Re: Tsunami

Harlan Messinger wrote:
ekkilu@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Sep 29, 3:30 pm, benlizross <benli...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I don't think it to be a urban legend (that "tsunami" was originally
pronounced as "sunami").
!! I would say it hasn't even come up to the level of an urban legend
(which is frequently repeated by many different people). It's just
something somebody told you once. What reason do you have to think there
is any truth to it?

Because it was coming from two independent sources. One is a real
person a few decades ago, before internet era. One is from a website,
a few years ago. That of course does not mean that they were right.
But it caught my attention because they were two totally independent
sources. I remember when I saw the website, I told myself, "Ahah! So
that's the reason why tsunami is pronounced sunami".

It's pronounced "sunami" by some English speakers because initial "ts" isn't native to English. Likewise, some people pronounce tsetse (the species of fly) "tee-tsee".

And most of us pronounce "tsar" as [zAr] (or [zA:] for the non-rhotic).
.

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