Is A really for Apple?

*Is A really for Apple?*
Ganiu Abisoye Bamgbose (GAB)

As I round off my session on pronunciation tips, it is essential to state that the hallmark of my lessons since the beginning of the year is to establish that *THERE IS NO ONE-TO-ONE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN SOUNDS AND LETTERS IN ENGLISH*. It is possible to have a letter and not have what it represents in sound. Very many English words have the letter w and do not have the sound /w/. Some of them are: who, whose, whom, vow, vowel, tower, towel. On the other hand, many words too contain the /w/ sound without the orthographic w. Some of such words that contain the /w/ sound but do not have letter w are: one, queen, linguist and many more.

Letter c is not a sound on its own in English but it is capable of generating four different sounds: c in cat is /k/, c in cell is /s/, c in machine is /ʃ/ and c in church is /t͡ʃ/. More interestingly, every word with “ch” does not necessarily give the /t͡ʃ/ sound; some generate the /ʃ/ sound as we find in machine, charlatan and many other words.

The problem with spoken English began among Nigerians when teachers of the language failed to realise that 26 letters can’t be used to teach 44 sounds directly. There are sounds that do not exist as letters and there are letters that generate more than one sound. Letter X for instance is made up of three sounds: /eks/. THE CONFUSION THAT COMES WITH TEACHING “A FOR APPLE” is the possibility of letter A to generate more sounds than what is found in the word “apple”. Letter A gives different sounds altogether at the initial positions of the words: apple, able and allow. To say therefore that A is for Apple is a hasty generalisation.

It is essential to know that the English letters do not at all times correspond with their sounds. It is therefore important to pay attention to how words should be articulated without relying on the letters that make up the word. Relying on letters will not make one know, for instance, that ” gaol” is pronounced as “jail” and pizza does not even have the sound /z/ in its pronunciation: /pi:tsə/. Anyone who desires fluency at the level of articulation must therefore listen to how words are pronounced through the aid of online dictionaries, transcriptions and by listening to native speakers of the language through news broadcast or movies.

(c) 2019 Ganiu Abisoye Bamgbose (GAB)
University of Ibadan