Minimal Pair List Consonants /h/ versus /ŋ/, 0 pairs
It was no surprise that the dictionary search failed to find any words with this pairing. The /h/ only occurs initially or before a stressed vowel in words such as
behind
. The /ŋ/ sound only occurs medially or finally, and when medial normally before an unstressed inflection as in
singer
. Therefore in the standard vocabulary no minimal pairs can occur. In loan words anything is possible, of course. There is a Thai brand of beer called
Singha
(meaning 'lion'), and this is often pronounced /sɪŋɑ/ by English speakers. (In Thai the final syllable is silent so the beer is called /sɪŋ/ by Thai speakers.) If there were an Indian state of Sihar to rhyme with the state of Bihar, then that might be a minimal pair.
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John Higgins
John Higgins retired in 2000, having spent the bulk of his career as a British Council English Language Officer working in Thailand, Turkey, Egypt and Yugoslavia and the last fifteen years in lectureships at Bristol University and then running an M.Sc. programme at Stirling University. His main field was EFL, with a special interest in CALL (computer-assisted language learning) in which, together with Tim Johns of Birmingham, he was responsible for important developments in methods and materials.
His publications include A Guide to Language Laboratory Material Writing, Universitetesforlaget, 1969, Computers and Language Learning, Collins, 1984, Language Learners and Computers, Longman, 1988, and Computers in English Language Learning, Intellect Press, 1992, together with numerous papers, reviews and pieces of software. He maintains a web page on minimal pairs and homographs for teachers of English pronunciation skills.
