Re: Origin of the word 'kivismi'

Daniel44 wrote:
>Hi Andreas,
>
>Sorry to sound dumb, but what is 'assimilation' exactly?
It's when one (or both) of two adjacent sounds change in some way so they
become more similar to each other, but making them easier to pronounce
directly after one another.

For example [vt] is a fairly difficult cluster, as you've got to cut of the
voicing in the middle of it. In very many languages it'd morph into [ft] (or
[vd]) to have cluster with uniform voicing. I strongly suspect that many
learners of Uusisuom will assimilate it automatically andunconsciously,
pronouncing 'kivti' as 'kifti'. I know I would tend to.
[snip]
>As for soika/soike, the ending 'soika' is common and though it literally
>translates as man, no sexist offence should be taken from it.
Let's then hope the world's feminists will agree ...

                                                    Andreas
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.