Path: ...!3.eu.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: Adam Funk Newsgroups: alt.usage.english,sci.lang Subject: Re: Somewheres Date: Mon, 02 Sep 2024 16:34:41 +0100 Organization: $CABAL Lines: 29 Message-ID: References: X-Trace: individual.net 46vSMDeDWh+rJfWjlYGQngcN2f7YR4ymut/zWbxc53yLhPV0pY X-Orig-Path: news.ducksburg.com!not-for-mail Cancel-Lock: sha1:3rb7drJ18COCY7FlkjJX03y+uNo= sha1:us4kk0tYTVJkRCdW5Qq6+/LL0pM= sha256:rfEi2qNq695OxMAhGKsnstg+HsrJEvFfl2DroZHrryY= User-Agent: slrn/pre1.0.4-6 (Linux) Bytes: 2162 On 2024-09-02, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote: > Peter Moylan wrote: > >> Is there a natural tendency for languages to lose final syllables or >> final consonants? This thread has provided examples in Spanish. French >> lost a lot of final consonants (in speech, but not in writing) centuries >> ago. Some southern Italian dialects have dropped a few final vowels, but >> this does not extend to northern dialects or the mainstream version of >> the language. Portuguese seems to drop all sorts of things. >> >> Those are all examples in Romance languages. I can't think of any >> examples in Germanic languages, and I don't know enough about other >> language families. > > Spoken Danish drops as much as possible. "Synes" => "sys", "trapperne" >=> "trappern", and there are many more examples. > > In dk.kultur.sprog (language) we joked with pronouncing > "socialdemokratiet" with three syllables (it has 8). Isn't there a Scandinavian joke to the effect that Danish drops all the consonants & one of the others drops all the vowels, so it evens out? -- We got music in our solar system We're space truckin' round the stars