/zh/ replacing /dzh/?

[Dennis R. Preston]

Ah wuz pullin' ya'll's laigs. Sorry.

dInIs

>"Garage" with a /zh/ is normative in Southern Ontario.
>Don
>
>  >I've noticed it for "garage" too.
>>
>>  dInIs
>>
>>  >I've noticed for some time that many of my students and a lot of
>>  >newsreaders and sports announcers, local, cable, and network, are
>>  >replacing certain cases of /dzh/ with /zh/.  I first noticed it with
>>  >proper nouns like Beijing and Elijah, which are now regularly
>>  >pronounced with palato-alveolar fricatives rather than affricates.
>>  >This evening a newsreader on MSNBC did the same replacement with
>>  >"siege".  That's the first case I've noticed in a word that wasn't a
>>  >name and/or foreign sounding.
>>  >
>>  >Herb Stahlke

--
Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic,
      Asian & African Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027
e-mail: preston at msu.edu
phone: (517) 353-9290