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  • hakase@sh.itjust.workstoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.world(Re)bracketing
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    11 months ago

    The ‘p’ is only silent in English because English doesn’t allow syllables to start with ‘pt’. It was perfectly fine to do so in ancient Greek, where both the ‘p’ and the ‘t’ would be pronounced, but when English borrowed the ‘pt’-initial words, the ‘p’ gets deleted to make the word pronounceable.

    But, it’s perfectly fine in English for one syllable to end with ‘p’ and the next to start with ‘t’, so English speakers have no problem saying ‘cop-ter’.

    Same with, for example, ‘tsunami’ vs. ‘Mit-subishi’ (which in Japanese is actually syllabified ‘mi-tsu-bi-shi’).