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ArchivesRe: Question about Italian names
in reply to a message by Ivayla
You're right, but it isn't a rule really; more of a convenience. /b/ and /p/ are what you get if you open your lips during a /m/ sound, but the /n/ sound has open lips already. So you need considerable mouth gymnastics to do a /n/-/b/ sequence, and not much at all for /m/-/b/. And people are lazy ... !
The same happens in Afrikaans (close to Dutch so it probably works there too). For instance, one of our university towns is Stellenbosch, and you can do it all right as it's written if you're being well behaved and elegant, but when the students are screaming support for their team it comes out /stellembos/.
The same happens in Afrikaans (close to Dutch so it probably works there too). For instance, one of our university towns is Stellenbosch, and you can do it all right as it's written if you're being well behaved and elegant, but when the students are screaming support for their team it comes out /stellembos/.
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