With only eight consonants and five vowels, the Hawaiian alphabet is a perfect example of the phonemic principle, where each…
Georgian is famous for jaw-dropping consonant clusters like `gvprtskvni` ("you peel us"), which seem to defy the rules of pronunciation.…
Ever stumbled over whether to say 'bet' or 'vet' in Hebrew? This seemingly random choice is a window into a…
Ever wondered why saying 'mā' in Mandarin can mean 'mother' while 'mǎ' means 'horse'? Or how the exact same words,…
Why does the "s" in the Irish word "sláinte" sound like an "sh"? The answer lies in slender and broad…
Move beyond the Great Vowel Shift and explore French's "Great Silence"—the massive, historical loss of final consonants. This single change…
Have you ever heard a vowel that wasn't spelled, like the "a" in the Irish word *uisce* (ish-ka)? This phenomenon,…
Ever wondered why Polish sounds and looks so different from its Slavic cousins like Russian or Czech? From its unique…
Ever wonder why so many people say 'probly' instead of 'probably' or 'libry' instead of 'library'? This common linguistic shortcut…
Named after the Cheshire Cat, Cheshirization is a fascinating phonological process where a vowel vanishes but leaves a ghostly trace…
This website uses cookies.