Science Forums 2

[eric l]

A particularity in Dutch - and, if i am not mistaken, also in Afrikaans, Boerseun - may help to find an explication.

In Dutch, the diphtong you use to pronounce "A" when reciting the alphabet can be written either EI or IJ, so some homophones are not complete homonyms because they sound the same way, but are written differently.

e.g. the verb "reizen" means "to travel", while the verb "rijzen" means "to rise".

So far, nothing realy new. But in many of the local accents, these two verbs also sound differently, they are not even homophones. When written EI, the sound is always a diphong, but written IJ it is a long vowel.

Now, in many languages (including Dutch) the local accents reflect an older form of the language, often with gramar that has become obsolete. So, (for what it's worth) I take it that these homonyms actually have different roots, and became more and more alike because the actual number of vowel sounds in the standard language decreased over the ages.

Of course, other homonyms may have the same root - as in the case of the board that is meeting in front of the (black)board - but we forgot all about the ethymology.