Prosthesis (linguistics)

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Prosthesis or prothesis in linguistics and poetry (Greek pro "pre-" + thesis "putting") is the appending of a consonant, a vowel, or a whole syllable in front of a word, usually to facilitate pronunciation. It is a form of metaplasm.

The opposite phenomenon is called aphesis.

Prothesis in word borrowing/derivation

Prothesis may be a form of word corruption during borrowing from foreign languages or during derivation from protolanguages.

For example, /s/ + stop clusters in Latin gained a preceding /e/ in Old Spanish and Old French; hence, the Spanish word for "state" is "estado," deriving from Latin "status."

Some Turkic languages avoid certain combinations of consonants at the beginning of a word. In Turkish, for instance, Smyrna is called Izmir, and the French word station becomes Turkish istasyon.

In some dialects of Nenets language, the initial syllable cannot start with a vowel, therefore when borrowing the initial nasal consonant prothesis ng [ŋ] is used.

Hindi borrowing from English words with initial i; sp-, sk- or sm- clusters: school → iskuul, special → ispesal.

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