# Vowel length



## mrw

*Split off from this thread.
Frank, moderator*


Whether vowels or diphtongs are long or short depends on what follows. If the vowel/diphtong is followed by a syllable rather than just one consonant, in general it will be long. E.g. schrijven - 'ij' is long but schrijf - 'ij' is short.


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## Frank06

Hi,


mrw said:


> Whether vowels or diphtongs are long or short depends on what follows.


How do you mean?
In words as /graf/ and /gra.f/, both vowel sounds are followed by the same /f/. Yet the first one is long and the second one is short. Which shows that the length of either vowels and diphtongs does not depend on what follows. Could it be that you mix up the notion 'letter' with the notion 'sound'?
The long a-sound is sometimes written as <a>, sometimes as <aa>. The spelling of that sound (one or two graphemes), however, doesn't influence the length of the sound.

What you write about the diphtongs is quite surprising (see below).



> If the vowel/diphtong is followed by a syllable rather than just one consonant, in general it will be long. E.g. schrijven - 'ij' is long but schrijf - 'ij' is short.


Never before I heard that the lenght of the diphtong is influenced by the fact that it is part of an open or closed syllable. This would mean that Dutch has long and short diphtongs. Where did you read/hear/find this?

Groetjes,

Frank


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## mrw

Frank06, correct I was referring to pronounciation. I was referring to those vowels and diphtongs that are pronounced long or short depending on what follows. When we have double vowels, i.e. 'ee', 'aa', its pronounced as long ofcourse


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## Frank06

Hoi,



mrw said:


> Frank06, correct I was referring to pronounciation. I was referring to those vowels and diphtongs that are pronounced long or short depending on what follows. when we have double vowels, i.e. 'ee', 'aa', its pronounced as long ofcourse


 
I think we have a kind of misunderstanding here. If so, my apologies.

Any which way...
Dutch has two sets of vowel sounds, well, actually three (or two and a half):
1. short vowels
2. long vowels
3. half-long vowels (see note 1)

Let's take the vowel a:
- in 'm*a*n' it's short: /a/
- in 'm*aa*n' it's half-long /a./
- in 'm*aa*r' it's long (before /r/): /a:/

The length of *none* of these sounds is affected by what follows:
- in 'm*a*n' and 'm*a*nnen', the short /a/ is equally short;
- in 'm*aa*n' and 'm*an*en', half long /a./ is equally half-long;
- in 'm*aa*r' and 'm*a*ren', long /a:/ is equally long.

The spelling of <manen> and <maren> is just based upon a convention, which used to be different before the 1954 spelling reform. No matter which spelling convention one uses, the length of the sounds remain the same. Whether you spell 'maan' with a double letter <aa> and 'manen' with a single letter <a> (or <ae> or <aa>), that doesn't affect the vowel length at all.
Comparing the a-sounds in 'man' and 'maan' and the spelling <a> <aa> is like... how can I say, 'comparing apples with lemons', to translate the Dutch saying (in a literal and hence awfuyl way).

Neither is the length of a dipthong affected by what follows:
the <ij>, /ɛɪ/ in 'schrijven' is as long as the <ij> /ɛɪ/ in 'schrijf'. If not, we would have long and short diphtongs (as you claim). I'm sorry, I never heard of that before.

Now, as usual, I can be completely wrong. But I couldn't find back anything of what you state in the few books I have on Dutch (standard) pronunciation. I'd be very grateful if you could give me some references and/or quotes.

Groetjes,

Frank


Note 1:
Just to be complete, though we can make an abstraction of this for the purpose of our little discussion: there is another distinction to be made: short /a/ and the (half-)long 'counterparts' /a./ and /a:/ also differ in quality. So normally, when using IPA, we should use /ɑ/ and /a./ - /a:/ (or even the square brackets). Since we're discussing only vowel length here, I'll ignore these notations.


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## optimistique

Frank06 said:


> Dutch has two sets of vowel sounds, well, actually three (or two and a half):
> 1. short vowels
> 2. long vowels
> 3. half-long vowels (see note 1)



To my best knowledge there is no difference in vowel length in Dutch. As you mentioned, Frank, the vowels in 'man' and 'maan' have a different quality, and you could might give them a lenght difference when you pronounce them in isolation (to check if there is any). When in normal conversation however, I believe there is really no difference in length, I guess not even between 'man' or 'maar'. To see you should measure the length of these vowels (which I think must have been done, but I can't give any reference, I'm afraid).

Make a sentence and try it. I don't hear a difference in lenght between:

'De maan is groot' & 'De man is groot'.


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## Outsider

What about the other vowels? Does their quality vary along with their length?


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## Frank06

Hi,


optimistique said:


> To my best knowledge there is no difference in vowel length in Dutch.


 
From: _Uitspraak Nederlands_


> de *lange* [e:]-klank komt voor met de spelling _-e-_ in open en met de spelling _-ee- _in gesloten geaccentueerde syllabe, in beide gevallen voor -_r_-. [...] Meestal is de [e] echter *halflang*.


This description follows the explantion on short /e/ (or more precisely, [ɛ]), p. 24.
They give similar explantions for the other vowels.

See also here:


> Het Nederlands onderscheidt *13 vocalen* (klinkers) plus 3 diftongen (tweeklanken) en *19 consonanten* (medeklinkers). Met betrekking tot _klinkers is lengte in het Nederlands een belangrijk betekenisonderscheidend kenmerk_: de 13 klinkers kunnen worden onderverdeeld in 7 lange en 6 korte klinkers.


On another page of this website this sharp distinction between long / short is slightly modified.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## HKK

Optimistique is saying vowel length doesn't vary in Dutch. At least not phonemically. I second that. 


However, in a lot of accents, some diphthongs are made into long vowels (in the true sense of the word), contrasting phonemically with their short counterparts.
In Leuven accent:
pen: /pɛn/
pijn: +- /pɛ:n/

het: /hət/
huid: /hə:t/


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## Joannes

HKK said:


> Optimistique is saying vowel length doesn't vary in Dutch. At least not phonemically. I second that.


That's true, but what Frank says is also true. In many Brabantic dialects, [a] is the _short_ vowel and [ɑ:] the _long_ one. So the <a> in *man*, pronounced the Brabantic way, has the same vowel quality as the <aa> in *maan* with standard pronunciation, but the Standard Dutch one is definitely longer!



Outsider said:


> What about the other vowels? Does their quality vary along with their length?


Yes, all vowels that are said to have an alternation in short vs. long also differ in quality. (As has been said, their quality is actually their major distinctive feature, not their length.) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_phonology

(Let me add as a sidenote that there also exist morphophonological alternations in vowels that are not traditionally regarded upon as short vs. long. Think of *schip* 'ship' versus *schepen* 'ships' / *scheepvaart* 'shipping'. Obviously the vowel quality is also very important there. )


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## Frank06

Hi,


optimistique said:


> Make a sentence and try it. I don't hear a difference in lenght between:
> 'De maan is groot' & 'De man is groot'.


 
What about:
Bart heeft een baard
Een man op de maan
?

Groetjes,

Frank


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## optimistique

Frank06 said:


> What about:
> 
> Bart heeft een baard
> Een man op de maan



Alright, let me introduce the term 'tenseness' of a vowel. In Dutch we have pairs of 'ee'-'è', 'oo'-'o', 'aa'-'a', 'ie'-'i' and 'uu'-'u'. These are pairs of two related vowels, but these are not short and long variants of the same vowel. 

With the first of each you can notice that the tongue is a little bit higher in respect to the second, or you could say that the tongue is a little bit retracted for the second. So for the first vowel of each pair, the tongue is tense (gespannen), but for the second it is not. As a result, the vowels of these pairs each have a different position in the mouth.

So length is totally irrelevant for the difference between all these vowels. They are simply different vowels altogether. That we speak of a short-a to name the 'a' in 'man' and of a long-a for the 'a' in 'maan' doesn't mean that there really is a length difference. This terminology has turned out very misleading.

Also read this:   "Unlike English, Dutch phonology contains certain long-short vowel pairs which differ qualitatively and phonologically, but not quantitatively." 
Source: The effect of vowel length and syllable structure on the location of pitch peaks in Dutch. D. R. Ladd, Ineke Mennen & Astrid Schepman  Architectures and Mechanisms in Language Processing, Edinburgh, 23-25 September 1999.

And I'd like to add: I am only talking about Standard Dutch. I know for example that length is very important in Limburgish. So I believe with all my heart that there are dialects or variants that do have a length contrast, too. But it's not in Standard Dutch.


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## Tchesko

Hi everyone and sorry to interfere in this already elaborated discussion,

My Dutch textbook says: "The difference in length between long and short vowels is very small; in order to quantify it, advanced acoustic equipment is necessary. It is rather the matter of a different 'colour' in pronunciation."

This is quite easy to understand for me, as in my native language (Czech) the distinction between short and long vowels is a fundamental one but the actual difference in duration varies among regions, speakers, language registers and utterance speed.

However, my textbook never mentions half-long vowels. Could you kindly provide me with some more information on that matter? For instance, why should the "aa" grapheme be pronounced half-long in "maan" but long in "maar"?

Regards,
Roman


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## optimistique

Tchesko said:


> For instance, why should the "aa" grapheme be pronounced half-long in "maan" but long in "maar"?



Hello Roman,

Well, the vowels before an 'r' are said to be lengthened, and I think that that is sometimes true, for example in words in isolation, without a sentence. That's why the vowel in 'maar' is said to be long. The 'aa' in other surroundings is pronounced normally, but it is believed to be long. However, it is not really long, or in any case not as long as the 'aa' in 'maar', so that is why it is called 'half-long'. 

But I think it is nothing to worry about. I may be repeating myself , but focus on getting the quality of the vowel right, the length is of no importance. In the average Dutch conversation all vowels are short. 

Compare it to English, the vowels in English are mostly considerably longer. That is one of the reasons why it sounds weird, when English words are pronounced the Dutch way, because most of the vowels are too short.


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## Frank06

Hi,


optimistique said:


> Alright, let me introduce the term 'tenseness' of a vowel.


Thanks for the introduction, but all I wanted to know is how you pronounce:
'Bart heeft een baard' 
in Standard Dutch. With or without a difference in length. 

As mentioned in post #4, I am aware of the different quality of both a-sounds (and i/e/u/o-sounds for that matter).



> So length is totally irrelevant for the difference between all these vowels.


So, you say that the a-sound in 'Bart' is as long as the a-sound in 'baar*d*'? If so, thanks. (oeps: [edit]Bart baart niet, hij heeft een baar*d*.[/edit]

And I'd like to add: I am also only talking about Standard Dutch. 

Groetjes,

Frank


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## optimistique

Frank06 said:


> Thanks for the introduction, but all I wanted to know is how you pronounce:
> 'Bart heeft een baard'
> in Standard Dutch. With or without a difference in length.



I wasn't aware you would be so easily convinced

Yes! indeed without difference in length.

...

So now is maybe the time to weaken my own point. Out of the ten times I say it, there are maybe one or two times that there is a little bit of length difference, (it's never white or black) but that is accidental. The only way of finding convincing evidence for this is when the sentence is said when the speaker is not searching for length in it. One could easily fool himself with this, as I did too, at first.


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## HKK

I'd say 'baard' is definitely longer than 'Bart'. Optimistique, I hope you're not offended, but could regional Limburgish influences possibly be lengthening the a in Bart?


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## Frank06

Hoi,



optimistique said:


> I wasn't aware you would be so easily convinced


Dat had je gedacht ;-).

Anyway, it's a bit against my nature, but what I had/have in mind are the descriptions I found about so-called standard Dutch (hence quite _normative_).
In mean time I asked 5 colleagues (all of them speech therapists, logopedisten) to for extra information. Five should be enough to even convince me .



> So now is maybe the time to weaken my own point.


Maybe my explanations are coloured by two factors:
1. I am from Antwerp, and over here, the length of the vowels is very decisive (but that's not standard Dutch, I know);
2. Most (if not all) explantions on the Dutch vowel system for second language learners I am aware of (and which I read because of my profession) stress the length rather than the quality of the vowel (the latter is often only briefly mentioned, if mentioned at all). I am quite sure that most authors of those kind of books (and most teachers, including me) nevertheless are aware of the differences in quality.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## optimistique

Alright, you have made me doubt ;-)

HKK, no my fonetical background is not lengthening the 'a'. What might be misleading me, is that in Limburgisch long vowels are pronounced overlong: they last at least 1,5 second, if not 2. If in Standard Dutch 'bart' is pronounced 1/4 of a second, and 'baard' is 1/2 of a second (just some rough guesses!), in comparison, the difference is still minimal. 

So maybe there is a length difference, how small it sometimes may be. 

Frank, about the stressing the length instead of the quality, might that be because length is easier to explain? I remain convinced of it that we distinguish the vowel on the basis of the quality and if at all, only secondary on basis of length.



Frank06 said:


> Hoi,
> 
> 
> Dat had je gedacht ;-).
> 
> Anyway, it's a bit against my nature, but what I had/have in mind are the descriptions I found about so-called standard Dutch (hence quite _normative_).
> In mean time I asked 5 colleagues (all of them speech therapists, logopedisten) to for extra information. Five should be enough to even convince me .
> 
> 
> Maybe my explanations are coloured by two factors:
> 1. I am from Antwerp, and over here, the length of the vowels is very decisive (but that's not standard Dutch, I know);
> 2. Most (if not all) explantions on the Dutch vowel system for second language learners I am aware of (and which I read because of my profession) stress the length rather than the quality of the vowel (the latter is often only briefly mentioned, if mentioned at all). I am quite sure that most authors of those kind of books (and most teachers, including me) nevertheless are aware of the differences in quality.
> 
> Groetjes,
> 
> Frank


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## Baunilha

Normal diphtongs are always pronounced the same way: au, ou, ie,...

When you use one vowel in a word like for exemple b*o*mmetje or b*o*men,  it depends on wether it is followed by one or two consonnants.

I guess that's the general rule. tis true that the pronounciation may be slightly different but that could be due to emphasis,...


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## ablativ

While *a, e, o* can be pronounced as short, half-long and long vowels, my books on Dutch pronunciation state that *i, oe, u *(/i/, /u/, /y/) are either long or short vowels only. Their pronunciation is long, when they are followed by an *r *and short in all other cases. Of course, these vowels still differ in quality (liep vs lip, minuut vs kus) rather than in length. The length of "oe" (/u/) in "bloem" causes the diminutive to be either "bloempje" ("oe" considered a half-long vowel like "boom" and "boompje") or "bloemetje" (oe as a short vowel like "bom" and "bommetje).


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