metathesis (was: écagne et al.)

At 6:35 pm -0500 4/4/00, Eric Christopherson wrote:
[....]
>Well, I don't know, but it's not unheard of; Hebrew and Aramaic at least,
>and IIRC Arabic too (so perhaps all Semitic langs) had a regular metathesis
>when a coronal stop immediately preceded a sibilant, for example *[tS] >
>[St]. Note also [sk] from [ks] in Middle Eastern variants of the name
>Alexander, such as the city Iskerderun (the al- probably dropped off
>because it was seen as the Arabic article).
...and English dialect 'ask' ~ 'ax' and 'wasp' ~ 'waps' /wOps/  :)

Ray.

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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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