Our language has got some
interesting little things.
One of those
little things is the sigmatoid
Brasil: it should have been said, in written and oral discourse - in Australia, England, or United States - in the same way it is said in Brasil because
basil has got the same vowels around the
s, and the sound is the same we hear when Brazilians say the name of their Country.
Is this prejudice?
Why changing Brasil, which could be written in the same way in Australia and in Brasil, into Brazil?
Another one of these
little things is that we must say
sutle when we read
subtle, not
subtle, as one would suppose is the right way to read this sigmatoid in the English language, maybe because we should try to use as few letters as possible to express a sound.
It is possible that it is all about the letters that remain after we delete the
sub in the sigmatoid: the reason for us not to have to pronounce the
b in
subtle is that
tle is not an entry in our dictionary, since
subtract brings
tract, which has a world reference in our dictionary, and its
b is pronounced.
Indeed: with
submarine,
marine is listed in the dictionary, and its
b is pronounced; with
subtropical,
tropical is listed in the dictionary, and its
b is pronounced.
Notwithstanding,
subversive has a non-silent
b in it, but
versive is not listed in the dictionary.
Maybe
subversive comes from
subversion, and
version is listed in the dictionary, so that, in this case, we pronounce the
b because of the sigmatoid that generates
subversive.
The sigmatoid
subvention, however, is listed in the dictionary, its
b is not silent, and no sigmatoid that could have generated it there appears.
Things then get really funny because Portuguese has got rules for pronunciation that are quite rigid:
any s between vowels will become a z in terms of sound is a rule for the Portuguese language.
Perhaps the English language
should be fixed at least in some
pieces of it.
Properly learning a language that is not our
mother tongue is an enormous sacrifice, and that is perceived as a compliment to the other Country/culture/people, since it is the same as bowing to the other Country/culture/people.
Perhaps rules
that make things easy, such as the
s-between-vowels rule, reach our minds, and hearts in the same way that a
thank you for trying to master my language does, so why should we not worry about having as many rules as possible also for the English language?
Australia