differences between short and long vowels: / – 'method' / 'must' / – 'to search' / 'to take off' / – 'theirs' / 'anger' Polish In Polish, consonant length is indicated with two identical letters. Examples: – 'bathtub' – 'horror' or – 'hobby' Consonant length is distinctive and sometimes is necessary to distinguish words: – 'families'; – 'familial' – 'sacks, bags'; – 'mammals', – 'medicines'; – 'light, lightweight' Double consonants are common on morpheme borders where the initial or final sound of the suffix is the same as the final or initial sound of the stem (depending on the position of the suffix). Examples: – 'before, previously'; from (suffix 'before') + (archaic 'that') – 'give back'; from (suffix 'from') + ('give') – 'swampy'; from ('swamp') + (suffix forming adjectives) – 'brightest'; from (suffix forming superlative) + ('brighter') Punjabi Punjabi is written in two scripts, namely, Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi. Both scripts indicate gemination through the uses of diacritics. In Gurmukhi the diacritic is called the which is written before the geminated consonant and is mandatory. In contrast, the shadda, which is used to represent gemination in the Shahmukhi script, is not necessarily written, retaining the tradition of the original Arabic script and Persian language, where diacritics are usually omitted from writing, except to clear ambiguity, and is written above the geminated consonant. In the cases of aspirated consonants in the Shahmukhi script, the shadda remains on the consonant, not on the do-cashmī he. Gemination is specially characteristic of Punjabi compared to other Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi-Urdu, where instead of the presence of consonant lengthening, the preceding vowel tends to be lengthened. Consonant length is distinctive in Punjabi, for example: Russian In Russian, consonant length (indicated with two letters, as in 'bathtub') may occur in several situations. Minimal pairs (or chronemes) exist, such as 'to hold' vs 'to support', and their conjugations, or 'length' vs 'long' adj. f. Word formation or conjugation: ( 'length') > ( 'long') This occurs when two adjacent morphemes have the same consonant and is comparable to the situation of Polish described above. Assimilation. The spelling usually reflects the unassimilated consonants, but they are pronounced as a single long consonant. ( 'highest'). Spanish There are phonetic geminate consonants in Caribbean Spanish due to the assimilation of /l/ and /ɾ/ in syllabic coda to the following consonant. Examples of Cuban Spanish: Luganda Luganda is unusual in that gemination can