

T as a silent letter in often, listen, castle, whistle.

Example of T in a sentence –

Teachers thought that patience is a virtue that should be instilled in students from childhood. One should be patient and calm. If one looks at the problem with this attitude, one can easily find solutions to the problem. At the same time, it is foolish to build castles in the air.

U

U’ is a vowel and like other vowels, ‘u’ too has many pronunciations.

U as a short vowel in put, cushion, foot, push, sullen, education.

U as a long vowel in soup, super, suit, rude, food, juice.

U as /ᴧ/ in but, hut, shut, bus.

U as /ǝ/ in pursuit, supply, jump, public.

U as the short /yu/ in university, pure, lure.

U as the long /yu/ in tube, huge, cube, mute, vacuum.

Example of U in a sentence –

University is a place where one can get higher education, pursue one’s academic interests, and study subjects like pure mathematics and astronomy. They can also develop super skills like pubic speaking.

V

V is a consonant, and it is the only letter which is spoken exactly as it is written.

‘V’ as /v/ in vapour, vast, vivid, variety, govern, wave, give, hive, movement.

Example of V in a sentence –

India is a vast country is with various languages and varied cultures. It also practices a variety of religions. There is unity in diversity and all communities thrive here with very little  friction among them.

W

W is a semi-vowel and is pronounced by rounding the lips. It sounds like two of the letter ‘u’ joined together.

‘W’ as a silent letter: own, sown, show, awe, dawn, fawn.

‘W’ as ‘u’ : fowl, gown, brown, town, crown. 

‘W’ as ‘w’: want, where, won, well, wise, woe, west.

‘V’ and ‘w’ sound very similar but use very different vocal organs in their pronunciation.  V is a fricative while W is a semivowel.

Some examples of this are: very vs. wary, vest vs. west, vile vs. while, vim vs. whim.

X

X is pronounced as though two or three letters are put together like ‘eks’ ‘gz’ or ‘z’. It is silent in the words borrowed from foreign languages. Words like Faux Pas, borrowed from French,  have the letter X silent in both the words.

The different pronunciation of X :

X as /z/ in xylem, xylophone, xenia, xerox. 

X as /gz/ in exam, exit, exist, exact, exile.

X as /eks/ or /ks/ in experiment, external, x-ray, expert, tax, sex.

Example of variations of X in a sentence –

When one gives exam externally, one is not sure of oneself. Besides one is not allowed to use xerox copies in there.

Y

Y  is a semivowel like W. W is pronounced by rounding the lip, while Y is pronounced by spreading the lips and raising the middle of the tongue towards palate. The passage is so narrow that air has to push its way out without creating any friction or vibration. 

Like other letters, Y too has many pronunciations. They are as follows:

Y as /I/ in copy, lady, busy, ability, dictionary.

Y as a non-sonorous letter in a falling diphthong Y in day, way, I, boy, coy, toy, shy.

Y as a silent letter in year.

Y as /y/ in yak, yellow, yesterday, yeast, yolk, yell, yacht.

Example of variations of Y in a sentence –

This year I hired a yacht and painted it yellow. I went there on a cycle. The painting work kept me busy the whole day.

Z

Z is like the letter V and is always pronounced. It is written as it is spoken. 

Z as /z/ in zero, zip, zebra, zombie, maze, raze.

Z when written twice is pronounced as single letter like in buzz, fizz.

Example of Z in a sentence –

Zig zag zoom, buzzed away the motorcycle.

M

M is a consonant and normally pronounced as it is written. 

It is pronounced as written in words like male, mother, muffin, come, ramp, simmer, dormitory, drum, scam.

Like all others, one m is silent when two of them are together, like mummy, summer, rummy.

A sentence using M pronunciations –

“Marrying the right woman makes a man complete.” No comment please.

N

N is a consonant and it has three different pronunciations:

/ŋ/ which is always followed by ‘g’, like bang, long, sing, dung.

N when silent like in column, hymn, solemn, etc. It is also silent when two are written together, like annual,  sunny, connotation.

N when pronounced like name, noon, main, mint,  minister, snow.

Example of N variations –

Nuns consider it their solemn duty to care for their patients. Failing this is taken as a serious lapse.

O

O is a vowel and like other vowels, it too has many pronunciations. When it is pronounced as a diphthong  the lips  are rounded and it sounds like ‘ow’ in the UK and ‘ao’ in the US. The different pronunciations are detailed below:

As a diphthong ‘o’ in ocean, know, golden, globe, home.

As /ᴐ/ in blossom, clock, hot, spot, optical.

As long /ᴐ :/ in order, cork, border, caught.

As /ǝ/ in other, mother, philosophy,, world, word, worth.

As /u/ in foot, look, wolf, woman.

As /u:/ in food, soot, loose, lose, ooze, pool.

As /i/ in women.

In the words like cotton or mutton, ‘o’ is silent and the ‘n’ does the work of a vowel.

A paragraph to get all the variations of O –

I often wonder what makes women so strong. They cook food, look into their children’s homework, stitch buttons broken from their cotton clothes, prepare the tiffin boxes, and do all the household work. Some of them are office goers, and while they may have domestic help, they are still responsible for everything that happens in the household. Hats off to the women folk.’

Q

Q is a consonant and most often it is accompanied with letter ‘u’. OUP lists only four words without ‘u’ and sometimes this ‘u’ is pronounced, and sometimes it is silent.

Sometimes ‘q’ is not found with a ‘u’, like in the following: Qatar (name of a gulf country,) Qatari (a person from Qatar) , Qintar (name of Albanian currency), and Qawwali (a devotional song of Muslims).

‘Q’ is followed by a pronounced ‘u’  in words like quail, quality, quench, queen, quest, sequence, eloquence.

‘Q’ is followed by a silent ‘u’ in words like technique, quote, soliloquy, racquet.

Q variations in a sentence –

In ancient Qatar, the queen had queer habits. She used to quench her thirst with wine while listening to Qawaalis. She had summoned some Qatari men and trained them in techniques of different types of wine-making.

P

P is a consonant. Like T and K, P also adds aspiration and sounds like  the ‘ph’ of Hindi at the beginning of the words, e.g /phᴐt/ for pot, /pheipǝr/ for paper,/phen/ for pen, etc. This peculiarity is found only in spoken language.

P is silent at the beginning of many words like psychology, pneumonia, pneumatic. It is also silent in the  middle of a word like receipt or when it occurs with another P  like happy, supper, copper, rapport.

P is pronounced like the Hindi ph in words like pit, pet, pat, and Penelope (a girl’s name).

Examples of P in other places: laptop, moped, creeper, hyper, sapling, soap, stop, slap.

A sentence using variations of P –

Paul is a good psychologist. He is very punctual and his patients are very happy with him. As a psychologist, he is very patient with them. They open up to him and tell him their problems without any inhibitions. He is reliable and their secrets are safe with him. And yes, he issues proper receipts for all their payments.

R

R is a consonant. In this, ‘r’ is pronounced by raising the tip of the tongue to and vibrating it without touching the alveolus. The air going out vibrates the rolled and raised tip of the tongue. In the US, R is rolled against the alveolus, that is why one can hear it but the British people seem to lengthen the vowel before it is said. In the initial place, people round their lips, roll the tongue, and vibrate it.

Examples of R –

The ball rolled round the rugged road. 

A river is a small stream in the beginning. In the plains, it is a wide river. It is wider when it meets the sea. All the civilizations grew on the river bank. They were born, flourished, and died by the side of the river bank.

G

G becomes /j/ before i, e, or y, e.g. logic, page, gender, gist, gym.

Sometimes  ‘u’ occurs in between ‘i’ or  ‘e’ like guest and guide.

However, there are exceptions to this, like get, girl, begin, together.

Again, one of the Gs is silent when they occur together or with a  group of sounds, like suggest, eight, tough, laugh.

 Otherwise, G is pronounced clearly like goal, garden, gather, gulp, golf, sag, wig, rug.

Example of variations of G –

My granddaughter is a gymnast. She being a frail girl, I thought that gymnastics is not the sport for her. There was no logic in my thinking though, as she has become a great gymnast with awards and all.  She has proved me wrong.

H

H is a consonant which is very often silent, especially in the beginning of a word. 

The H is silent at the beginning of these words: hour, honest, and honor, as well as in other places in words like wish, sigh, eight, weight, which, why.

H is also spoken in words like half, help, hard, hear, hope, high.  

Finally, H is spoken in exclamations like Eh!, oh!, and Aah!

Example of H in all its variations –

Yesterday I was eighty, and I climbed a high steep hill without any help. This morning I get a phone call saying that they are going to honor me as an example to youth and children. Honestly, I felt honored at such a gesture by the club.

I

I is a vowel and like other vowels, the letter I has many representations.

 It is /i/ in sit,  sip, listen, list, lift.

It is /i:/ in receive, believe.

It is /ay/ in elite, flight, light, vile.

Finally, it is /ǝ/ in girl, girth, mirth, smirk.

Example of I –

I’m a little girl and I would like to fly a kite, but my kite won’t go up. I believe it is the air that pushes it down. My sisters, who are experts at it, say on the contrary, it is the air that carries the kite high in the sky.

J

J is a consonant and has the following forms: 

Palatal (voiced affricate); Palatal (voiced continuant); Voiced (pharyngeal fricative)

The different variations are listed below:

‘J’ read as /h/ in jalapeño, fajita, San Jose.

‘J’ read as /y/ in Jugoslavia, Jadranka. These are usually words coming from Eastern Europe. 

‘J’ read as /j/ in jam, just, July, major.

J in its various forms in a sentence –

Major John likes different jams, but he likes hot jalapeño recipes too.

K

K is a consonant and is sometimes silent at the beginning of words, such as knee, knot, know, and acknowledge. 

It is difficult to say whether it is C that is silent or K in words like back, sick, lock. 

Example of K –

The knob of the kettle is black.

L

L is a letter with many peculiarities.

Dark L is always spoken before ‘e’, where ‘e’ is silent and behaves like a vowel, which is why it is called a vocoid. Examples of this are: cattle, castle, pestle, temple, shuttle.

The other peculiarity of L is that it is very often silent, like in the words calf, walk, half, palm, psalm, almond, salmon. It is also silent in words like should, could, and would but is pronounced in words like shoulder or mould.

One of them is silent when two Ls occur together, like bullet, collect, doll, millet, full.

L  is pronounced in words like last, leaf, long, lost, melon, culmination, color, male, meal, steel.    

Variations of L in a sentence –

The light in the temple was coming from an oil lamp, where the oil was collected in a almond shaped mould, cut in half to hold the oil.

This post will discuss letters A through F.

A

Let us look at all the sounds for the letter A.

A as /ꬱ/ in at, and cat, has, ran, etc.

a as /ᴐ/ in all, call, ball, false, often

a as /a/ in arm, farm, father, charm

a as /ǝ/ in arrest, around, along, about

a as /ei/ in a falling diphthong: air, fair, chair, tale, tail, face, date 

Here is an example where all the pronunciations of the letter ‘a’ can be seen in one sentence.

Sally broke her arm when she went to a fair.  She called a doctor, who came along, and sat in the chair to examine her arm.

B

B is found in two forms. It is either silent or pronounced. 

For example – 

There is a silent ‘b’ in  doubt, debt, subtle, etc. When two ‘b’s are written together, then one is silent like in rubber.

B is clearly pronounced in the following words: bus, boast, sober, table, cob, nib.

 In this paragraph we find all the pronunciations of /b/.

Mr. Brown kept on borrowing money and soon he was in debt. He lived in his own bubble, pretending they would not doubt about his integrity, but they tried to remind him about it in a subtle way. To avert trouble, he began to avoid them.

C

C is pronounced in two ways.

One is as /s/ before an ‘I’, ‘e’, and ‘y’, as seen below: 

‘s’ before ‘I’ city, circle, cider.

‘s’ before ‘e’ cent, center, certain.

‘s’ before ‘y’ cycle, cyber.

 It is pronounced as /k/ elsewhere, like cat, cot, clever, cob, can, and many more such words.

Another variation of C is  ‘CH’ and it is pronounced in three ways:

As  /ʃ/ in chef, chauffer.

As /ch/ in chair, chop, chain, church.

As /k/ in chamomile, school, scheme.

Like B when it occurs in a pair, then one of two ‘c’s is silent, like Occur, Occult.

In Accident, Accent, and Access where the first ‘c’ is followed by a consonant ‘c’, it is pronounced like ‘k’ but the other ‘c’ occurs before vowels ‘i’ and ‘e’ respectively that’s why it is pronounced as ‘s’.

The below paragraph has tried to capture all variations of the letter C –

City centers should be free of cars. They not only cause a traffic jam, they very often create chaos on roads. Besides there are many school going children and senior citizens in society who are inconvenienced by them. Sometimes these roads become inaccessible to them. Then there are also the chauffeur driven cars that are really careful while driving their cars. So schemes should be developed for comfortable mobility so that people can go from one place to another without any discomfort. 

D

The letter D is like the letter B; it is either silent or pronounced.

It is silent when followed by ‘g,’ as in edge, wedge, dodge, judge.

It is pronounced in words like draft, day, dare do, dog, odor, made, said, guard.

Again, when there are two of them together, one of the d’s is also silent like in ‘sudden’.

An example of a sentence with all the variations of the letter D –

Hold this doll properly. Do not put it on the ledge. A sudden jerk will make it will fall down.

E

E is a vowel and it has many pronunciations like A. It is pronounced by the front of the tongue, where it is raised to the alveolus less than that of the Hindi /e/ but higher than the English /ꬱ/ /bꬱt/.

Examples of this sound are –

  /e/ in set, text, spend, check, cheque, melt, smell, quench, petal, nest.

/i/ in begin, receipt, reply.

/i:/ in be, bee, me, key, feet, feat.

/ǝ/ in err, her, ever, herb.

The ‘e’ is unpronounced in words like age, came, late, name, castle, waste, eye, and many more.

An example with all the variations of E –

I wrote a cheque in my mother’s name, but I have begun to feel that she will never use it.   

F                                

F is a consonant and pronounced with the teeth of the lower jaw and the upper lip.

Like others, when two Fs come together as ‘ff,’ one of them is silent; as in puff, stiff, coffee.

F is pronounced as ‘v’ when it comes along with F otherwise it is clearly pronounced, like fat, fault, fiber, infinity, infant, sift.

Some examples of variations in F –

The fun of going to the fair seems to be the stuff of childhood.

FIFA is offering a big fan fare.

‘Reading maketh a full man and Writing a perfect man ‘
Francis Beacon

Reading indeed is like a  ‘Kalpavriksha’ that fulfills all our wishes. Once this art is mastered, it can provide us with all the knowledge in the world. All we need are books and the ability to read and understand them. Reading helps us to build our world view and enrich our inner self. Consequently, this helps us grow as an individual,  full of confidence and with sensibility and sensitivity.
But reading is not easy, especially the English language, because we read as we speak and not as we write. We write ‘know’ and read it as ‘no’ and read ‘c’ as ‘s’ in ‘city’ and ‘central’ but as ‘k’ in ‘cat’ and ‘cool’. Similarly ‘ea’ in ‘eat’ is with a long ‘i:’, ‘iǝ’ in ‘ear’, just ‘ǝ’ in ‘earth’, ‘a:’ in ‘heart’, and ‘e’ in ,’health’. The writing system is called graphology and its basic unit is grapheme or letter. The English language has 44 phonemes (significant sounds) and 26 letters. Mapping these 44 phonemes onto 26 letters is based on the way the words are spoken, giving rise to reading. Writing becomes more intimidating because the spellings do not match the spoken word. There is this big gap between the spoken and written word that makes learning to read a difficult task.
The mystery of this gap lies in the history of the English language. English is basically made up of six different languages. The original people of this land were Celts and spoke Celtic. Around 600 AD, some tribes from Northern Germany and Denmark migrated to England. These tribes were the Jutes, the Angles, and the Saxons. The Norman conqueror in 1066 brought Greek and Latin words, and while leaving the country, added many more to the English language. Around 1500, printing technology was invented and many publishing houses were set up. Lots of books were published. Language was standardized, and Grammars and Dictionaries were written. Words were heavily borrowed from French and German. Colonial rule over a quarter of the world led to the influence of languages spoken in these colonies.
English has always been a developing language. It borrowed words from all over the world, and while doing so, tried to retain the same pronunciation and their spellings, especially those of Latin and Greek, while some words that were borrowed got adapted to English phonology. Script was first prescribed in 1500 and was reformed sometime in the early 19th century, where both the spelling and pronunciation were designed as they were at that time. Since then words have been borrowed from all over the world with their original pronunciation and spelling, making the task of reading and learning spellings correctly a daunting one. Let me list some of the important peculiarities of the English language –
There are 26 letters but 44 sounds (phonemes: 24 consonants, 12 vowels, 8 diphthongs) to read them correctly.
Lots of letters are written but not pronounced like k in knot, l in almond, b in debt, p in receipt, etc.
Consonants are very often written in duplicates but pronounced as a single letter. E.g. cabbage, shudder, suffer, suggest, pull, mummy, happy, hurry, letter, fuzzy etc.
Except m, v, and z all the other letters have more than one pronunciation. This is especially true of vowels. The letter A alone has five pronunciations: /a:/ in arm, /ᴐ/ in false, /ei/ in fate, /ǝ/ in along, and /ea/ in fair. Among consonants ,very often they are either silent or pronounced, as /d/ in judge is silent but pronounced in dab or bad. Additionally, some consonants have many pronunciations as /c/ becomes / s/ in city, center or cycle but k in cat or case, /g/ is /j/ in gin or gem but /g/ in gate or grab.
As there are many pronunciations for one letter, there is also one pronunciation of many letters e.g. awe is open /ᴐ/ beau is /bou/, or queue is /kyu/.
Similarly, the same set of letters can have many pronunciations: e.g. / ough/ can be pronounced as /f/ in tough, as /u/ in through, as /ǝu/ in though, as open /ᴐ/ in thought and /ǝ/ in thorough. Many pronunciations of /ea/ have been listed above.
Another important peculiarity of English is diphthongal sounds (phonemes). Diphthongs are made up of two vowels, one of which is prominent and sonorous while the other one is secondary. English grammarians consider them as one unit equivalent to a vowel. There are 8 diphthongs in English. They are: /ǝo/ as in low or bow, /a:u/ as out and loud, /
a:i/ in light or fight /ei/ in lane or date, /ᴐe/ in loin or boy, /iǝ/ in fear or beer, /Eǝ/ in lair or bear, /uǝ/ in poor or sure. The diphthongs will be discussed in detail in the appendix.
The sounds/ p/,/ t/, and /k/ become /ph/, /th/, and /kh/ when they occur at the beginning of a word. This /ph/ is different from /f/ and is similar to the Hindi /ph/. Remember this happens only in the beginning of the word, as elsewhere it is pronounced as a regular p, t, or k. This peculiarity needs to be mentioned here because native English speakers hear these sounds as b, d, g, if not said so. This is true even of /k/ pronounced in /cat/, /quote/. The /k/ here becomes /kh/ . One should remember that though they are pronounced as /ph/, /th/, /kh/ they are written as /p/,/t/,/k/. The funniest thing is that these sounds are only pronounced in initial position though they are not written so.
English is an accented language, which means certain syllables are stressed. Placing this stress on the proper syllable is significant for conveying the correct meaning. The primary stress (accent) on the first syllable makes it a noun and conveys that it is a thing, /emotion/, object, etc. If it is placed on the second syllable, it is a verb. Some examples are given below:
/‘project/ is a noun ‘ a thing’ while /pro’ject/ is a verb ‘display’
/‘object / is a noun, ‘a thing/ while /ob’ject/ is a verb, ‘to protest’
/‘record/ is a noun, ‘written document’ while /re’cord/ is a verb, ‘to note down facts’.
The stress pattern can be seen in continuous speech too. If one has to talk about ‘one apple’, one would stress both ‘an’ and ‘apple’ in a sentence like,
“It’s ‘an ‘apple.” If one doesn’t have to mention about the oneness of the apple, the sentence would be spoken and read as follows,
“It’snapple.” Where ‘a’ of ‘an’ is almost inaudible first syllable in ‘apple’ as it is stressed, being a noun. In English, unstressed syllables are considered weak syllables and stressed syllables are strong syllable. This affects the desired meaning.
The point here is that stress is important in spoken English and should be remembered while reading any text. This again reminds us that we read as we speak and not as we write.
This brings up the concept of a syllable. A syllable is an important concept that helps to learn correct pronunciation. “It is a unit of spoken language consisting of a single uninterrupted sound formed by a vowel, a diphthong or syllabic consonant alone, or by any of these sounds preceded, followed or surrounded by one or more consonants.” There are also open and closed syllables. When a syllable begins with a vowel and ends with a consonant or has consonants on both sides it is called a closed syllable. If a syllable ends with a vowel, then it is an open syllable. For example:
I, no, spa, and spree are open syllables because they end with a vowel.
An and apt are closed syllables because they end with a consonant.
Bat, spat, belt, spend, strip, and script are closed syllables too because the vowel in the syllable is surrounded by one or more consonants.
In a syllabic consonant like button, (where o is silent and n is a syllabic consonant (contoid), that means the word is made up of two syllables one with /u/ and other with /n/. In the double letters ‘tt’ one of the ‘t’s is silent and the same is true of the word temple where the last /e/ is silent and /l/ is a syllabic consonant (contoid) thus the word has two syllables, where the first one is /e/, a closed syllable and the second is /l/ an open syllable.

These are some of the points to think of when reading/speaking the English language. Let us examine each alphabet and its intricacies over the next few days…

On the auspicious occasion of Navratri, I am publishing a blog unravelling the mysteries of English pronunciations.

This was started as a column in Hindi for Navbharat Times a few years ago and some people urged me to write it for English readers as well. The English version may also become a published book in the future but for now, for the next nine days, I will add a new chapter discussing the patterns between the spoke and the written word in the English language —

 It all started with a visit by Mr. Avadhesh Vyas to our dept. (Dept. of Applied Linguistics). He was surprised that all his life he had pronounced ‘l’ in the word ‘almond’. He was unaware that it is silent and should not be pronounced. He also found a lot of words were tricky when it came to correspondence between the spelling of the word and its pronunciation. He thought being a linguist, I would be able to help Hindi speakers learn the correct pronunciation. I promised to look into the matter. I too was surprised to see the erratic nature of English spellings and its pronunciation. There are 44 significant sounds in English and only 26 letters to express them. Mapping the 44 sounds onto 26 letters is a daunting task. That is not all. We cannot establish any rule to learn spellings; e.g. in school we were taught that if there is a c it should be followed by  ei  as in receive, perceive etc. and  ie in other places as in believe, retrieve etc. Then what about their and either-neither or eight and height? In Devanagari script, we pronounce everything as it is written, with a few exceptions. That’s why it becomes very difficult for a Devanagari user to read English. It was decided that  we write about it (the gap) in the Navbharat Times in a serialized way. We began with one letter and many pronunciations. Despite being well received, they discontinued it after a few weeks. However, readers requested me to put this information in a book form so that all the examples could be found in one place. Many who saw this exercise felt that it would be useful to any English learner, even the native speaker, as there is a big gap between the spoken word and its written form. Hence, I wrote this English version. I was helped in this endeavour by Dr. Shailesh Pundalik who went through my manuscript and made several suggestions, and Dr. Pratima Dave and Trupti Nisar who helped me from time to time. I must also thank my husband Mr. Vishnu Pai who kept  reminding me that I should finish it as soon as possible.  It sat in a manuscript form, for a whole decade until my daughter decided to add it to my blog as a series of posts. I am hoping to publish this in the book format at some point, in both English and of course,  Hindi. Fingers crossed…

 घाई घाई घाई——-

खोताच्या वाडीत एक खानावळ होती, तिथे मालकाने भिंतीवार एक पाटी लावली होती “घाईला पण वेळ लागतो”. पण मराठी माणसाला कुठला धीर ! तो सारखा घाई गडबडीत असतो. त्याची ही लगबग त्याच्या भाषेत उतरलेली दिसते. माझी एक मैत्रीण होती. ती आपली सकाळची घाई नेहमी सांगे. ती महणायची, ‘ अगं सकाळी मी उठले आणि भराभर कामाला लागले. आठ वाज़ता बाई आली मी चटकन उठून दार उघडलं. तिला म्हण्टलं, भरकन आधी  भांडी घासून घे पाहू. मी इथे हातासरशी पीठ मळून घेतलं, झरझर पोळ्या लाटून टाकल्या. मग मुलांना उठवलं. मह्णट्लं पटापटा आवरून घ्या. पटकन  तुम्हाला बसपाशी सोडून येते. अगं ही मुलं रेंगाळत होती, त्यांना म्हण्टलं चटाचटा पावलं उचला नाही तर बस निघून ज़ाईल.’ हे रोज़चं होतं तिच. दिवस अशा घाई गर्दीत उडून जायचा.

 मराठी माणसाला राग हि चटकन येतो, तो तो भडाभडा बोलून हि दाखवतो आणि नंतर तडकाफडकी नातं हि तोडून टाकतो. किती ही घाई सर्व गोष्टींची. पटपट, पटापटा, भरभर,भराभरा, चटचट, चटाचटा, तसेच पटकन,चटकन, भर्रकन, खर्रकन, मटकन, खाडकन , ताडकन, भडाभडा ,भाडभाड, धाडधाड, धडाधडा असे किती तरी शब्द मराठी माणसाच्या आयुष्यातील गतीमानता दाखवतात. हीच गतीमानता मराठी भाषेच्या प्रगतीत हि दिसली तर किती बहार येईल.

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