INTRODUCTION
PHONOLOGY
According
to Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, phonology the
study of the pattern of speech sounds used in a particular language.
Also
we can define phonology as the study of how sound is structured in
languages -- for instance, which of all possible speech sounds a
language uses to build its words, how syllables are built in a
particular language, and other phenomena.
Phonology
is a branch of linguistics concerned with the systematic organization
of sounds in languages. It has traditionally focused largely on study
of the system of phonemes in a particular language.
The
mission of phonology is to understand how speech sounds and phonetic
features are organized in a language so that they can be used to
create contrast from phoneme.
PHONEMES
These
are the different sounds within a language. Although there are
slight differences in how individuals articulate sounds, we can still
describe reasonably accurately how each sound is produced. One sound
rather than another can change the meaning of the word. It is this
principle which gives us the total number of phonemes in a particular
language. (Fremkin, 2007)
Features
of phonology:
-
Look beyond the individual segments at the sound system of a language
-
Features to characterize speech sounds in the language of the world
-
Some features are relevant only for consonants while others are only for vowels
There
is relationship between systematic organization of sounds in English
and in Swahili language. Therefore following are the comparisons
between these two languages
VOWELS
Sounds
that you make when you speak without closing your mouth.( Macmillan
English Dictionary, 2004)
There
are five vowel phonemes (distinctive sounds) in Swahili a,
e, i, o and u
.there are important differences between English and Swahili vowels.
For example the Swahili vowels are short and not diphthongized as are
the comparable of English ones. For instance Swahili “e” is
comparable to the English vowel say without the lengthening or
diphthong it also similar to the vowel in set but not quite as low
with these differences in mind, note the following comparison.
|
Swahili |
English
|
Examples
|
|
|
a |
ah! |
Baba |
Father |
|
e |
Say |
Wewe |
You |
|
i |
Be |
Kiti |
Chair |
|
o |
Ho |
Moto |
Fire |
|
U |
Too |
Tu |
Only Just |
Standard Swahili have five
vowels phonemes: /a/, /∑/, /i/, /ↄ/,/u/. The pronunciation of the
phoneme [u] and [o]. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress.
The vowels are pronounced as follows:
/a/ is pronounced like the ‘a’
in father
/∑/ is pronounced like the
‘e’ in bed
/i/ is pronounced like the ‘I’
in ski
/ↄ/ is pronounced like the
‘o’ in cord
/u/ is pronounced like the ‘u’
in rule
Consonants
Consonants in Swahili
generally have English values but as in the case of vowels there are
considerable differences note the following.
-
P, t, k.
There are similar to English
voiceless stops, but they can be aspirated or unaspirated. That is
speaking the first two words below would release a burst of air that
would rustle a sheet of paper held in front of the speaker’s mouth.
For the second set of words, the sheet of paper would remain still.
Generally initial p, t and k
of class 9/10 nominal are aspirated in contrast to initial p, t and k
of class 5 nominal.
For example:
Paa [p(h)aa]
‘gazelle’
Kaa [k(h)aa]
‘crab’
Versus:
Paa (roof)
passport
Kaa (piece of charcoal)
car
-
b, d, g.
as English voiced stops but
they are imploded that is in their pronunciation the air is sucked
into the mouth as they are released. The ‘g’ is always hard as
in English ‘goat’ versus the ‘g’ in gin.
For example,
Baba (father)
Barber
Dada (sister)
diet
Gumu (hard)
goat
-
F, v, s, z.
F as in English ‘far’
V as in English ‘very’
S as in English ‘sister’
Z as in English ‘zoo’
Fupi (short)
fine
Kavu (dry)
calm
Vizuri (well)
virus
Sasa (now)
sun
-
M, n.
As in English .in some cases
where they occur before other consonants ‘m’ and ‘n’ are
pronounced as full syllables but without inserting a vowel sound
either before or after. The first two examples are syllabic but not
the second two.
Mtu (person)
import
Nta (wax)
Versus
Mboga ‘vegetable’
Ndege ‘bird,
airplane’
-
ny.
As the segment ‘ni’ in
English ‘onion’
Nyanya (grandmother)
Ninyi ‘you’ (plural)
-
ng.
As the ‘ng’ in English
sing, single (not as finger).
Example, ngo’mbe (cow)
The same sound but spelled
with ‘n’ is also heard before ‘g’ e.g. ngoma ‘drum’.
Linguist represents this sound with the phonetic symbol for a velar
nasal, thus ngo’mbe is [ (symbol) + ombe] and ngoma is [(symbol) +
goma]
-
ch
As the first sound in English
‘cheek’ not as in chemist
Example,Chakula (food)
Chache ‘few’
-
j
as in English ‘job’ but
without the audible friction associated with the English consonant,
some speakers of English hear this sound when pronounced by a native
speakers as ‘y’ however a fairly accurate pronunciation can be
achieved by pronouncing it as the sequence ‘dy’
Hujambo (hudyambo)
‘hello’
Jana (dyana)
‘yesterday’
-
W, y, h.
Some people are spell Swahili
‘h’ with ‘kh’ which symbolized (s) a sound similar to the
‘ch’ in Scottish ‘och’. This occurs frequently with Arabic
borrowings but is not the practice followed in this manual.
Watu (people)
water
Yeye (he or she)
yesterday
Huyu (this one or this
person) whole
-
r
Swahili (r) is quite different
from the English one it is similar to the Spanish tapped ‘r’ as
in ‘pero’ but or ‘daro’- of course.
For example:
Habari (news)
rim
Heri (good will,
blessing, and good wishes) read
-
l
As in English when in initial
position e.g. ‘leak, loud, lesson’ second language learners tend
not to distinguish r and l.
Lala (sleep)
Leo (today)
l
-
th
As in English “thought,
think”
Thelathini (thirty)
-
dh
As in English though, thy,
thee, then,
e.g.
Dhani (think)
-
gh
This sound is pronounced by
pronunciation ‘g’ as in a fricative it is similar to the in
Scottish ‘loch’ but voiced
E.g.
Ghala ‘storehouse’
Ghali
‘expensive’
-
sh
As in English ‘push’. This
sound plus kh, dh and gh are in words that have been borrowed into
Swahili predominantly from Arabic e.g. of ‘sh’.
Ishirini (twenty)
Mshahara (salary)
-
mw
A combination of m followed
immediately by w
Example,
Mwalimu (teacher)
Mwanafunzi (student)
-
bw
A combination of b w and w
Example,
Bwana (sir or Mr.)
Mbwa (dog)
CONCLUCSION
According
to the observation which we have done, Kiswahili language seems to
lack diphthong sounds and this may be the big difference from English
language with eight(8) diphthong sounds as we have seen above. This
may be even in other languages which we have not included in our
study instead we have based only in these two languages, Kiswahili
and English.
REFERRENCES
Fremkin,
V. (2007) An
introduction to language.USA
Michili Rosemberg
Jean,
O. (1994). Reading,
language, and literacy: instruction for the twenty-first century.
Hillsdale, Lawrence Erlbaum.
Macmillan
English Dictionary For Advanced Learners,
(2004).Michael Rundell.London
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