Blog Post #2

As mentioned in the textbook, there are many borrowed words across different languages that have similar yet different pronunciations. One example would be the word lemon [lemən] pronounced as leh+muhn in English. I found out that this word originates from the Arabic word ليمون or līmūn which means a yellow citrus fruit. Another English word that originated from Arabic is coffee [kɑːfi]. This comes from the arabic word قهوة or Kahwa. The middle and ending of the words are different however the beginning sound [Ka] is the same. I also find it interesting that not only does the pronunciation change between languages, it also changes between the dialects of the language as well. For example, in standard Arabic, it is pronounced Kahwa, however in my Egyptian dialect we don’t pronounce the beginning the same. Instead we say Ahwa. So I think its very interesting how pronunciations of the same word differentiate between different dialects as well as different languages.

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