Does the Polish language have vowels that are non-existent in the English language?
Sunday, May 16th, 2010 at
3:30 am
People have a really hard time pronouncing my last name (Skrzypczak). They say that there is only one vowel in it. However, I think that there are actually two (since the zy vowel doesn't exist in the English language). Is this true? In polish, are there vowels that are completely non-existent in the english language?
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Tagged with: english language • hard time • non existent • vowel • vowels
Filed under: Polish Language
Polish actually only contains two vowels that don’t exist in English– both of which are nasal vowels. English actually has a much larger vowel inventory than Polish does, the chief problem English speakers encounter with Polish pronunciation is the number of fricatives and affricates in Polish that either don’t exist in English or are allophones of other fricatives in English.
The two vowels that don’t exist in English are [ɛ̃] (ę) and [ɔ̃] (ą), otherwise every vowel used in Polish is also found in English.
I don’t know what you mean by "the zy vowel", as the z there forms a diagraph with the r preceding it, it doesn’t have any influence on the y after it. The misunderstanding may stem from the fact that the letter y is a bit misunderstood itself. Children are generally taught that it is only "sometimes" a vowel, and are offered no explanation as to why, leading them to consider it to be in its own class of letter– not a vowel, but not a consonant either.
In English, y tends to make three sounds by itself: [j], [aɩ] and [i]. As [j] (as in "yes"), it is a consonant, but should be considered a vowel when used as [aɩ] (as in "why") or [i] (as in "largely"). I would assume that the y in your name is [ɨ], which is a vowel.
only after 2 – 3 cases of beer & some LUTEFISK 8o)