How do you say the sound 'mb' in African languages when it is followed by a vowel?
455973
I know not one word of any African language. But after reading a couple of Natonal Geographic articles on Africa and then watching Hotel Rwanda, my best guess is this: its said like the Hanson song, Mmmbop. Really. Im not just being stupid. Its sounds like youre trying to sound the word out. em buh, or em boo. Like Mbutu. Its pronounced em-bootoo. Best guess.
858098
I don't have one that I use, but why not, when saying a word, replace the vowels in the word with the next vowel. So, the word say would become sey, eye would become iyi, etc. yes would become yis, rely would become rila (replace the y w/ a, as y is used as a vowel)\n\nSorry it's not very good, but I've never come up with spoken ciphers before.
636055
You're just acting like your name, aren't you?\n\nOf course this rule only relates to the final silent e changing the initial vowel sound.  There are numerous examples where the initial vowel sound is short an unaffected by the final vowel sound:\nDELI\nDIVA\nFETA\nJAVA\nKILO\nLIMO\nMAGI\nMENU\nMESA\nMINI\nPAPA\netc.
60368
Jewelry - not Joolery\nAsterisk - not a$$-trick (and oddly enough, I had to use dollar signs to avoid asterisks!)\nCavalry - not Calvery (unless you're talking about the mountain) \n\nI have an aunt who cannot say "breakfast" - she says "breftuss". It drives me absolutely bonkers.\n\nJust a note regarding the pronunciation of the word "the" - both pronunciations are correct. Generally, the schwa sound  "thuh" is used before words beginning with consonants (the building), and the long E "thee" is used before words beginning with vowels (the outdoors). "Thee" is also used to emphasize the importance of the following word. See the Wikipedia article below.\n\nI'll also add one more word - Been. I admit, I have a tendency to get sloppy and say "bin" or "ben" although the correct pronunciation is "bee-n". (long E like seen).\n(Update - my "bin" pronunciation is acceptable! Check out the Merriam-Webster Online dictionary with the audio pronunciation. Whew - I'm not an illiterate idiot after all.)\n\nOkay, back with a couple more.\n\nMoot (moo like a cow, not mew like a kitten)\nSpecific (not pacific)\nProbably (this has 3 syllables, not 2 - it is pro bab ly not prob ly)
97276
in judaism it is one of the vowels for the alpha bet.\nit's called a segol, and it's sound is like the e in bed
129435
good question...  maybe a latin language.. or swahili..\n\ni'm guessing though
281124
The letter "m" is used because it is the first letter of the French verb "monter",meaning to rise or to ascend. As for "b", I do not know.
1163195
I thought you were kind of crazy to think w is a vowel, but here goes:\n\nhttp://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/t50.html
973177
Go by what it sounds like, not what it looks like. M is pronounced "em". And in this case with TLA (three letter acronymn) each letter is pronounced as a word. \n\nWhat gets me is the American English had "an history lesson" before 1940... did they used to drop the "h"????
841663
Paaaahm- you ignore the L sound and elongate the A sound. The a in this case is pronounced as in the A in "Answer"
870923
The sentence is correct.\nThe 'two vowel' rule is a rule of thumb for the beginning of French.  It's basically only the 'e' that disappears and then only on two letter words. (me, de, se,)  Que is the only three letter word (that I know) that elides (loses the e) and you lose the 'a' in la, ma, ta, sa...  In longer words (notre) or with other letters at the end (tu, stylo), you don't lose the vowel.
772526
You first need to know how to pronounce the sounds...\na - as in Awe \ni - eel\nu - ooh\ne - as in Egg\no - as in Over\n\nThen add the consanants after them and you will have the alphabet.... k, s, t, n, h, m, r, g, z, d, b, p, l, etc.\n   For the 'y' sounds... just YA, YU, YO    And for the 'w' sounds just WA and WO - as in Over.\n   There are a few differences... 'si' is SHI (with shhh sound), 'ti' is CHI (with 'ch' sound), 'tu' is TSU (with 'ts' sound - not 't' then 's', but together like a backwards 'st'), 'hu' is FU (with just the pushing of breath, no 'ffff' sound really), all 'R' sounds are like those in spanish, blurred l'r sound.... Ringo, Rodregez, etc.  \n\n(pronunciation written)\nJapanese has an alaphabet called hiragana.  Below will have pronuncation and then hiragan written...\n\nohaio gozai-mas - good morning --- o-ha-i-o go-za-i-ma-su\n\nkan-ban-wa - good evening ------------- ko-n-ba-n-wa\n\nnani - what --------------- na-ni\n\nari-ga-to(w) - thank you  -------------  a-ri-ga-to-u\n\ndo-i-tashi-mashi-te - your welcom. --------------- do-i-ta-shi-ma-shi-te\n\njya-ne - bye (between friends)\n\nHope that helps.
251022
the five vowels -aeiou??
1014528
Chybelas mi (pronunciation might be a little difficult, try pronounce CH as J in Spanish Juan, if you can't make it, just pronounce CH as K, so K-E-B-YE-LAS-M-EE)\nI missed you so bad....you can say Moc si mi chybela.\n(Mots-see-mee-k-e-b-ye-la)\nHope it helps, I remember my hubby doing the same thing for me...4 yrs ago...good luck to you...!!!
426755
In the example you gave, the (T-shaped) vowel sign is a qamets.  The vertical line placed to the left of the vowel sign is NOT itself a vowel marking.  It is an accent mark --a metheg, used to mark a SECONDARY word accent.\n\nYou didn't list the word in which this appeared, but if the FOLLOWING vowel is a shewa, the metheg indicates that it is a VOCAL shewa.  Related to this in the case of qamets, it may serve to mark the vowel as a qamets (more fully called qamets gadol; the long A sound) rather than a qamets chatuph (also called qamets qatan, a short a or o).
850155
1. Yes, it was respectful. Politeness is part of the culture of East Africa.\n\n2. "Bwana, bibi, mama. It is courteous in Swahili (and courtesy is very important wherever Swahili is spoken) to use these as titles when addressing people. They can be used on their own or followed by the person's name.\n\nBibi is usually shortened to Bi. when followed by the woman's name, e.g. Bi. Ruth. Bibi is probably more common at the coast than inland. Where both are in use, bibi is slightly more formal, and some speakers tend to use it for younger rather than older women. ...\n\nSometimes a married woman is addressed, and referred to, as Mama followed by the name of her eldest or last child, so Mama Fatuama, Mohamed's mother, may well be referred to, by family and friends, as Mama Mohamed..."\n\n3. Another variant that you will hear Africans use, for women older than themselves, is Auntie. So whether it's "Mother" or "Auntie" you are being shown a great deal of respect. Now you can move away from your eurocentrism.
656060
My vote:  TSKTSKS\n\nEXPLANATION\n\nFIRST, what IS a vowel?\n\nbostonianinmo is correct - in words like "sky" the "y" IS a vowel.  The very fact that "bi-" and "by" rhyme, or that you sometimes find "rimed" instead of "rhymed" is evidence of this.\n\nThe idea that ONLY a,e,i,o and u (or even "sometimes y") are vowels in based on oversimplified definition they gave us in grade school.  In fact, a vowel is, before all else, a type of SOUND rather than a type of LETTER.  We call specific letters "vowels" because these letters are the ones TYPICALLY used to indicate the vowel sounds.\n(compare http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxword00.html)\n\nRemember that SPEECH has the primacy and that a word is, first of all a SPOKEN thing.  Writing systems were created as a means to make a record of speech.\n\nNote that the three sounds indicated by the letters "h" "w" and "y" are all weak "semi-vowels" which can easily become vowels or even disappear (as "h" at the end of a syllable).  The basic rule is that, whenever "y" or "w" BEGIN a syllable they mark consonants; at the middle of end of a syllable they mark VOWELS.  (In the case of "w", except for words from the Welsh, like "cwm" [pronounced "coom"!] w is only used for vowels in diphthongs, e.g., "How now brown cow?"     It's even easier to see that they are functioning vowels if you note that final "oy" is pronounced exactly like the "oi" in the middle of a word, and "ow" is pronounced like "ou".)\n\n(Of course, one of my favorite words in all this is "why", made up ONLY of semi-vowels.)\n\n------------------------\n\nThere ARE words without vowel SOUNDS (and in which none of the letters indicates a vowel).   They are various "interjections", such as the following:\n\nbrr(r)\ngrr(r)\ntsk\nshh(h) \npsst\nhmm\nmm-hmm\n\nThis last one might be the longest all by itself.  (It is true we might add extra letters to many such words, e.g., h's to "shh" or r's to "brr".  But that would be cheating. And where would you stop?!)\n\nI think the longest bona fide word of this sort is "tsktsks" used as a verb, the equivalent of "utters a tsktsk" or "expresses disapproval", e.g., "he tsktsks her suggestions".