US President Donald Trump sparked a language-related controversy last week. He commended his Liberian counterpart, Joseph Boakai, for speaking what he considered exceptionally good English during a meeting he had with five African leaders at the White House. So impressed was Trump that he asked Boakai where he schooled.
To some people, it was arrogant and undiplomatic on Trump’s part to have subjected his fellow president to such scrutiny. Some also argued it exposed Trump’s ignorance as they believe he does not know that Liberia is an English-speaking country actually founded in 1822 by the American Colonization Society whose goal was to resettle freed slaves in Africa. Yet, others saw sincerity on Trump’s extrovert lips, especially as he conceded that some of the US officials at the meeting could not handle English as beautifully as Boakai did.
As usual, we are not interested in the politics of the debate in this class. Rather, we want to learn one or two things from star speaker Boakai. We shall, thus, highlight the phonological traits he displayed, which smashed Trump’s heart. Specifically, we observe that the visitor did justice to the pronunciations of the following words which many often murder when speaking: work, peace, thank and happen.
Whoever is able to pronounce ‘work’ well is likely to win the heart of enlightened ears like Trump’s. Globally, millions (if not billions) of people are complacent at articulating the word. While some simply but wrongly pronounce the ‘or’ in it as they do the ‘o’ in ‘shot’ or ‘pot’, thereby reducing it to a short vowel, others who believe it should be long overgenaralise by pronouncing it as the ‘or’ in’ short’ or ‘port’. The fact, however, is that the correct sound of the ‘or’ in ‘work’ is more of EERR than OORR. It ought to come out as the ‘or’ in word, worm and world. Interestingly, it is the same sound you have in the following –ir words: bird, first and third. Also, it is present in curl, burn and hurt. In this wise, Boakai’s pronunciation of ‘work’ was cute and it must be one of the feats Trump could not resist.
Baokai was also sharp in his pronunciation of ‘peace’. Remember, the vowel symbolised by ‘ea’ in the noun is a long one. Unlike many who would say PIS (as in ‘piss’), he stretched the sound to realise the vowel’s elastic length. So, next time you want to pronounce peace, bead, seat, feat etc., do not pronounce them as pis, bid, sit and fit. In the latter examples, you have short vowels whereas the ones in the first (peace, bead etc.) are long. Kudos to our dear Boakai for doing justice to ‘peeaace’!
Another contagiously mispronounced word, especially in this part of the world, is ‘thank’. The basic problem is that too many folks do not know how to pronounce the consonant sounds that ‘th’ represents. In many cases, they pronounce it as T or D.
For instance, when they intend think, three, through and with, the say tink, tree, true and wit. Also, instead of this, that, though and within, they say did, dat, dough and widin (or witin!) Are you among those affected by the linguistic pandemic? You need to quickly see a specialist doctor or take a cue from the Liberian leader who was able to rattle Trump by the way he gallantly said ‘THank you.’
Happen: HAppen, not Appen
The ‘h’ that begins ‘happen’ is not a silent sound – and Baoika subtly demonstrated this. Pronouncing letter h is the bane of a lot of people but he is not one of them. Although the consonant is silent in certain common h-words like hour, honesty, hunter, with and within etc., it is not silent in happen, hell, how, he, happy etc. This is part of the lessons the Liberian President’s speech teaches and I hope our analysis, so far, has inspired you to sharpen your elocution too by mastering the pronunciation of work, peace, thank, happen and other related terms.
Credit:Punch