Why -stein ending is pronounced -steen in English?

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Platapus

When two vowels go walking
The first one does the talking


One of the inconsistent rules about English is that sometimes when two vowels are together, we pronounce the first one. We do that in all cases except when we don't.

The rules of English must have originated from lawyers: the arbitrary manner in which they are observed reeks of the taint of legalese; its not enough to simply say ""i" before "e"< someone ( a damnable lawyer, I tells ya) made a 'loophole' with "except after"c"", and, not content to leave it there the scoundrel(s) added an amendment "except in words sounding like 'neighbor' and weigh'"...

Scratch a rule for English spelling/pronunciation and you'll very often find an "except"; one of my exes majored in linguistics in university and speaks several languages; she learned to speak, read, and write Japanese; I once asked her which was more difficult to learn, English or Japanese; she said compared to Japanese, a highly structured, consistent language, English was a mish-mosh of exceptions, variants, and arbitrary inconsistencies...

I blame the Germanic influence; I am no great shakes when it comes to learning languages, but I once made an effort to start learning German at a local adult school; on the first day, the instructor who was a rather strict and pompous German-born fellow, started the class by extolling the 'grand virtues' of the German language and its "precision"; he declared we would find the language easy to learn since there were so few irregularities, particularly in the verbs; he asked the class members to call out English verbs and he would demonstrate how, in German, they were entirely regular; one by one, the students called out simple English verbs, which were met by the instructor saying, "No, in German that verb is irregular"; after about the sixth or seventh consecutive 'irregular verb', the class devolved into fits of laughter at the situation; the instructor then gave a vivid demonstration of the oft-reputed German lack of a sense of humor...




<O>

[Sean C]

It's because American English is crazy.