• jbrains@sh.itjust.works
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    6 days ago

    Strange conceptions?

    Yes. That’s humor.

    Tsunami doesn’t start with a T sound, It’s just a strange artifact of the romanization of the Japanese sounds.

    Yes, and English speakers have an established collective inconsistency regarding whether to pronounce loanwords anywhere on the spectrum from (somewhat) faithfully to the original language to transliterated to entirely reinterpreted with English pronouciation norms. To declare that the “t” in that word is silent (as Ken has done, at least once) overstates the situation. At most, it’s optional.

    I pronounce those cities as two syllables, although it doesn’t bother me when others don’t. I also pronounce “Mangione” as three, even though I don’t overdo it on the Italian vowels.

    • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
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      7 days ago

      Living on the west coast of Canada, where we talk about Tsunamis fairly regularly, I’ve never heard anyone add a T sound to Tsunami at the start. Only Sue-Nah-Me

      • jbrains@sh.itjust.works
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        7 days ago

        How strange. I never pronounced it any other way. I don’t think of it as a regionalism. I grew up near Toronto.