Word of the Week: Anaptyxis

Anaptyxis: The insertion of a vowel to break up a troublesome consonant cluster, as in the common mispronunciation "tri-ath-a-lete." Japanese borrowings of English words--such as "hottu doggu" for "hot dog"--often involve anaptyxis. Anaptyxis comes from a Greek word meaning "the act of unfolding"; the general term for insertion of sounds (consonants or vowels) is epenthesis, from the Greek phrase meaning "to insert a letter." For a scholarly analysis of this phenomenon (or, perhaps, phenomenamon) in the speech patterns of Homer Simpson ("saxo-ma-phone," "tele-ma-phone") see Alan C. L. Yu's Reduplication in English Homeric Infixation. And for the full linguistic deconstruction of all things Simpsonic, see Heidi Harley's post that begins "Everyone knows the Simpsons is really all about linguistics" and this follow-up.

Comments

[ckenb]

French has a lot of these extra syllables.

For example, you often hear TV announcers pronounce Parc des Princes (a big stadium in Paris) as par-kuh-des-princes.

Or the weather forecaster will tell you the situation "dans l'est-uh-de la France."

In French, no more than three consonants can cluster up before a vowel gets inserted.