Metathesis (linguistics)
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Metathesis (; from
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, from "I put in a different order";
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
: ''transpositio'') is the transposition of
sounds In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...
or
syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...
s in a word or of
words A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...
in a sentence. Most commonly, it refers to the interchange of two or more contiguous segments or syllables, known as adjacent metathesis or local metathesis: * ''foliage'' > ''**foilage'' (adjacent segments) * ''anemone'' > ''**anenome'' (adjacent syllables) * ''cavalry'' > ''**calvary'' (codas of adjacent syllables) Metathesis may also involve interchanging non-contiguous sounds, known as nonadjacent metathesis, long-distance metathesis, or hyperthesis, as shown in these examples of metathesis sound change from Latin to Spanish: * Latin > Spanish "word" * Latin > Spanish "miracle" * Latin > Spanish "danger, peril" * Latin > Spanish "crocodile" Many languages have words that show this phenomenon, and some even use it as a regular part of their grammar, such as
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
and
Fur Fur is a thick growth of hair that covers the skin of mammals. It consists of a combination of oily guard hair on top and thick underfur beneath. The guard hair keeps moisture from reaching the skin; the underfur acts as an insulating blanket t ...
. The process of metathesis has altered the shape of many familiar words in
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
as well. The original form before metathesis may be deduced from older forms of words in the language's
lexicon A lexicon is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Koine Greek language, Greek word (), neuter of () ...
or, if no forms are preserved, from phonological reconstruction. In some cases it is not possible to settle with certainty on the original version.


Rhetorical metathesis

Dionysius of Halicarnassus Dionysius of Halicarnassus ( grc, Διονύσιος Ἀλεξάνδρου Ἁλικαρνασσεύς, ; – after 7 BC) was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Emperor Augustus. His literary sty ...
was a historian and scholar in
rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...
living in 1st century BC Greece. He analysed classical texts and applied several revisions to make them sound more
eloquent Eloquence is fluent, forcible, elegant or persuasive speaking. Eloquence or eloquent may also refer to: * ''Eloquence'' (Bill Evans album) * ''Eloquence'' (Oscar Peterson album) * ''Eloquence'' (Wolfgang Flür album) * ''Eloquence'', Internet ...
. One of the methods he used was re-writing documents on a mainly
grammatical In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular variety (linguistics), speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the go ...
level: changing word and sentence orders would make texts more fluent and "natural", he suggested. He called this way of re-writing ''metathesis''.


Examples


American Sign Language

In
ASL American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is express ...
, several signs which have a pre-specified initial and final location (such as the signs RESTAURANT, PARENT, TWINS) can have the order of these two locations reversed in contexts which seem to be purely phonological. While not possible with all signs, this does happen with quite a few. For example, the sign DEAF, prototypically made with the "1" handshape making contact first with the cheek and then moving to contact the jaw (as in the sentence FATHER DEAF), can have these locations reversed if the preceding sign, when part of the same
constituent Constituent or constituency may refer to: Politics * An individual voter within an electoral district, state, community, or organization * Advocacy group or constituency * Constituent assembly * Constituencies of Namibia Other meanings * Const ...
, has a final location more proximal to the jaw (as in the sentence MOTHER DEAF). Both forms of the sign DEAF are acceptable to native signers. A proposed prerequisite for metathesis to apply in ASL is that both signs must be within the same region on the body. Constraints on the applications of metathesis in ASL has led to discussions that the phonology breaks down the body into regions distinct from settings.


Amharic

Amharic has a few minor patterns of metathesis, as shown by
Wolf Leslau __NOTOC__ Wolf Leslau ( yi, וולף לסלאו; born November 14, 1906 in Krzepice, Vistula Land, Poland; died November 18, 2006 in Fullerton, California) was a scholar of Semitic languages and one of the foremost authorities on Semitic languag ...
. For example, "matches" is sometimes pronounced as , "nanny" is sometimes pronounced as . The word "Monday" is , which is the base for "Tuesday" , which is often metathesized as . All of these examples show a pair of consonants reversed so that the stop begins the next syllable.


Azerbaijani

Metathesis among neighbouring consonants happens very commonly in Azerbaijani: * > "bridge" * > "leaf" * > "soil" * > "smoke"


Danish

Some common nonstandard pronunciations of Danish words employ metathesis: * > "pictures" * > "through" But metathesis has also historically changed some words: * > " (Christian) cross"


Egyptian Arabic

A common example of metathesis in Egyptian Arabic is when the order of the word's root consonants has changed. * Classical Arabic > Egyptian Arabic ''gōz'' "husband" * Classical Arabic > ''ma‘la’a'' "spoon" * Persian ''zanjabil'' > Egyptian Arabic ''ganzabīl'' ~ ''zanzabīl'' "ginger" The following examples of metathesis have been identified in Egyptian Arabic texts, but are not necessarily more common than their etymological spellings: * > "God curse!" * > "theatre troupe" * > "philosophy" The following loanwords are also sometimes found with metathesis: * > "monologue" * > "hospital" * > "penalty" (in
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
) The likely cause for metathesis in the word "hospital" is that the result resembles a common word pattern familiar to Arabic speakers (namely a Form X verbal noun). Perhaps the clearest example of metathesis in Egyptian Arabic is the modern name of the city of
Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
: ()''Iskandariya'' (). In addition to the metathesis of ''x'' /ks/ to /sk/, the initial ''Al'' of ''Alexandria'' has been reanalyzed as the Arabic definite article.


English

Metathesis is responsible for some common
speech error A speech error, commonly referred to as a slip of the tongue (Latin: , or occasionally self-demonstratingly, ) or misspeaking, is a deviation (conscious or unconscious) from the apparently intended form of an utterance.Bussmann, Hadumod. Routled ...
s, such as children acquiring ''spaghetti'' as ''pasketti''. The word ''ask'' has the nonstandard variant ''ax'' pronounced ; the spelling ''ask'' is found in Shakespeare and in the
King James Bible The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and publis ...
and ''ax'' in Chaucer, Caxton, and the
Coverdale Bible The Coverdale Bible, compiled by Myles Coverdale and published in 1535, was the first complete Modern English translation of the Bible (not just the Old Testament or New Testament), and the first complete printed translation into English (cf. ...
. The word "ask" derives from
Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...
''*aiskōną''. Some other frequent English pronunciations that display metathesis are: * ''aforementioned'' > ''afrementioned'' * ''nuclear'' > '' nucular'' (re-analysed as ''nuke'' + '' -cul ar'' suffix in ''molecular, binocular'') * ''prescription'' > ''perscription'' * ''introduce'' > ''interduce'' * ''asterisk'' > ''asterix'' * ''comfortable'' > ''comfturble'' * ''cavalry'' > ''calvary'' * ''foliage'' > ''foilage'' * ''pretty'' > ''purty'' The process has shaped many English words historically. ''Bird'' and ''horse'' came from
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
and ; and were also written and . The Old English "bright" underwent metathesis to , which became Modern English . The Old English "three" formed "thrid" and ''þrēotene'' "thriteen". These underwent metathesis to forms which became Modern English and . The Old English verb "to work" had the passive participle "worked". This underwent metathesis to , which became Modern English . The Old English "hole" underwent metathesis to ''þryl''. This gave rise to a verb "pierce", which became Modern English , and formed the compound "nose-hole" which became Modern English (May have occurred in the early Middle English Period: "nosþyrlu" ( 1050); "nos-thirlys" ( 1500). In 1565 "nosthrille" appears; "thirl"/"thurl" survived even longer, until 1878). Metathesis is also a common feature of the
West Country dialects West Country English is a group of English language varieties and accents used by much of the native population of South West England, the area sometimes popularly known as the West Country. The West Country is often defined as encompassin ...
.


Finnish

In western dialects of
Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...
, historical stem-final /h/ has been subject to metathesis (it is lost in standard Finnish). That leads to variant word forms: * "stallion" (standard * > ) * "smoke" (standard * > ) * "lie" (standard * > ) * "boat" (standard * > ) Some words have been standardized in the metathetized form: * * > "sorrow" * * > "family" * * > "hero" * * > "untrue" Sporadic examples include the word "green", which derives from older , and the vernacular change of the word "jovial" to (also a separate word meaning "bristly").


French

Etymological metathesis occurs in the following French words: * from popular Latin ''berbex'' meaning "sheep" (early 12th century). * from popular Latin ''formaticus'', meaning "formed in a mold" (1135). * (1654) from French ''mousquitte'' (1603) by metathesis. From Spanish ''mosquito'' ("little fly"). Deliberate metathesis also occurs extensively in the informal French pattern of speech called ''
verlan () is a type of argot in the French language, featuring inversion of syllables in a word, and is common in slang and youth language. It rests on a long French tradition of transposing syllables of individual words to create slang words. The wor ...
'' (itself an example: < , meaning "the reverse" or "the inverse"). In verlan new words are created from existing words by reversing the order of syllables. Verlanization is applied mostly to two-syllable words and the new words that are created are typically considerably less formal than the originals, and/or take on a slightly different meaning. The process often involves considerably more changes than simple metathesis of two phonemes but this forms the basis for verlan as a linguistic phenomenon. Some of these words have become part of standard French. A few well known examples are: * ' > ' * ' > ' * ' > ' * ' > ' Some Verlan words are metathesized more than once: * ' > ' > '


Greek

In
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, the present
stem Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...
often consists of the
root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the sur ...
with a
suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...
of ''y'' (˰ in Greek). If the root ends in the vowel ''a'' or ''o'', and the consonant ''n'' or ''r'', the ''y'' exchanges position with the consonant and is written ''i'': * ''*cháryō'' > ''chaírō'' "I am glad" — ''echárē'' "he was glad" * ''*phányō'' > ''phaínō'' "I reveal" — ''ephánē'' "he appeared" For metathesis of vowel length, which occurs frequently in
Attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...
and
Ionic Greek Ionic Greek ( grc, Ἑλληνικὴ Ἰωνική, Hellēnikē Iōnikē) was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic or Eastern dialect group of Ancient Greek. History The Ionic dialect appears to have originally spread from the Greek mainland ac ...
, see quantitative metathesis.


Hebrew

In
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
the verb conjugation (''binyan'') ''hitpaēl'' () undergoes metathesis if the first consonant of the root is an alveolar or postalveolar fricative. Namely, the pattern ''hiṯ1a22ē3'' (where the numbers signify the root consonants) becomes ''hi1ta22ē3''. Examples: * No metathesis: root ''lbš'' = ''hitlabbēš'' ("he got dressed"). * Voiceless alveolar fricative: root ''skl'' = ''histakkēl'' ("he looked t something). * Voiceless postalveolar fricative: root ''šdl'' = ''hištaddēl'' ("he made an effort"). * Voiced alveolar fricative: root ''zqn'' = ''hizdaqqēn'' ("he grew old"); with assimilation of the T of the conjugation. * Voiceless alveolar affricate: root ''t͡slm'' = ''hit͡stallēm'' ("he had a photograph of him taken"); with assimilation (no longer audible) of the T of the conjugation. Hebrew also features isolated historical examples of metathesis. For example, the words ''keves'' and ''kesev'' (meaning "lamb") both appear in the Torah.


Hungarian

In case of a narrow range of Hungarian nouns, metathesis of a h sound and a
liquid consonant In phonetics, liquids are a class of consonants consisting of voiced lateral approximants like together with rhotics like . Etymology The grammarian Dionysius Thrax used the Ancient Greek word (, ) to describe the sonorant consonants () of cl ...
occurs in
nominative case In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
, but the original form is preserved in
accusative The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...
and other suffixed forms: * "chalice", but (accusative), (possessive), (plural) * "burden", but (acc.), (poss.), (pl.) * "flake", but (acc.), (poss.), (pl.) The other instances are ntestinalvillus/fluff/fuzz/nap vs. ''bolyhok'', vs. ''molyhos'' down/pubescence n plants and the obsolete animal's fetus (cf. ''vemhes'' "pregnant
nimal Nimal may refer to *Nimal Bandara, Sri Lankan politician *Nimal Gamini Amaratunga, Sri Lankan judge *Nimal Gunaratne, Sri Lankan air force officer *Nimal Mendis, Sri Lankan politician *Nimal Piyatissa (born 1968), Sri Lankan politician *Nimal Raja ...
). The first of them is often used in the regular form ().


Japanese

* for (), meaning "atmosphere" or "mood" * Small children commonly refer to ''kusuri'' "medicine" as ''sukuri''. * ''arata''- "new" contrasts with ''atarashii'' "new". The following are examples of argot used in the entertainment industry. * for (), the former meaning "content
f news article F, or f, is the sixth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabet#Let ...
, "food ingredient", "material (for joke or artwork)", the latter "seed", "species","source" * for * The word for "sorry", ''gomen'', is sometimes inverted to ''mengo'' (
backslang Back slang is an English coded language in which the written word is spoken phonemically backwards. Usage Back slang is thought to have originated in Victorian England. It was used mainly by market sellers, such as butchers and greengrocers, f ...
).


Lakota

* The words and are dialectal variants of the same word, meaning "abalone" or "porcelain".''New Lakota Dictionary'', Lakota Language Consortium, 2008 * The word , meaning "rib," has its origins in "side of the body" and "bone", but is more commonly metathesized as .


Malay (including Malaysian and Indonesian variants)

Metathesis from earlier protoform, though not so prevalent in Malay, can still be seen, as in the following: : Proto-Malayo-Polynesian: ''*uʀsa'' > "deer" : Proto-Malayo-Polynesian: ''*qudip'' > "alive" : Proto-Malayo-Polynesian: ''*dilaq'' > "tongue" : Proto-Malayo-Polynesian: ''*laqia'' > "ginger"" Loanwords can also be products of metathesis. The word ''tembikai'' "watermelon" is a metathesis of ''mendikai'' borrowed from ta, கொம்மட்டிக்காய், kommaṭṭikkāy.


Navajo

In
Navajo The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
, verbs have (often multiple) morphemes prefixed onto the verb stem. These prefixes are added to the verb stem in a set order in a prefix positional template. Although prefixes are generally found in a specific position, some prefixes change order by the process of metathesis. For example, prefix (3i object pronoun) usually occurs before , as in : "I'm starting to drive some kind of wheeled vehicle along" < + + + + However, when occurs with the prefixes and , the metathesizes with , leading to an order of + + , as in : "I'm in the act of driving some vehicle nto somethingand getting stuck" < < + + + + + instead of the expected * () ( is reduced to ).


Romanian

Similar to the French ''verlan'' is the
Totoiana Totoiana ("Totoian"), also known as the "Totoian language" ( ro, Limba totoiană) or the "inverted language" ( ro, Limba întoarsă, link=no), is a speech form used in the village of Totoi in Alba County, Romania. It is unique to the village an ...
, a speech form spoken in the village of Totoi in
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
. It consists in the inversion of syllables of Romanian words in a way that results unintelligible for other Romanian speakers. Its origins or original purpose are unknown. Its current use is recreative.


Rotuman

The
Rotuman language Rotuman, also referred to as ''Rotunan'', ''Rutuman'' or ''Fäeag Rotuạm'' (citation form: ''Faega Rotuma''), is an Austronesian language spoken by the indigenous people of the South Pacific island group of Rotuma, an island with a Polynesia ...
of Rotuman Island (a part of
Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...
) uses metathesis as a part of normal grammatical structure by inverting the ultimate vowel with the immediately preceding consonant.


Saanich

In Saanich, metathesis is used as a grammatical device to indicate "actual"
aspect Aspect or Aspects may refer to: Entertainment * ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art * Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company * Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England * ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...
. The actual aspect is most often translated into English as a ''be ... -ing'' progressive. The actual aspect is derived from the "nonactual" verb form by a CV → VC metathetic process (i.e., consonant metathesizes with vowel). See Montler (1986) and Thompson & Thompson (1969) for more information.


Slavic languages

Metathesis of
liquid consonant In phonetics, liquids are a class of consonants consisting of voiced lateral approximants like together with rhotics like . Etymology The grammarian Dionysius Thrax used the Ancient Greek word (, ) to describe the sonorant consonants () of cl ...
s is an important historical change during the development of the
Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the Ear ...
: a syllable-final liquid metathesized to become syllable-initial, therefore e.g. Polish or Czech vs. English . A number of
Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
roots indicate metathesis in Slavic forms when compared with other
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
: * Proto-Indo-European > Latin , German , English , - c.f. Slavic cognates, e.g. Czech "castle", Serbo-Croatian "castle" or "town", Russian (''grad'') and (''gorod'') "city". The divergence in meaning is attributed to the fact that the PIE root designated an enclosed area. * Proto-Indo-European > Proto-Germanic "arm", Proto-Slavic "shoulder"; Proto-Germanic > German , English "arm"; Proto-Slavic > Russian (''rámya''), Serbo-Croatian , Czech , Polish "shoulder" * Proto-Indo-European "to milk" > Proto-Germanic "milk", Proto-Slavic ; Proto-Germanic "milk" > German , Dutch , English ; Proto-Slavic > Russian (''moloko''), Serbo-Croatian or , Czech , Polish "milk" Other roots have diverged within the Slavic family: * Proto-Indo-European > Proto-Slavic > Russian (''mgla''), Polish , Czech , Slovak , Ukrainian (''imla''), "mist". The English word is also cognate, as is the Sanskrit (''megha''), hence
Meghalaya Meghalaya (, or , meaning "abode of clouds"; from Sanskrit , "cloud" + , "abode") is a states and union territories of India, state in northeastern India. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the state of As ...
, "abode of clouds". * Proto-Slavic "bear" (literally "honey eater") > Russian (''medvéd''), Czech , Serbo-Croatian or , Polish . c.f. Ukrainian (''vedmíd'')


Spanish

Old Spanish Old Spanish, also known as Old Castilian ( es, castellano antiguo; osp, romance castellano ), or Medieval Spanish ( es, español medieval), was originally a dialect of Vulgar Latin spoken in the former provinces of the Roman Empire that provided ...
showed occasional metathesis when phonemes not conforming to the usual euphonic constraints were joined. This happened, for example, when a
clitic In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a w ...
pronoun was attached to a verb ending: it is attested that forms like "leave luralhim" were often metathesized to (the phoneme cluster does not occur elsewhere in Spanish). The Spanish name for Algeria (''Argelia'') is likely a metathesis of the Arabic name for the territory ().
Lunfardo Lunfardo (; from the Italian ''lombardo'' or inhabitant of Lombardy in the local dialect) is an argot originated and developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the lower classes in Buenos Aires and from there spread to other urban are ...
, an
argot A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argot ...
of Spanish from
Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
, is fond of
vesre Vesre (reversing the order of syllables within a word) is one of the features of Rioplatense Spanish slang. Natives of Argentina and Uruguay use vesre sparingly in colloquial speaking, and rarely in formal circumstances. Tango lyrics make widespr ...
, metathesis of syllables. The word itself is an example: * ' > ' "back, backwards"
Gacería Extension of the Gacería in the province of Segovia Gacería is the name of a slang or argot employed by the (or makers of the , or threshing-board, as well as threshing-sledge) and the (or makers of : metathesis of Spanish word sieve) in ...
, an argot of Castile, incorporates metathesized words: * > Some frequently heard pronunciations in Spanish display metathesis: * > * > * >


Swahili

In Swahili, some foreign words can undergo metathesis during their importation. For instance, "American" becomes "mmarekani".


Telugu

From a comparative study of Dravidian vocabularies, one can observe that the retroflex consonants () and the liquids of the alveolar series () do not occur initially in common Dravidian etyma, but
Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...
has words with these consonants at the initial position. It was shown that the etyma underwent a metathesis in Telugu, when the root word originally consisted of an initial vowel followed by one of the above consonants. When this pattern is followed by a consonantal derivative, metathesis has occurred in the phonemes of the root-syllable with the doubling of the suffix consonant (if it had been single); when a vowel derivative follows, metathesis has occurred in the phonemes of the root syllable attended by a contraction of the vowels of root and (derivative) suffix syllables. These statements and the resulting sequences of vowel contraction may be summed up as follows: Type 1: V1C1-C² > C1V1-C²C² Type 2: V1C1-V²- > C1V1- Examples: * ''lē'' = ''lēta'' "young, tender" < *eɭa * ''rē'' = ''rēyi'' "night" < *ira * ''rōlu'' "mortar" < oral < *ural


Turkish

Two types of metathesis are observed in Turkish. The examples given are from Anatolian Turkish, though the closely related
Azerbaijani language Azerbaijani () or Azeri (), also referred to as Azeri Turkic or Azeri Turkish, is a Turkic language from the Oghuz sub-branch spoken primarily by the Azerbaijani people, who live mainly in the Republic of Azerbaijan where the North Azerbaija ...
is better known for its metathesis: * Close type: ** = "bridge" ** = "ground" ** = "hedgehog" ** = "match" ** = "neighbour" ** = "nobody" ** = "flag" ** = "sour" * Distant type: ** = ' "
bulgur Bulgur (from tr, bulgur, itself from fa, بلغور, bolġur (bolghur)/balġur (balghur), groats ), also riffoth (from biblical he, ריפות, riffoth) and burghul (from ar, برغل, burġul ), is a cracked wheat dish found ...
" ** = "loan" ** = ' "curse"


Hindustani

Like many other natural languages Urdu and Hindi also have metathesis like in this diachronic example: Sanskrit () ''janma'' > Urdu and Hindi ''janam'' "Birth" More examples * Portuguese became Urdu () and Hindi (''girjā''), meaning "church"


In popular culture

* Metathesis is described by the character Data in the episode "
Hollow Pursuits "Hollow Pursuits" is the 21st episode of the third season of the American science fiction television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'', and the 69th episode of the series overall. The episode introduces the character Lieutenant Reginal ...
" in the television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' after Captain Picard accidentally addresses Lieutenant Barclay as "Mr. Broccoli".


See also

*
Anagram An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, typically using all the original letters exactly once. For example, the word ''anagram'' itself can be rearranged into ''nag a ram'', also the word ...
*
Dyslexia Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, r ...
*
Epenthesis In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the beginning syllable ('' prothesis'') or in the ending syllable (''paragoge'') or in-between two syllabic sounds in a word. The word ''epenth ...
* Quantitative metathesis *
Spoonerism A spoonerism is an occurrence in speech in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched (see metathesis) between two words in a phrase. These are named after the Oxford don and ordained minister William Archibald Spooner, w ...


Citations


General bibliography

* Hume, E., & Seyfarth, S. (2019). "Metathesis". In M. Aronoff (ed.), ''Oxford Bibliographies in Linguistics''. New York: Oxford University Press. . * * Montler, Timothy. (1986). ''An outline of the morphology and phonology of Saanich, North Straits Salish''. Occasional Papers in Linguistics (No. 4). Missoula, MT: University of Montana Linguistics Laboratory. (Revised version of the author's PhD dissertation,
University of Hawaii A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...
). * * Young, Robert W., & Morgan, William Sr. (1987). ''The Navajo language: A grammar and colloquial dictionary'', (rev. ed.). Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press The University of New Mexico Press (UNMP) is a university press at the University of New Mexico. It was founded in 1929 and published pamphlets for the university in its early years before expanding into quarterlies and books. Its administrative ...
.


External links

* Searchable database of metathesis
Ohio State University Dept. of Linguistics Metathesis Page
* Compare
"Development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis"
2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry—metathesis process
"Metathesis"
in ''The Blackwell Companion to Phonology'' * {{Authority control Phonology Speech error nn:Metatese#Metatese i språk