Re: OT: Intergermansk - Traveller's Phrasebook

--- "Pascal A. Kramm" <pkramm@...> wrote:

> On Thu, 3 Feb 2005 14:38:07 -0800, Gary Shannon
> <fiziwig@...> wrote:
>
> >--- "Pascal A. Kramm" <pkramm@...> wrote:
> >
> ><snip>
> >
> >> Thank You                           Tank Du
> >>
> ><snop>
> >
> >> Thanks, fine.                       Tank, gud.
> >
> >Just off the top of my head I feel like daily usage
> >would tend to stick some vowel or another at the
> end
> >of "tank" to make it flow off the tongue more
> >smoothly.  It just seems to me that "tanka du" and
> >"tanka, gud" are easier to say.
>
> I don't think it would cause any problems without
> vowel... I've never heard
> any English speaker complaining that they would need
> a vowel at the end of
> "Thank" or "thanks" so that it flows better or
> something.
The English phrase "thank you" already has a vowel
sound after the "k", namely the "you" sound.  If the
phrase were "thank du" then I think English speakers
would tend to add a vowel over time.  It's just too
much effort to pronounce "d" after "k".  Either that
or they would turn "tank" into "tang" to make "tang
du" eaiser to pronounce. American English speakers
tend toward minimum-effort pronounciations, which is
why we say "thang god" for "thank god", "budder" for
"butter" and "jeet?" for "did you eat?"


I'm not saying there's anything wrong with "tank du".
I'm only pointing out how American speakers would
butcher it over time to fit their own lazy speech
habits.

--gary

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