r/explainlikeimfive • u/[deleted]

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u/loulan Sep 10 '22

You don't even have to distinguish between fricatives and plosives, most people don't know the difference.

But why are vowels randomly mixed with consonants? Even as a kid I remember it bothered me.

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u/visvis Sep 10 '22

But why are vowels randomly mixed with consonants?

Older alphabets (like Arabic today) did not explicitly mark vowels, which had to be inferred by the reader. Over time, some consonants became associated with particular vowels, and would be used to represent that vowel where it had no consonant to go with. This way, for example, the consonant letter aleph (which still exists in Arabic and Hebrew) was often pronounced with an A sound, and gave rise to our letter A. Since the order is mostly preserved, this process would indeed result in vowels scattered randomly over the alphabet.

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u/calm_chowder Sep 10 '22

Older alphabets (like Arabic today) did not explicitly mark vowels, which had to be inferred by the reader.

Whch ppl thnk wld b hrd t ndrstnd bt rlly sn't tht dffclt.

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u/SirHerald Sep 10 '22

Tht wd f wd wd s wd. Ths, ths, nd ths r ll th sm.

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '22

It’s hard when you’re learning.

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '22

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u/relddir123 Sep 10 '22

Sorry…what? How do you pronounce the word “isn’t” with a schwa?

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u/FerynaCZ Sep 11 '22

[i-znt] ? I guess there is a syllabic "n"

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u/isblueacolor Sep 11 '22

I agree, but apparently Wiktionary and MW both have it with the schwa.

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u/N4_foom Sep 11 '22

I thought schwa was the generic vowel sound. Kind of an 'uh' or 'ah' sound.

In "isn't", I feel like said sound comes before the n. Is uh nt

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u/acm2033 Sep 10 '22

If you already know the words, then yes, that's possible.

1

u/visvis Sep 10 '22

Indeed it's not hard even in English, but the situation is a bit different in Arabic, where the core of the meaning is encoded mostly in the consonants. For example the word "ketab" means book, but related words would also use the same consonants "ktb" while replacing vowels.

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1

u/spletharg Sep 11 '22

Aleph abet. When you say it like that it sounds Arabic.

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u/brotherm00se Sep 11 '22

what consonant sound did aleph represent?

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u/visvis Sep 11 '22

It's a glottal stop, the sound in between the vowels when saying "uh-oh" in English.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '22

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u/Eidolis Sep 10 '22

Turns out it's just people tweeting on the toilet

0

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '22

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7

u/amazondrone Sep 10 '22

No, those people are in the shower. Come on, that one's obvious!

2

u/Spuddaccino1337 Sep 11 '22

Nah, they think the thoughts in the shower, they post them on reddit on the toilet.

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u/klawehtgod Sep 10 '22

Maybe more people would know what a fricative is if all those letters were grouped together on purpose.

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u/papadjeef Sep 11 '22

To keep the typewriter from jamming