Blog post #2

One word that got borrowed from English language, to my native language (Urdu) is the word “bank”. In English it is pronounced as /bæŋk/ whereas in Urdu it is also pronounced as /bæŋk/.The pronunciation in both English and Urdu are quite similar. However a subtle difference is in the articulation of the vowel and the velar nasal, because the phonemes used in “bank” (/b/,/æ/,/ŋk/) are acceptable in Urdu. The only thing is articulation which is different due to the accent and phonetic tendencies of Urdu speakers. The adaptation here is quite minimal since most of these sounds are in Urdu’s phonemic inventory. For instance the use of /b/, the open front vowel /æ/ can also accommodate the /ŋk/ cluster. This is due to the presence of the /ŋ/ sound in the language. This is one of those examples where some words are borrowed to maintain familiar sounds and structures, but at times articulation comes into play and makes slight changes to the pronunciation of the word.

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