10

Just wondering because I hear a lot of non-native speakers say things like "bend" instead of "band" and I find it a bit puzzling since native speakers don't say it that way (except in New Zealand and maybe London I suppose? Not sure) and many languages have the usual A-sound that I and many others use (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_front_unrounded_vowel) so it's not like it's difficult to pronounce. I've also seen it mentioned on onzetaal.nl that a particular word with an A is pronounced with an E "like in English" ("Bovendien spreek je app in het Nederlands nog enigszins op z’n Engels uit: als ‘ep’.": https://onzetaal.nl/taalloket/appen-whatsappen-vervoeging). Actually I find myself quite often not understanding Dutch people speaking English if they do it.

The other explanations would be that people can't get their mouths around the short A in standard American and learnèd English Englishes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-open_front_unrounded_vowel) or that people have just sort of collectively, subconsciously decided to start saying it that way, or something else I haven't thought of. Maybe because the name of the letter A in English is more or less the same as the letter E in others?

top 2 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] DosDude@retrolemmy.com 8 points 9 months ago

It's probably the comfortable mouth shape from their native tongue. If you ever try to speak a language fluently you'll notice that your mouth is not used to these shapes and fatigue will set in eventually.

I've noticed this myself when I was in America. After using the language 24/7 my mouth would start to cramp up, and falling back to my native mouth shape made the cramps less. I pride myself on my English pronunciation, and cringe when I hear other people from my country speak English, but I understand where it comes from.

[-] MadBob@feddit.nl 3 points 9 months ago

That's why I mention the way I pronounce it myself: I speak Dutch fluently and I know for certain that Hollandish dialects have the same A I have in my mother tongue, but Hollanders are always saying stuff like "epplication", "bend", "pen", etc. etc. so it doesn't strike me as likely. I do agree though that it's fatiguing making mouth shapes you're not used to!

this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
10 points (85.7% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35277 readers
748 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS