Any examples of a silent T in words with a -te suffix?

September 12, 2022 2:46 PM

There's a name in my family that I have always liked, but that is pronounced in an unexpected way based on the spelling. Looking for other words or names that have a similar pronunciation.

The name is Milate, which I know can be pronounced like 'my lutt' and I have heard 'me latte'... but my family pronounces is like 'mi lay.' I think the silent T is the most unexpected pronunciation, and I'm not sure where that came from. Someone suggested Swiss French, does that seem plausible?

Does anyone know of any other silent T words that end in -te?
Thank you!

posted by cristalina to Writing & Language (7 answers total)

Someone suggested Swiss French, does that seem plausible?

No variety of French that I'm aware of, including Swiss French, would have a silent t in Milate -- the expected pronunciation would be /milat/ "mee-LAHT".

(As a rule of thumb in French spelling, a final -e in a word is a marker that the consonant preceding it is, in fact, pronounced -- e.g. no t is pronounced in prêt but it is pronounced in prête.)

On the other hand, the surnames Millet or Mollet would have a final silent t. Has the Milate name unambiguously come down with that spelling?
posted by andrewesque at 2:59 PM on September 12, 2022 [12 favorites]

Could it be T-glottalisation? "In both RP and GA, /t/-replacement is found in absolute final position".
posted by robcorr at 4:59 PM on September 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

I also wondered about T-glottalisation. There are definitely British English accents in which "late" would be pronounced with a glottal stop instead of a distinct "t" sound at the end. But I don't think you'd characterise that pronunciation as "lay".
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 2:22 AM on September 13, 2022

If I heard the name pronounced I would have assumed it was the French name spelled Millet. Is it possible there has been some mixup over time - either originally being Millet, or being influenced by the pronunciation of Millet?
posted by Glier's Goetta at 3:47 AM on September 13, 2022

The vowel in Millet is pretty damn close to English "long A." (It's not an exact match, but it's closer than any other sound in English.)

To write a "long A" sound in English, you use the letter A and a silent E afterward.

I wonder if an English speaker heard Millet, thought "that's a long A sound," and confusedly decided to spell it with the letter A and give it a a silent E afterwards. Because that would give you Milate, despite it not being a correct or logical spelling in either language.

This is just a guess. But it's a guess I'm pretty pleased with, so I'm going to show off about it. :)
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:03 AM on September 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm thinking Celtic or Gaelic? Mhairi is pronounced Vary, or so a Scots mum told me.

Having now Google, there is a reference to it being Ethiopian.
posted by Enid Lareg at 12:01 PM on September 13, 2022

Thinking way, way outside the box here, but in Danish, if the 't' was treated as the Danish 'soft d', that's a very outside possibility. The vowel would be closer to English 'lay' without the diphthong, and might match what you remember. Try an online pronouncation service or Google translate to sound out a Danish word like 'lade' or 'gade'.

"Milate" itself doesn't sound Danish from my limited exposure, but names can be unusual sometimes.
posted by gimonca at 12:10 PM on September 13, 2022