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The English words «cup» and «bug» are pronounced as kʌp and bʌɡ. Many Finnish people pronounce them with the sound that corresponds to the letter «a» in Finnish and Norwegian alphabet: kap, bag (h...
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Moshi
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2025-01-29T01:21:24Z (1 day ago)
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2025-01-28T17:29:14Z (2 days ago)
Different pronunciation of «cup» and «bug» by Norwegians and Finns
The English words «cup» and «bug» are pronounced as kʌp and bʌɡ. Many Finnish people pronounce them with the sound that corresponds to the letter «a» in Finnish and Norwegian alphabet: kap, bag (how the pronunciation would be written in Finnish) or kapp, bagg (Norwegian). Many Norwegians pronounce them with the sound that corresponds to the letter «ö» or «ø» in Finnish and Norwegian alphabet, respectively: köp, bög (how the pronunciation would be written in Finnish) or köpp, bögg (Norwegian). Both Finnish and Norwegian have quite similar sounds, a and ö/ø, but do not have ʌ as a letter (I am uncertain whether it is some pronunciation of some word regardless). I find it interesting that the pronunciations of cup/bug (and maybe other similar words) diverges so clearly. Is this caused by some other feature of the languages? Or is it just a coincidence of history that someone started pronouncing the terms with a or ø/ö and then that just spread?