Metathesis

\mə 'ta-thə -səs\

From the Greek Word μετάθεσις meaning change of position or transposition.

It refers to a situation in which adjacent sounds change sound position in a word.

For example, in English we have the word “ask” , but you might
have also heard "ax" in some dialects.

You can see that the two consonants have switched places.
Another example from English, we have the word "asterisk“ ,which
refers to this symbol “ * ”.

Some people pronounce it as "asteriks“

Another one, the prefix “intro” or "intrə" is often pronounced like
"inter“

For example, "introduce“ , is sometimes pronounced as "interduce“ ,

so that you can see that the "r" sound and the vowel has become reversed.
Another one, the prefix "pre" is often pronounced like “per” .

For example, "prescription“ becomes "perscription“ .

In what kinds of situations does this
happen?
• During the development of a language, there's sometimes a change.
1) For example, the English word "bird“ came from the Old English
word "bridd“ . You can see that the "r" sound and the "i" became
reversed.

2) Also, the English word "thrill" came from the Middle English
word "thirlen“ . Again, the "r" and the vowel switched positions.
• Second, metathesis sometimes takes places in one of two sister
languages as they develop.
1) For example, there's Spanish "preguntar“ and Portuguese
"perguntar“ , which both means "to ask".

2) And there's the Czech word "plukovník“ ,and the Polish word
"pułkownik“ , which both means "colonel“.
• And similarly, there's sometimes a change in certain dialects of a
language but not in others or nor in the Stardard Language.
This is like what we saw in the example of "ask“ and "aks“ .

"Aks" is probably the most well known example of metathesis, and

it's often thought to be "BROKEN ENGLISH", or a "MISTAKE", but both
"ask" and "aks" have been around for over a thousand years.
• Fourth, metathesis also sometimes takes place systematically within a language, in
certain phonetic or grammatical contexts.

One example comes from Hebrew.

In Hebrew most words are based on roots consisting of usually 3 consonants in a
specific order.
Verbs are created by placing the roots into a series of templates.
 A typical example might be like this:

The root is k-t-v

The first template is the Pa'al form."Katav" (‫ ָכָּתַב‬in Hebrew). That's the dictionary
form of the verb to write.

There are numerous other templates, but the key one is the "Hitpa'el template“. "Hitkatev" (‫התְַכ ֵַּתֵּב‬
ִ in
Hebrew), means “to correspond”. The hitpa'el template often gives the root reflexive or reciprocal
meaning, doing the action together with someone else.
Why does metathesis take place?
• Metathesis is sometimes done intentionally for humor.
For example, in Japanese, we have the word "gomen“ , which is
used to mean "I'm sorry",but sometimes people say "mengo“ ,which
is a humorous way of saying "sorry".
• It’s often a memontary error
Sometimes, people might get confused, or nervous, or they're
thinking about two overlapping concepts at the same time, so they say
the wrong thing.
For example, maybe they intend to say "gold card" but they say
"cold guard“ .
 Also, children sometimes make errors like this when they misperceive
the sounds of a word, or they have trouble reproducing them.
A common example is "pasghetti“ instead of "spaghetti“ .
• Certain sound combinations are slightly more awkward to articulate
than others
Metathesis is often enduring, with shifts in words or in sound
combinations,becoming a part of that dialect or language.
• People perceive slightly different sounds as variations of each other
For istance, vowels with different length or stress together with R or L
Metathesis is a very common linguistic phenomenon. If you pay
attention for it, if you keep your eyes and ears open for it, you’ll
probably see some examples of words that are pronounced somewhat
differently from their written form due to metathesis.