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by Anonymous on November 15th, 2007
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070905215517AAMcyDZ
*QOUTE* Actually "aks" comes from middle English and "ask" is modern English. Consider that the majority of slave plantations were owned by Americans with British roots and that explains it. "aks" was still widely used in England during the European/American slave trade period. It is called a metathesis, but it metathesized from "aks" to "ask", not vise-versa. To take it back to Old English, "ascian" and "axian/acsian" were both in use. Some whites with strong British heritages/roots in the U.S and other English speaking countries still use this form as well.
Other metathesized words in English (not limited to any race or country)
asteriks - asterisk
brid - bird
calavry - cavalry
comftable - comfortable
foiladge - foliage
intorduce - introduce
intergal - integral
revelant - relevant
ekcetera - etcetera
Metathesis is not only a phenomena that takes generations to evolve in a language, but its a common occurrence in our daily lives. For example, many children say "pasghetti" before they can say "spaghetti".
* 2 months ago
Source(s):
ESL/EFL teacher of ten years in several countries and I have studied the history of the English language quite thoroughly.
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Comments
wow cut and paste. how about using your own answer. How do you know that person even knows what they are talking about?
by medicgirl on May 29th, 2008
maybe it said more succinctly what he/she wanted to say. Some people aren't very eloquent and have a hard time getting their point across. Not you though, can see the disgust on your face from here. Not too pretty.
by king of ellipses on September 24th, 2008
They used someone else's answer word-for-word.
by medicgirl on September 30th, 2008
medicigirl: A valid answer is a valid answer no matter who says it.
by hijklmno on October 30th, 2008