What about similar oddities in English?
(This question is inspired by this comic by https://www.exocomics.com/193/ (link found by BunScientist@lemmy.zip)) Edit: it's to its in the title. Damn autocorrect.

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[–] 7 points 1 year ago (12 children)

The digraph oo is pronounced at least six different ways:

  • boot, proof, boost, scoop, moon
  • book, foot, look, cookie, good
  • floor, poor, door, moor
  • flood, blood
  • zoology, cooperative
  • brooch (just brooch; there doesn't seem to be any other word in the whole language using this sound for oo).
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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Are the first 2 lines really different?

    Genuine question from a non native speaker.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    That's the fun part, depending on your dialect and regional accent, sometimes there is no discernable difference in some of these lines. But each line has distinct pronunciation from each other in some dialects.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Yeah I went through them again and see how it makes a slight difference but I am slavic and you can definitely hear it when I speak especially with my þ, ð and r sounds. The r especially after speaking for more than 15 minutees my tongue just gives up and I cannot make the weird soft english version of it. The probounciations I use are all over the place.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Brooch and mooch.

    But, aren't these the same sounds as boot / proof / boost etc.?

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Brooch is pronounced like roach

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    It may be pronounced either way, and may also be spelled "broach", an alternate spelling which is very common although probably slightly less than this chart implies given multiple meanings of "broach".

    I'm not really informed on this history of this word, but I think it's possible that the "brooch" spelling increased in frequency along with the pronunciation that rhymes with "mooch" while people who pronounce it to rhyme with "roach" are more likely to spell it as "broach".

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Floor/door and poor might differ depending on dialect

    And the whole point of zoology and cooperative is that they aren't digraphs (hence why some super posh people write coöperative)

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