A lesson in linguistics

Have you ever considered how mispronunciation could lead to developing new words? Throughout history, linguists have used this phenomenon to create interesting terminology to describe these errors.

Rebracketing
Rebracketing is a process of breaking down utterances into their constituent parts. This process typically focuses on highly probable word boundaries, such as changing “a noodle” to “an oodle” or “an eagle” to “a neagle”. For example, rebracketing formed new words, like the suffix “-burger” in “ham+burger”.

Metathesis
Metathesis involves transposing sounds or syllables in a word. While we may find it cute when children say “pasketti” instead of “spaghetti”, this is an example of metathesis, a common and natural occurrence in language. So, the next time you hear someone say “aks” instead of “ask”, rest assured that this is just another example of how language evolves.

Syncope
Syncope is a phonological phenomenon within linguistics that refers to the omission of one or more sounds from the interior of a word. In English, syncope is in poetic writing and informal speech, in words like “heaven,” written as “heav’n,” or “over” as “o’er,” or “Christmas,” where the “t” is typically omitted.

Epenthesis
Epenthesis, another linguistic concept, involves the insertion of consonants between sounds within words. For instance, words like “thunder” and “empty” were once pronounced as “thuner” and “emty,” and currently, words like “hamster” often receive an intrusive “p” sound.

Velarisation
Velarisation, a process in phonetics, is the secondary articulation of consonants, where you raise the back of the tongue toward the velum during the production of the consonant. For example, when pronouncing the dark “l,” the tongue-raising may go so far that the “l” ends up sounding like a “w,” as in “folk,” “walk,” and “talk.”

Affrication
Affrication is the transformation of a consonantal speech sound into an affricate by adding a delicate “y” sound before a vowel, as in changing “tune” to sound like “tyune.” Although a mistake in speech may seem like an oxymoron, it can lead to the formation of new theories and classifications of errors in articulation.