# Palatalization in English



## linguists

Palatalization occurs in English, like t sound becomes ch sounds, for example, in got you. Here's the question. Why some words are not palatalized when they have the conditions to trigger palatalization? Words such as *produce*, pronounced as _pro-djus _but not _pro-jus_, *tube* pronounced as _tjub_ but not _chub_??


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## ewie

Welcome to the forum, Linguists  In fact those words (and a whole host of other similar ones) very often do get palatalized in everyday speech, so people say *pruh-juice */prə'ʤus/and *chube* /'ʧub/.  Everyone does it.  (But not everyone realizes they do it ... or is prepared to admit it.)


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## Alxmrphi

They're both palatalised in my speech.

Like most other phonetic processes in various dialects there's a sort of clinal process where some words are affected and others aren't. For example, RP dialects are a good characteristic where words generally don't palatalise, but in normal speech everywhere else (especially the North and South West) many more words are palatalised. Palatalisation occurs because of the [j] sound that isn't in the written word, and in some variations of English this sound dropped out (esp. in America) so these aren't palatalised because the phonetic environment (the sounds surrounding each other) are not correct for the process to happen.

More high class speech (in both sounds and word forms) tends to remain more archaic and processes that are more 'advanced' are generally an indication of a more colloquial and less high class version of speech, which you can see in many many languages as well as English, too.  So given this is a new(ish) sort of process (last few hundred years), the 'posh' speech retains the form without the development (for the most part) while other more working-class places (i.e. the north of England) often show more advanced developments. If I heard the word 'tune' without palatalisation in English, with a clear yod I'd immediately think this person is really posh and has rich parents and all the sociolinguistic stereotypes that we're conditioned to believe when hearing such pronunciations.


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## sound shift

ewie said:


> Welcome to the forum, Linguists  In fact those words (and a whole host of other similar ones) very often do get palatalized in everyday speech, so people say *pruh-juice */prə'ʤuːs/ and *chube* /'ʧuːb/.  Everyone does it.  (But not everyone realizes they do it ... or is prepared to admit it.)


Can't agree with you here, esteemed erm ...... oderator. I am sure I don't say "chube". Perhaps there is a degree of palatalization going on in my pronunciation of "tube", but it's definitely not enough to produce "chube".


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## Alxmrphi

sound shift said:


> Can't agree with you here, esteemed erm ...... oderator. I am sure I don't say "chube".


Hey SS.
Do you say "tune" like the WR-UK version in the dictionary?

Forvo has 6 versions of pronunciations for '*tube*'; 2 U.S that (as expected) don't have it, but the other 4 do, 3 of which are from the UK and 1 from Australia. Out of the 4 pronunciations there is only one UK speaker who doesn't have palatalisation ('TopQuark'). Do you identify your pronunciation as closer to his than the others? It's odd to me as I'm with the other 3 speakers on that word. His pronunciation is more US-like (with yod-dropping) than the traditional RP version which would sound like the pronoun "you" with a little "t" in front of it, ending with a "b".


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## sound shift

Alxmrphi said:


> Hey SS.
> Do you say "tune" like the WR-UK version in the dictionary?


Afternoon, Alex,

My pronunciation is similar to that on the audio file, but my vowel is less "fronted", I think. I don't hear "chune" on the audio file for "tune". My mouth makes a different shape for "chune" from the one it makes for "tune".


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## Alxmrphi

ʃʃ





sound shift said:


> Afternoon, Alex,
> 
> My pronunciation is similar to that on the audio file, but my vowel is less "fronted", I think. I don't hear "chune" on the audio file for "tune". My mouth makes a different shape for "chune" from the one it makes for "tune".


Ah, well that'll be the answer then.
I was surprised when you said you didn't say "chube" to ewie, but if you don't hear "chune" on the recording for "tune" then that's the explanation. What we're talking about as being "chune" is what's on that audio file. I'm struggling to find a recording of the non-palatalised version at the moment, but once I do the comparison between them will be clear that the process has occurred!

My mouth also makes a different shape between "cheese" and "tune" (regarding the first sound), but calling it "ch" is still representative of both differing pronunciations. Just like using "k" to represent the sound in "key" and the sound in "cow", which most people don't even realise are in different places in the mouth for many many speakers. We're just using "ch" here as a way to avoid using IPA which a lot of other people aren't very familiar with, so there are a lot of bad misconceptions about using English spellings, and I think using it here has just created another one. I'd have liked everyone to study IPA so we never had to talk about "ch" but rather...[tʃ], which is representative of a wide-open more frontal "ch" sound, as well as closed and rounded much further back [tʃ]. The ability to notice a difference doesn't always mean it's "not <something>".

Imagine saying "*give it to you*", only in a relatively few accents would "to you" fully palatalise here (and sound like "give it chew") and in fast colloquial speech the "o" of "to" would be reduced and maybe even disappear, just becoming a little "t" before "you" (as I mentioned before).. that pronunciation, preceding "n" is the non-palatalised version.. sort of like a quick "to you-n". It's got that same sound that really posh people have when they "suit" and put the [j] in. I don't think you'd speak like that (but maybe?), and if you don't sound American without it (i.e. where it'd rhyme with 'noon') then there's some degree of palatalisation which can be represented by calling it "ch" or [tʃ]. 

I could cite some examples if we could post on You_Chewb_ (lol). Actually that in itself is sort of proof, if you say "You chew" similar to "You tube". Sometimes you get the full on "chhhhhhhhh", but other times it's like a quick trill of the "ch" sound, but like I said, there's no way in English spelling (or IPA that I'm aware of) to make a distinction that's so small and for many, imperceptible.


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## kidika

Hi
I know this is a very old thread, but I´m very new to this phenomenon, so I´m reopening it.
I totally recognise the sound in the words you guys point out; I didn´t know there was a name for it though.
Apparently that palatalization process occurs also in words like "theaten". I found it very difficult to come to terms with the fact the small /j/ in the phonetic transcription meant a kind of approximation of the tongue to the palate. Doesn´t the fact that the schwa isn´t pronounced sometimes imply a palatalization on its own? I mean, why the small /j/. To me the sound in tube is miles apart from the /n/ in threaten. Naturally I´m assuming that the palatalization takes place in the /n/ sound, as the small /j/ appears at the end of the phonetic transcription. Or does it happen in the second /t/ sound? If so, shouldn´t the small /j/ be placed between the second /t/ sound and the schwa or the /n/?

Am I making any sense at all? 

Ta!


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## entangledbank

Not a lot of sense - or rather, if you've found a phonetic transcription of _threaten_ with a palatalization sign anywhere on it, the transcription isn't making a lot of sense. You're quite right in thinking that there's nowhere on this word that anyone would palatalize, in any accent.


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## kidika

Yeah, well, that´s exactly what I thought when I saw the small /j/ here in WR in the entry for threaten: no sense or nonsense, more like! But then I found out it means "palatalization" and when I saw this thread I thought that the phenomenon discussed in this thread didn´t have much to do with whatever palatalization might or might not take place in "threaten", thus my bewilderment...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatalization


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## ewie

kidika said:


> I saw the small /j/ here in WR in the entry for threaten


 Hullo Kidi ~ can you point us to _exactly_ where you've seen this ... erm ... thing?


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## kidika

Sure!
Here http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=threaten


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## kidika

You can also find it here and here. But not here


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## ewie

kidika said:


> Sure!
> Here http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=threaten


 Hmm, how odd.
I would guess that that's someone's attempt to represent (erm...) 'syllabic *n*' ... which, if my memory serves me well, is represented in regular IPA as /ņ/*.  It's supposed to convey the idea that the *en* contains a vowel even shorter than a schwa (/ə/), i.e. you go straight from the *t* of _threat_ into an /n/ ... only that's not possible in English so you have to produce something-or-other ... and hey presto, that's 'syllabic *n*'.  [This is probably the feeblest explanation of the phenomenon ever given ...]
I presume the reason that symbol is given for _threaten, frighten, shorten_, etc., but not for _lengthen_, is that ~ for obscure phonologetical reasons, it's not possible to produce a syllabic *n* after a /Ɵ/.
Maybe someone who knows what he's talking about would like to chip in ...

P.S. As far as I'm aware a palatalized consonant is represented with a _sub_script rather than a _super_script *j.*

*Well, that's the symbol I've always used, anyway.


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## merquiades

In these words the "en" is a strange sound which I would not have transcribed /j/.  That's like a "y".  It's like a rapid glottal stop between the "t" and the "n".  You also hear it in "Britain" /brIt'n/.  I'd have written it with an apostrophe.


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## kidika

Well, I guess you´re right, Ewie, because it seems like we´re talking about what could be considered as an allophone, rather than a phoneme and if my equally feeble memory doesn´t fail me, variations of one sound are represented by subscripts, at least in Spanish phonetics, though Merquiades suggestion is good enough for me, unlike /j/ which is really misleading...
I guess that the non-scientific explanation for the fact that this happens in words like shorten, frighten, burden and so on, and not in lengthen is that the /t/ and the /d/ are alveolar, so  it´s pretty easy to go from there straight to the /n/ which is also alveolar. Whereas the transition from /θ/ to /n/ is harder to utter, as the former is interdental...and fricative...so the schwa comes in handy there to soothe the transition, kind of...
How´s that for a shirtsleeve phonological explanation, huh?
Anyways, I guess we all agree that /j/ is not erm...the most correct of the possible transcriptions. I´ve been looking up "frighten" in some dictionaries and none of them shows that freaking j!

Thanks for you input guys, it´s most appreciated.


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## natkretep

I'm very puzzled by this transcription. I haven't got the _Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary_, but the current preview from Amazon seems to indicate that the more standard way of indicating a syllabic n is used now. (See the screen capture here:
)
Unless it's a case of the symbol not 'translating' well in the WR Dictionary display?


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## exgerman

The palatalization is not present in the English definition dictionary. I suspect that it is intended to help native Speakers of Spanish in some way, since palataized n is a Spanish phoneme.


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## duvija

We were discussing this also in another thread. I'm sure it's a typo. There is no palatalization in 'shorten'. And it's not some kind of help to Spanish speakers. The 'palatalized' n, spelled 'ñ' has nothing to do with 'shorten'.


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## kidika

I agree with you, Duvija, I can´t see how that /j/ can help us...At  least it didn´t help me at all, and I swear I´m a native speaker of  Spanish...
Having said that, I must add that I´ve found this. If you go where it says _2. La transcripción de los sonidos del español__, _you´ll find_ that_ superscript for an n palatalized and nasal, like in the word _conllevar_...Not  much help anyway. I mean, Spanish students of English might know some  English phonetics, but I´m sure they know nothing about  phonetic  trancriptions of Spanish... I studied them a long time ago, and I didn´t  remember the small /j/ up there...I remembered the /j/ sound described  by the first posters in this thread though. Well, not only remembered it,  it´s actually very present in my life
So,  to recap, the /j/ in threaten and similar words doesn´t help at all.  It´s taken me one day to come to terms with it and to know why it is  there. Waste of time, because it´s like using Spanish phonetics to  represent a sound from English. It doesn´t make sense; and if the  wretched symbol doesn´t appear in the English definition part of WR, I  don´t see why it should be in the English-Spanish dictionary_._ 
I wouldn´t say that ñ is palatized or whatever, I would say it´s palatal, there is a difference. In other words, palatized consonants are allophones---in Spanish, that is-- whereas the sound ñ, a palatal one, is a phoneme; it´s not a palatized n. Palatized n´s are n´s that are uttered next to a palatal phoneme, but remain being n´s all their lifes...


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## duvija

kidika said:


> _._
> I wouldn´t say that ñ is palatized or whatever, I would say it´s palatal, there is a difference. In other words, palatized consonants are allophones---in Spanish, that is-- whereas the sound ñ, a palatal one, is a phoneme; it´s not a palatized n. Palatized n´s are n´s that are uttered next to a palatal phoneme, but remain being n´s all their lifes...



I agree one hundred percent. That's why I wrote 'palatalized' n, in quotation marks. 
/ñ/ is a phoneme. But the n before/ y, ll, ch (my palatals in Spanish), becomes a (arrg, I can't find it. It's like an angma, but with the long leg to the left). I'm looking for the IPA, because you send me a link to Navarro Tomás, and the symbols are not clear - they probably drew them by hand).
Still, this has nothing to do with 'shorten'.

I found some examples in Sanskrit _ *pramāṇitaṃ*_, *mātṝṇām
*I can't find clearly printed examples in Yoruba, but many other languages have syllabic nasals.


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## Loob

I can only assume that the _Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary_ uses superscript j to represent something which isn't palatalisation.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to work out what that something is.


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## kidika

Duvija in the link I posted, there are loads of phonetic representations. You need to go down the page to get to where I pointed out. But then again the dot under the Spanish n means that the sound is "interdental". So, it has nothing to do with the dot under the n in English, where  it apparently indicates "syllabic n". Not quite the same.  Loob-->   <--me.

To add insult to injury, the superscript j, in my mind is used in English only to indicate that in connected speech, words that end in an /I/ sound followed by a word that starts with a vowel sound, "undergo" a process known as "linking", whereby a new sound similar to /j/, only softer--thus the superscript /small flying j/-- is produced. Example: there is a linking j --represented with a small unidentified flying j, aka UFJ-- between the words: my arms /maI j a:mz/  Sorry, about the awful phonetic transcription there.

That linking process is similar to the one that happens when in connected speech one word that ends in an /u:/ or /u/ sound come before a word that begins with a vowel. There we get the UFW, unedentified flying w. Example: you are /ju: w a:/. Again, sorry about the apalling attempt at representing those sounds. _(Note that I can´t make neither the j nor the w, small and flying, but you already know the symbol if you´ve gone to the entry for threaten in the E-S dictionary)_

That is what really confused me yesterday. I had only seen that superscript to represent that linking process that occurs in connected speech, so I couldn´t make out what it meant in the word threaten, which I´m beginning to hate...


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## duvija

kidika said:


> Duvija in the link I posted, there are loads of phonetic representations. You need to go down the page to get to where I pointed out. But then again the dot under the Spanish n means that the sound is "interdental". So, it has nothing to do with the dot under the n in English, where it apparently indicates "syllabic n". Not quite the same. Loob-->   <--me.
> 
> To add insult to injury, the superscript j, in my mind is used in English only to indicate that in connected speech, words that end in an /I/ sound followed by a word that starts with a vowel sound, "undergo" a process known as "linking", whereby a new sound similar to /j/, only softer--thus the superscript /small flying j/-- is produced. Example: there is a linking j --represented with a small unidentified flying j, aka UFJ-- between the words: my arms /maI j a:mz/ Sorry, about the awful phonetic transcription there.
> 
> That linking process is similar to the one that happens when in connected speech one word that ends in an /u:/ or /u/ sound come before a word that begins with a vowel. There we get the UFW, unedentified flying w. Example: you are /ju: w a:/. Again, sorry about the apalling attempt at representing those sounds. _(Note that I can´t make neither the j nor the w, small and flying, but you already know the symbol if you´ve gone to the entry for threaten in the E-S dictionary)_
> 
> That is what really confused me yesterday. I had only seen that superscript to represent that linking process that occurs in connected speech, so I couldn´t make out what it meant in the word threaten, which I´m beginning to hate...



Where exactly did you see the flying j marking _linking_? I've never seen it marked that way. Any particular author or country?


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## kidika

duvija said:


> Where exactly did you see the flying j marking _linking_? I've never seen it marked that way. Any particular author or country?



Gimson´s Pronunciation of English, page 306. 
Excellent book. Enjoy!


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## duvija

kidika said:


> Gimson´s Pronunciation of English, page 306.
> Excellent book. Enjoy!



Uh. Cruttenden tends to be good. I didn't know he came up with that stuff, instead of the y/w addition to either the end of a word, or the beginning of the next... (gotta check it out).


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## kidika

I don´t know if you´ll be able to read it, but there you go.


I believe that all the honours should go to A. C. Gimson, not to Cruttenden...


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## Loob

Hi again kidika

I've been trying to work out why the _Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary_ might be using superscript j. As you say, the dictionary uses it in its entry for _frighten_ but not in its entry for _lengthen_; it also uses it in its entry for _redden_. Maybe it's something to do with syllabic 'n' after a dental consonant?

Hmmm....

I'll try to visit a local bookshop tomorrow and see if I can find a paper copy of the dictionary which explains the symbols.


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## kidika

Loob said:


> Hi again kidika
> 
> I've been trying to work out why the _Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary_ might be using superscript j. As you say, the dictionary uses it in its entry for _frighten_ but not in its entry for _lengthen_; it also uses it in its entry for _redden_. Maybe it's something to do with syllabic 'n' after a dental consonant?
> 
> Hmmm....
> 
> I'll try to visit a local bookshop tomorrow and see if I can find a paper copy of the dictionary which explains the symbols.



Strictly speaking, the English /t/ is not dental, it´s actually alveolar. 
Yes, it might be an attempt at representing an English sound, using the representation of a Spanish allophone...if that´s the case, it doesn´t make any sense whatever. And if it only indicates a palatalization of the /n/, it doesn´t make much sense either, as some people here are saying that that n is a syllabic n. Or if it indicates a palatalization, that one is so subtle that could be considered an allophone, rather than a phoneme...I guess....
This morning one of my students discovered another pearl: little , so I guess there must be a whole bunch of words in the Spanish dictionary that display the UFJ. Funny thing is the English-English dictionary doesn´t...I guess they love Spanish speakers so much that they give us an extra symbol to worry about. Aren´t they adorable!

Please fill us in if you come up with a sensible explanation!


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## wolfbm1

Hello.

I wonder if 'n' in 'neat' (*neat*/niːt/), 'near' (*near*/nɪə/) and in 'Slovenia' (*Slovenia*/sləʊˈviːnɪə/) is palatalized, that is pronounced softer because of the presence of /ɪ/ sound after it.
The word *not*/nɒt/ is an example of an unpalatalized 'n.'


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## natkretep

Yes, because the tongue position is flatter for the /n/ in _neat_ than the /n/ in _nought_.


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## Stephanie10

As I haven't read all the messages related to this thread, I might answer something that is already mentioned above...sorry! If the word "produce" is NOT palatalised, it's because of the stress occurring on the second syllable "duce" (dju:s): palatalisation cannot occur if there's a stress on the syllble concerned by palatalisation.


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## london calling

But 'produce' (the noun and the verb) is often palatalised, in BE at least. I speak Standard Southern British English, by the way.


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## Wordy McWordface

Stephanie10 said:


> As I haven't read all the messages related to this thread, I might answer something that is already mentioned above...sorry! If the word "produce" is NOT palatalised, it's because of the stress occurring on the second syllable "duce" (dju:s): palatalisation cannot occur if there's a stress on the syllble concerned by palatalisation.


Are you saying that palatisation cannot occur in a stressed syllable? I don't really understand that idea.

In natural speech, I pronounce the verb 'produce' as /prəˈdʒuːs/  "pru-juice" with the stress on the 'juice'.  I only say /prəˈdjuːs/ when I'm trying to enunciate ultra-carefully or making an effort to speak cultured RP rather than relaxed SSBE.


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## Loob

Going back to Kidika's posts - what appears in those links now is schwa, superscript schwa, or syllabic /n/.  So we'll never solve that particular mystery...


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## duvija

Let me throw in a little example of 'street' in Chicago (and all the Midwest). It's 'schrit' (I'm not using IPA here, just transliteration). With only one vowel, it has to be stressed, and no, the 'r' is not relevant in this example. Or is it?


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## entangledbank

Yes, the <r> is relevant, and is what's doing it. You get that effect with words beginning with <str>, but not other words with <st>. It's not the same phenomenon as the palatalization caused by a following /ju:/, but the resulting sound is similar. English /r/ is a post-alveolar sound, [ɹ], made further back than our /s/ or /t/, so for some people the sequence /str/ is retracted to the [ɹ] position - and the /tr/ does then sound rather like what you've written as 'chr'.


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## Wordy McWordface

entangledbank said:


> Yes, the <r> is relevant, and is what's doing it. You get that effect with words beginning with <str>, but not other words with <st>. It's not the same phenomenon as the palatalization caused by a following /ju:/, but the resulting sound is similar. English /r/ is a post-alveolar sound, [ɹ], made further back than our /s/ or /t/, so for some people the sequence /str/ is retracted to the [ɹ] position - and the /tr/ does then sound rather like what you've written as 'chr'.


Interesting. Is that why people often say "_Shri_ Lanka"?


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## merquiades

Wordy McWordface said:


> Interesting. Is that why people often say "_Shri_ Lanka"?


And "groshry"


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## kentix

Some people say shtreet (where the t doesn't go away, as well) and some people don't. But you should probably never make the claim "everyone does" because it's not true 99.5% of the time. I'm from the Midwest and most of my relatives live there and they don't say shtreet.

Added:
Just checked with my aunt. Not a trace of it.

And, of course, if you don't say tyoob, you're not going to say choob. And most American don't say tyoob. They favor toob.


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## natkretep

Wordy McWordface said:


> Interesting. Is that why people often say "_Shri_ Lanka"?


I think so, but this is also complicated by the fact the Sanskrit word from which _Sri_ is derived can appear as _Sri_, _Sree_, _Shri_, _Si_, or _Seri_ in South and South-east Asia.


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## Au101

natkretep said:


> I think so, but this is also complicated by the fact the Sanskrit word from which _Sri_ is derived can appear as _Sri_, _Sree_, _Shri_, _Si_, or _Seri_ in South and South-east Asia.


The Sanskrit word is श्री which is /ɕɽiː/ which is *sh*ri. I feel sure the pronunciation is intended to reflect the original and not a result of any English phonological processes. I couldn't tell you why it's spelled like that, but there are two 'sh'-sounds in Sanskrit and an h after a letter usually indicates aspiration, so for these reasons formal transliterations of Sanskrit would spell this word _śrī_ (there are other schemes, one uses _ç_ for _ś_).


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