[Michelle Marlies Brinkmann]

This German six-year-old attempted to spell the word “Stacheln”. Unknowingly, he applied techniques of assimilation (partial or total homogenisation of sounds during connected speech so as to facilitate pronunciation) to spell a word he knows the pronunciation but not the standardised spelling of: The German <r> [ʁ] is similar to the <ch> [x] in that both are fricatives that are produced in the back of the mouth, the former being unvoiced and uvular while the latter is voiced and velar. The <d> [d] and <t> [t] are even more alike: both are alveolar plosives, the former is merely voiced while the latter is unvoiced.

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