Phonology

If we look at sound inventories of languages, we notice that several sounds are shared by a multiplicity of languages. Indeed, it is also possible that two or more languages have exactly the same sounds. However, having the same sounds does not mean that their phonologies (their patterning) are the same. Let us illustrate this with some concrete examples. If we presented the words name, snail, panther, and invite to a native speaker of English and asked whether there was any consonant sound that is shared by these words, we would invariably get a positive answer, and the consonant sound identified would be the one orthographically represented by n. In fact, the sounds that are identified as the same are not phonetically identical. In name [nem] we have a voiced alveolar nasal, which becomes partially devoiced in snail [sn̥el]. In panther, the nasal sound is dental [pæn̪θɚ], and finally, in invite, it is labio-dental, [ɪɱvaɪt]. What is interesting and important here is the fact that, although there are phonetic differences among these sounds, native speakers of English do not pay attention to them, as the differences are functionally not relevant in their language.

If, on the other hand, we present the first and the third words in the above list (name and panther) to a speaker of Malayalam (a Dravidian language, spoken in the southwest of India), the situation would be entirely different. Since, in this language, employment of [6] instead of [n] in a given word can change the meaning of the word, the phonetic difference between the dental and alveolar nasals cannot be overlooked, and the speakers of Malayalam would perceive the phonetic difference under consideration immediately.

Let us now consider another example in which the sensitivity to a given phonetic difference between two sounds will come from speakers of English, while it is overlooked in another language. If we give the following words, drama “drama”, dolor “pain”, comida “food”, and lado “side”, to native speakers of Spanish and ask them whether there is any consonant sound shared by all these words, the unmistakable answer would be the sound that is orthographically represented by d. The fact is that while the sound that is represented by the orthographic d in the first two words is a stop, [d̪], the one represented by the same grapheme in the third and the fourth words is a fricative, [ð]. In a way similar to what happened in the above case with different nasals in English, Spanish speakers overlook the phonetically different sounds, because their language does not employ the phonetic difference between these two sounds in a structurally significant fashion. If, on the other hand, we give two words containing the same two sounds to a speaker of English, the difference between [d̪] and [ð] will be immediately noticed. The reason for this is that the difference between these two sounds is very critical in English and can separate one word from another, as exemplified by the pair of words day [de] and they [ðe].

When such mismatches are pointed out to the speakers of languages where phonetic differences are overlooked, one very often sees an attempt to justify this by suggesting that whatever difference is overlooked presents a very small difference phonetically, whereas the immediately noticed one is very obvious. That is, in the case of English, the speakers would defend the situation by saying that the differences among the nasals [n, n̪, n̥, ɱ] is small and may not be perceptible, while the difference between [d] and [ð] is larger and is easily noticed.

That such explanations cannot be taken seriously becomes obvious when we switch the cases around and put the same questions to Malayalam speakers for the difference between [n̪] and [n], and to Spanish speakers for [d̪] and [ð]. The answers we will get will be diametrically opposed to what we receive from speakers of English. We are likely to be told how obvious the difference between the dental and alveolar nasals is by Malayalam speakers, and how insignificant the difference is between [d̪] and [ð] by speakers of Spanish. These examples show that whether the users of a given language would be attuned to a given phonetic difference simply depends on whether that difference is contrastive (capable of changing the meaning of words) in that language.

Whether a given phonetic difference is meaningful (i.e. easily perceived, catches the attention of native speakers, etc.) has to do with the functional (contrastive) status in a language, and this has to do with the distribution of sounds in a given sound system.