# pronunciation of 'g'



## killerbees

I've been reading up on the infamous Dutch 'g' sound and I'm coming across a bit of contrary information. I'm talking about the pronunciation of 'g' at the beginning of a word, i.e. *g*aan, *g*raag, and in the middle of a word, i.e. al*g*emeen, ze*gg*en. Is this a voiced fricative or a voiceless one? Is this contingent on a regional accent?


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## Grytolle

g is voiced, ch is voiceless.

Lots of people (especially in the Netherlands) sometimes or always pronounce g voiceless, this is more common when the g doesn't stand between two vowels => it's more often voiceless in the start of a word than in the middle of one.

I don't know what the current pronounciation _norm_ is in the Netherlands, but I don't think the voiceless pronounciation is accepted in Belgium.

Furthermore, there are different places of articulation for the g/ch:
Harde "g" (always voicedless, because the voiced variant would sound like an r: [ʁ]): [χ]
Zachte g/ch: [ɣ] (voiced), [x] (voiceless)

(Optional) zachte g/ch (more often after a front vowel, compare German ich/ach-lauts): [ʝ] (voiced), [ç] (voiceless).


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## killerbees

Thanks very much for the help!

Now I can stop obsessing over pronunciation [even if I keep stumbling over "ui"] and start obsessing over grammar and nuance.


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## merquiades

Hi.  I was wondering if there were dialects where g is a stop, closer to the English sound, and not so much a fricative.  In Belgium perhaps?


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## Peterdg

merquiades said:


> Hi. I was wondering if there were dialects where g is a stop, closer to the English sound, and not so much a fricative. In Belgium perhaps?


 Not that I know of. Some people of French origin pronounce it as a stop (in analogy with the French pronunciation), but as far as I know, it does not happen in native pronunciation, at least not in Belgium (wait for others to confirm: I may be overlooking some dialects).

What does happen in some dialect(s) (e.g. the dialect of West Flanders) is that the "g" is pronounced as an aspired "h".


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## Grytolle

and an intervocalic k often becomes a stop there


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## Lopes

merquiades said:


> Hi.  I was wondering if there were dialects where g is a stop, closer to the English sound, and not so much a fricative.  In Belgium perhaps?



I´m not sure what you mean by stop, but the ´g´ in words as 'schreeuwen' en 'schrap' used to be pronounced as a k (skreeuwen, skrap) in (parts of?) Amsterdam some time ago. You hear it every now and then from "older" people, say at least 45 years old, but it may depend on the neighbourhood they grew up in.


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## Joannes

merquiades said:


> Hi. I was wondering if there were dialects where g is a stop, closer to the English sound, and not so much a fricative. In Belgium perhaps?


I don't think there is any dialect like that. It is a non-native pronunciation.


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## Grytolle

Lopes said:


> I´m not sure what you mean by stop, but the ´g´ in words as 'schreeuwen' en 'schrap' used to be pronounced as a k (skreeuwen, skrap) in (parts of?) Amsterdam some time ago. You hear it every now and then from "older" people, say at least 45 years old, but it may depend on the neighbourhood they grew up in.



I've heard that [sk] has some covert prestige amoung young men somewhere in Holland!


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## merquiades

Thanks to everybody for your prompt responses.  I heard this hard "g" pronunciation in Brussels.  My Dutch is not good enough for me to understand everything let alone tell who is a foreigner or not, although strong French accents in any language are easily recognizable.  I thought it might be a difference in accent between Belgians and Dutch since my impression in general is that Flemish seems softer, but I could be totally wrong.

Peter, is Flemish /g/ the equivalent of Spanish (lago) or (caja)?  In West Flanders doesn't the /h/ pronunciation cause confusion with words with h?

Lopes, by stop I meant a sound like the hard /g/ say in English go, girl, get


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## Grytolle

h is never pronounced in the dialects of about half of Flanders


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## Peterdg

merquiades said:


> Peter, is Flemish /g/ the equivalent of Spanish (lago) or (caja)?


Neither of both. "Ca*j*a" is the dutch "ch" sound. Unless I'm overseeing something, I don't think the "la*g*o" sound exists in Dutch. The Dutch soft "g" sound does not correspond to anything in Spanish.


> In West Flanders doesn't the /h/ pronunciation cause confusion with words with h?


Yes, it does cause confusion
E.g. to the non West-Flemish ear, "hout" (wood) and "goud" (gold) are easily confused.


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## merquiades

Peterdg said:


> Neither of both. "Ca*j*a" is the dutch "ch" sound. Unless I'm overseeing something, I don't think the "la*g*o" sound exists in Dutch. The Dutch soft "g" sound does not correspond to anything in Spanish.



Well I obviously have a problem with the /g/ sound.  Not like any Spanish sound, not like a French r.  I guess I'll pronounce h.  At least it's authentic somewhere.


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## Peterdg

merquiades said:


> I guess I'll pronounce h. At least it's authentic somewhere.


No! Pronounce it like "ch". You will avoid confusion and you'll sound like our friends of the north


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## Grytolle

Peterdg said:


> Neither of both. "Ca*j*a" is the dutch "ch" sound. Unless I'm overseeing something, I don't think the "la*g*o" sound exists in Dutch. The Dutch soft "g" sound does not correspond to anything in Spanish


Antwerps zeggen: [zɪʝə] imo


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## Peterdg

Grytolle said:


> Antwerps zeggen: [zɪʝə] imo


 What are you referring to?


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## Grytolle

Isn't [ʝ] something in Spanish?


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## Joannes

merquiades said:


> I thought it might be a difference in accent between Belgians and Dutch since my impression in general is that Flemish seems softer, but I could be totally wrong.


Many people share that impression, Dutch and Flemings included.



Peterdg said:


> Neither of both. "Ca*j*a" is the dutch "ch" sound. Unless I'm overseeing something, I don't think the "la*g*o" sound exists in Dutch. The Dutch soft "g" sound does not correspond to anything in Spanish.


There I don't agree with you, Peter. Judging from your response I think you don't take the phonetic variation into consideration. In *caja*, <j> is voiced because of the surrounding vowels, and the <g> in *lago* is often pronounced as a fricative, because of the vowels as well. I would say that the allophone in *lago* is much what a Dutch voiced g is supposed to sound like. But whether it would be easy for someone with Spanish as a native language to try and pick out that allophone to use it as a basic sound in another language (in other phonetic contexts, in between other consonants), that's another thing..



Peterdg said:


> Yes, it does cause confusion
> E.g. to the non West-Flemish ear, "hout" (wood) and "goud" (gold) are easily confused.


Right, to the non West Flemish ear (and still..) AND when they're trying to speak Standard Dutch because *hout* is generally pronounced *oet* in dialect. In West Flanders there is no confusion because <h> is not pronounced. To rephrase Grytolle: there are few Flemish dialects in which it _is_ pronounced.



Peterdg said:


> What are you referring to?


IPA, but Grytolle, then we're talking allophones in both languages..



merquiades said:


> Well I obviously have a problem with the /g/ sound. Not like any Spanish sound, not like a French r. I guess I'll pronounce h. At least it's authentic somewhere.


Haha, yes, well, to sound authentically West-Flemish I'm afraid it would be like learning a new language.


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## Peterdg

Spanish only knows our "ch" like in "lachen" and the French "g" of "garçon" like in "lago".

I'm not very familiar with phontecic signs so I don't really know what [ʝ] stands for. Also, my knowledge of the Antwerp dialect is rather limited, and certainly not to the extent that I would recognize these details.


> There I don't agree with you, Peter. Judging from your response I think you don't take the phonetic variation into consideration. In *caja*, <j> is voiced because of the surrounding vowels, and the <g> in *lago* is often pronounced as a fricative, because of the vowels as well. I would say that the allophone in *lago* is much what a Dutch voiced g is supposed to sound like. But whether it would be easy for someone with Spanish as a native language to try and pick out that allophone to use it as a basic sound in another language (in other phonetic contexts, in between other consonants), that's another thing..


I'm not a phonetic specialist (far from that, to tell you the truth). As far as I'm concerned, in standard Spanish, the "g" in lago is pronounced like the "g" in "garçon". His dictis, I don't want to say that nobody in Spain would pronounce that "g" of "lago" as you describe it, but *as far as I'm concerned and as far as I'm able to distinguish it*, the standard is the "g" of "garçon".


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## merquiades

Peterdg said:


> Spanish only knows our "ch" like in "lachen" and the French "g" of "garçon" like in "lago".
> 
> I'm not very familiar with phontecic signs so I don't really know what [ʝ] stands for. Also, my knowledge of the Antwerp dialect is rather limited, and certainly not to the extent that I would recognize these details.



Spanish g in /lago/ is more fricative and soft; on the contrary, g in French is always hard.  The symbol used in my dictionary for the /lago/ g in Spanish looks a little bit like  /Ỵ/  but not exactly, with a bit of a loop at the bottom.  I can't find the exact one. Now the question is how close is it to Dutch fricative g?


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## Qittat Ulthar

merquiades said:


> Hi.  I was wondering if there were dialects where g is a stop, closer to the English sound, and not so much a fricative.  In Belgium perhaps?


In Friesland (Fryslân), the 'g' is pronounced as in English "go". 

In the Netherlands, the southern people tend to pronounce 'g' voiced whereas in the north and west it's pronounced voiceless. 'ch' is always voiceless. Don't worry too much about it, as long as you pronounce it as a fricative.


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## merquiades

Qittat Ulthar said:


> In Friesland (Fryslân), the 'g' is pronounced as in English "go".
> 
> In the Netherlands, the southern people tend to pronounce 'g' voiced whereas in the north and west it's pronounced voiceless. 'ch' is always voiceless. Don't worry too much about it, as long as you pronounce it as a fricative.



Thanks for the info! Qittat Ulthar


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