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Each natural language uses but a small part of the great phonetic potential. Apart from speech, this can also be observed, perhaps with greater ease, in singing. Nonetheless, it still allows a great variety of sounds to be pronounced. There are only a few elements whose position can be controlled by conscious will (see the figure below). Fully conscious articulation would be too slow. Speaking in a native or a very well-known language doesn’t require much thought about the positioning of the lips, the tongue or a possible closing of the air flow through the nasal cavity. The differences in sound are the result of different manners of articulation – the way they are pronounced. Different sounds, different manner of articulation Although awareness of such phenomena increases with every new foreign language learnt, only a few realise just how much variety of sound exists in the languages of the world. Several different sounds may sound the same to a non-native speaker, and at the same time, deceptively similar to a sound from their own mother tongue. Correct articulation can prove to be of great difficulty and may require arduous and repetitive practice. Such a replacement could change the meaning of a word or phrase, or even cause the sentence to become incomprehensible. Those sounds cannot simply be replaced by sounds one knows from their own language. Sometimes, there are also sounds which sound similar, yet prove to be different by a minute, but essential, detail. What does this mean? Only when one begins consciously the process of learning a foreign language, does one notice that the language in question possesses sounds far removed from those in one’s own, and not even produced in the same manner. It is often said that languages differ by sound or melody. References & further reading Different languages, different sounds Less widely used languages and technology Different sounds, different manner of articulationĪrchiving and reconstructing sound systems