View Message

Notice how these words and names are pronounced—the C when followed by a long /i/ becomes /s/, but if the ia is monophthongized to schwa it becomes sh. Of course s is affected the same way. In reality the i (sometimes e) has become the approximant /j/ and partially or fully merged with the preceding dental to form a new phoneme. This happens to s z t and d, and foreign words naturalised into English where C and g are dentalised before i and e. Sometimes you can still hear the approximant (marshya), sometimes you can't.

This message was edited 3/4/2024, 7:04 PM