Spelling pronunciationA spelling pronunciation is the pronunciation of a word according to its spelling when this differs from a longstanding standard or traditional pronunciation. Words that are spelled with letters that were never pronounced or that were not pronounced for many generations or even hundreds of years have increasingly been pronounced as written, especially since the arrival of mandatory schooling and universal literacy. Examples of words with silent letters that have begun to be often or sometimes pronounced include often, Wednesday, island, and knife.
Brazilian PortugueseBrazilian Portuguese (português brasileiro poʁtʊˈɡe(j)z bɾazɪˈlejɾʊ ), also Portuguese of Brazil (português do Brasil, poʁtʊˈɡe(j)z dʊ bɾɐˈziw ) or South American Portuguese (português sul-americano) is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the most influential form of Portuguese worldwide. It is spoken by almost all of the 203 million inhabitants of Brazil and spoken widely across the Brazilian diaspora, today consisting of about two million Brazilians who have emigrated to other countries.
Spanish orthographySpanish orthography is the orthography used in the Spanish language. The alphabet uses the Latin script. The spelling is fairly phonemic, especially in comparison to more opaque orthographies like English, having a relatively consistent mapping of graphemes to phonemes; in other words, the pronunciation of a given Spanish-language word can largely be predicted from its spelling and to a slightly lesser extent vice versa. Spanish punctuation includes the use of inverted question and exclamation marks: .
HH, or h, is the eighth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, including the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is aitch (pronounced eɪtʃ, plural aitches), or regionally haitch heɪtʃ. The original Semitic letter Heth most likely represented the voiceless pharyngeal fricative (ħ). The form of the letter probably stood for a fence or posts. The Greek Eta 'Η' in archaic Greek alphabets, before coming to represent a long vowel, /ɛː/, still represented a similar sound, the voiceless glottal fricative /h/.
Mongolian scriptThe classical or traditional Mongolian script, also known as the Hudum Mongol bichig, was the first writing system created specifically for the Mongolian language, and was the most widespread until the introduction of Cyrillic in 1946. It is traditionally written in vertical lines . Derived from the Old Uyghur alphabet, it is a true alphabet, with separate letters for consonants and vowels. It has been adapted for such languages as Oirat and Manchu.
Neoclassical compoundNeoclassical compounds are compound words composed from combining forms (which act as affixes or stems) derived from classical languages (classical Latin or ancient Greek) roots. Neo-Latin comprises many such words and is a substantial component of the technical and scientific lexicon of English and other languages, via international scientific vocabulary (ISV). For example, Greek bio- combines with Latin -graphy to form biography ("life" + "writing/recording").
Compensatory lengtheningCompensatory lengthening in phonology and historical linguistics is the lengthening of a vowel sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant, usually in the syllable coda, or of a vowel in an adjacent syllable. Lengthening triggered by consonant loss may be considered an extreme form of fusion (Crowley 1997:46). Both types may arise from speakers' attempts to preserve a word's moraic count. An example from the history of English is the lengthening of vowels that happened when the voiceless velar fricative /x/ and its palatal allophone [ç] were lost from the language.
FortitionIn articulatory phonetics, fortition, also known as strengthening, is a consonantal change that increases the degree of stricture. It is the opposite of the more common lenition. For example, a fricative or an approximant may become a stop (i.e. [v] becomes [b] or [r] becomes [d]). Although not as typical of sound change as lenition, fortition may occur in prominent positions, such as at the beginning of a word or stressed syllable; as an effect of reducing markedness; or due to morphological leveling.
H-droppingH-dropping or aitch-dropping is the deletion of the voiceless glottal fricative or "H-sound", [h]. The phenomenon is common in many dialects of English, and is also found in certain other languages, either as a purely historical development or as a contemporary difference between dialects. Although common in most regions of England and in some other English-speaking countries, and linguistically speaking a neutral evolution in languages, H-dropping is often stigmatized as a sign of careless or uneducated speech.
Phonological history of English consonant clustersThe phonological history of the English language includes various changes in the phonology of consonant clusters. H-dropping The H-cluster reductions are various consonant reductions that have occurred in the history of English, involving consonant clusters beginning with /h/ that have lost the /h/ (or become reduced to /h/) in some or all dialects. Pronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩ The cluster /hw/ (spelled ⟨wh⟩ since Middle English) has been subject to two kinds of reduction: Reduction to /h/ before rounded vowels (due to /hw/ being perceived as a /h/ with the labialization characteristic of that environment).
