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Re: CHAT: Epenthetic vowels (was: RE: chat: weird names)

From:Patrick Dunn <tb0pwd1@...>
Date:Saturday, August 7, 1999, 23:19
On Sat, 7 Aug 1999, Eric Christopherson wrote:

> BTW, anyone ever notice how a lot of English speakers pronounce the name > Xavier as /Egzeivi@r/ or /Igzeivi@r/?
Hmm. That could be because /ks/ is not a possible initial sound in English. But why don't they just assume {X} means /z/ in Xavier (btw, I find I pronounced it /Ekseivi@r/ with a very short E and a tiny bit of tail end voicing on the /s/. Hey, why *is* initial {x} prounced /z/ in English? Where the hecck do we get /z/ from /ks/?