Just need to vent...

English is one of the most complicated languages, and often makes no sense.
I was recently thinking about how we pronounce: bowl, bowel, cowl, dowel, fowl, foul, howl, jowl, towel, vowel.

 

English pronunciation is one of the most difficult, that's for sure.

First, we write with 5 vowels, but then add another double-o as a vowel, then give those 6 vowels long and short versions, which isn't actually all their versions, and then sometimes they are pronounced and sometimes not.

Spanish: 5 vowels: a, e, i or y, o, and u
Italian: 6 vowels: a, e, i, long-o, short-o, u
English: +13 vowels: ā, ă, ē, ĕ, ī, ĭ, ō, ŏ, ū, ŭ, ōo, ŏo, ə, and sometimes why.

 

It's what happens when a language is made from smashing several other languages together.

 

Don't forget 'ghoti', which should be pronounced 'fish'. Doesn't break any English pronunciation rules.

 

Not really. Spanish is Latin plus Greek plus German plus Arabic, and on our continent, a lot of Aztec smashed into it, and it still only has 5 vowels.

 

Took Greek in school. It's still all Greek To Me

 

'Misled' was one of the favorite miscues of a fifth-grade teacher I used to go out with; she said most of her students would pass through 'MIZZeld' at first and that showed her everything was going right, because that's a totally plausible pronunciation based on the way it's written.

You know it's miss-LED as soon as you recognize it's 'led' with prefix mis- but that comes when you've learned the word's morphology, which is another thing to learn.

 

typo.

 

Years ago, we got a cute little chihuahua puppy. I've always liked the golfer Chi-Chi Rodriquez and my Aunt used to have a chihuahua named Chi-Chi so suggested it as a name to my wife and daughters and they loved it....named him Chi-Chi!

A few years later, my daughter brought over a school friend who was Hispanic and spoke Spanish at home. Her eyes got real big when we told her the dog barking at her was named Chi-Chi. She took my daughter aside and asked if we knew what "Chi-Chis" means in Spanish....we did not so you can look it up, yourself.....big OOPS! (No, we never changed his name.)

 

My bad. MIZZəld.

 

Can a doctor have patients but no patience?

 

Spanish still has gendered words. As does German, which English developed from an early form of. Meanwhile, English doesn't have gendered words. They got loss with all the influences on it.

Since it started with a germanic language, that is where English is placed. It, however, saw more influence from romance/latin languages than other languages in its assigned group. English was likely seen as a pidgin language for part of its history. There was much invading of the island; Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Normans.

History of English - Wikipedia It is..complicated compared to the likes of Spanish.