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To: irishjuggler

“What are the odds of any letter changing pronunciation over time? Pretty damned low, right?”

Knight vs cniht


34 posted on 09/28/2020 12:47:44 PM PDT by VanShuyten ("...that all the donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals.")
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To: VanShuyten

It certainly does happen but it’s infrequent. What are the chances that people are going to start pronouncing M like N anytime soon? Probably close to zero. In the middle ages, populations were more isolated than now, so changes/divergences were more likely, but it’s not as if the phonetic pronunciation of most letters was constantly in flux. It wasn’t. If you look at French/Italian/Spanish, there are certainly different phonetic pronunciations of a few letters but there are more similarities than differences. Even after they’ve been diverging for 1500 years. It’s just a ballpark estimate, but maybe 10% evolution every 300-500 years seems about right.


36 posted on 09/28/2020 1:29:22 PM PDT by irishjuggler
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