Why do so many Americans pronounce “Amsterdam” as “AmPsterdam”?

37 comments

1. We do?

   Are you thinking of The Wire and Hampsterdam?

2. I’ve never heard someone pronounce it like that.

3. …what do you expect the answer to this question might be?

4. I think that’s just the way we talk sometimes when going from an m to an st sound and it sounds like a p sound.

5. We don’t.

6. The (p) in *ham(p)stər* isn’t so () in American English. It’s approaching *ham·​pstər*, like *ham·​pər*

7. This is news to me

8. *ac·cent noun /ˈakˌsent/ 1. a distinctive mode of pronunciation of a language, especially one associated with a particular nation, locality, or social class. “a strong German accent”*

   Really though, we’re not pronouncing it with a P, but going from m to s can sometimes sound like that with some American accents.

9. Huh, I didn’t realize I was doing that, but now I hear it. No Idea why, sorry.

10. The transition from the “mm” sound to the “st” sound often causes the lips to make a slight “p” sound for American English speakers.

11. Accents, typically.

    Many European speaking tones feel very “clipped” to American ears, you’re hearing a sort of transitional slurring from ‘Am’ into the “s”.

12. It’s not something we’re doing intentionally. But “Amst” is not a common sound in American English so the American accent usually adds a slight “p” sound between the m and s due to the position of our lips when we pronounce those two letters.

13. Why this one particular pronunciation caught your attention is beyond me. Not the water Vs wooder or any of the other strange sounding accents. But something that you wouldn’t even hear in normal conversations

14. If we do (and I’m pretty sure we dont) it’s probably because phonetics differ by language. If you are indeed from Amsterdam I’d like to evaluate how you pronounce cake.

15. Because of our accent. Never noticed this, but I just said Amsterdam like 50 times in a row and I think I hear it

16. Probably the same reason some people pronounce “Washington” like “Warshington”. Some people just pronounce things weird

17. I’ve never heard this, but I would assume it’s accent-related.

18. Same reason Japanese people would say rorripopu

19. My grandparents on one side, RIP, had an accent like that. Ampsterdam. Fantcy. Pentcil. Idk why but they seemed to need that overemphasis and tiny pause before the next syllable. Most people I know don’t seem to do that; therefore it reminds me of them and sounds old-fashioned and rural to me.

20. How many constituents so many? I’ve never heard anyone pronounce it like that.

21. I’ve never heard anyone pronounce the city “Ampsterdam.”

22. I don’t know. Quirky of language? Why do so many British people pronounce “idea” as “ideer”.

23. You mean it’s not pronounced “Hamsterdance”?

24. It’s called an epenthetic consonant. When two sounds with different modes/places of articulation are next to each other and the transition between them is tough, people over time come to pronounce an extra sound in the middle that shares some characteristics of one of the sounds while providing a smoother transition to the final sound.

    In Amsterdam, the /m/ is pronounced with the lips, while the /s/ is pronounced with the tongue and alveolar ridge. Neither /m/ nor /s/ have a hard stop and can run together, so /p/ is a natural addition – it’s a bilabial stop consonant, pronounced with the lips. It’s basically adding a hard stop to the /m/ so that it can transition to /s/.

    You’ll see this in other words in English (like Clempson). The exact same process is responsible for the /b/ in Spanish *hombre*, from *hominem* in Latin (hominem > homne > homre > hombre). Same with *nombre* (nomen > nomne > nomre > nombre).

25. Even when I very deliberately try to say just the letters that are there it comes out sounding like there is a “P” in it. Something about how my lips transition from “M” to “S”.

26. I thought it was Hamsterdam.

27. I sometimes call it Hamsterdam because I imagine it as a city of hamsters

28. We do it just to aggravate you

29. The “m” sound requires a closed mouth, and the “s” sound requires an open mouth with breathy air passing through your teeth. To transition between the two, you will need to start blowing air and quickly open your mouth, which unintentionally adds a quick “p” sound between the two.

    Source: me repeatedly mouthing “Amsterdam” to myself over the past couple minutes.

30. Nah it’s true. Never thought about it but I say it that way.

31. Expecially people from New England

32. A lot of the people saying “I don’t pronounce it that way” do, in fact, pronounce it that way and just don’t really notice or think about it.

33. This is common in a lot of languages, not just English! There is a small, involuntary p between m and s and a small t sound between n and s. In Italian, for example, they don’t really do spelling tests because the spelling is so phonetic and predictable. BUT one mistake Italian children make in their spelling is to spell something like “penso” as “penzo”. (Z in Italian makes a “ts” sound as in “pizza”, so they are hearing the invasive t, ie, “pentso”, and thinking it should be spelled “penzo”.)

    Edit: You should really ask this in r/asklinguistics. Most native speakers aren’t aware enough of their actual speech patterns to realize they’re even doing this. I am hyper aware of things like this because I studied classical singing and had to learn proper diction rules.

34. Wait until you hear them say Glasgow

35. No one pronounces Amsterdam with a p. You ear is simply not tuned to regional dialects.

36. Because of the phonological concept of *excrescence*, a form of epenthesis, which often manifests as inserting plosives, like p, into consonant clusters.

    The “mst” consonant cluster is phonotactically awkward for most American English speakers. We often insert a plosive like b or p to bridge transitions between nasal (like m) consonant and an alveolar stop (like t). The fricative s probably just amplifies this. The p sound kind of helps us to roll between the two different points of articulation in the mouth. It’s common to do the same thing with “Hamster”, which is so commonly misspelled “Hampster” that I don’t even really consider it to be a misspelling anymore. English is fun in that way.

    These kinds of insertions often become standard parts of languages. Using the article “an” in front of a vowel instead of “a” was a (very old) example of such a habit becoming standard. Many languages do this, and UK English is infamous for another one – the “intrusive r”.

37. It’s hamsterdam.