'nke

[pne]

The common word for "thank you" in German is "danke", pronounced as two syllables, something like [ˈdaŋ.kə].

But in casual speech, this is occasionally reduced to a mumbled sound along the lines of [ŋ.kə]... but is it really two syllables? When I thought about it this morning, I wonder whether what we have here is actually a prenasalised velar stop, so something more like [ᵑkə] (or [^ŋkə], if that doesn't show up), with one syllable. (I don't think it's usually a plain velar stop, [kə]—I think there's always at least some degree of prenasalisation.)

Prenasalised stops in German... whodathunkit? (Though it's not a phonemic one, granted.)

Comments

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure there is any particular way of mumbling "danke". It may be that it is often mumbled and it may sometimes sound like what you describe. But that way of mumbling it doesn't seem any more correct/normal to me than any other word mumbled in any other way.

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

But I have occasionally wondered about whether German has [hl] because I think "hallo" sometimes gets mumbled into something like [hlo:]. :P

[pne.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's just me then :)