Very Basic Phonology

In my opinion, listening is--without a doubt--the most important skill for language learning. Sounds in different languages are not necessarily alike. Moreover, sounds in a language may also be more than one may realize (or be taught).

Last week in Japanese 101, we learned the word for bank (as in the place to save money), ぎんこう. In our textbooks, the romanized form reads "ginkoo". However, there is more than meets the eye. The hiragana ん　is pronounced /n/...usually. In the case of this word, there is an interesting phenomenon taking place, one that we also see in English as well.

Say the following English words to yourself:

Thin--Think
Sin--Sink
Bin--Bink (okay not a real word--but it is the name of a company that makes awesome video games)

What you probably notice, if you are listening closely, is that the "n" is not always /n/. When followed by the "k" /k/ , the "n" is pronounced /ŋ/ (like the "ng" in "sing"). The same process is also taking place in the Japanese word "ginkoo" /giŋko:/.

This process is know as Assimilation, the sounds beside each other conform to each other. In this case, instead of the tongue touching the area behind your teeth, the tongue goes further back to prepare to make the sound for /k/. Specifically, this is regressive contact assimilation--there are many other kinds (regressive=the sound before changes, contact=the sounds are right next to each other). Moreover, because the Japanese language only claims to have an /n/ sound, we can refer to the /n/ and /ŋ/ as being allophones--the sounds are one item in the language, even though they are different. The same is true with the /l/ and /ɹ/ ('r' sound) in Japanese--but what rules do they follow? Hopefully, I can answer that in a future post.

さよなら！