"Superhands" vs "Super Hans" pronunciation

Question

I've been watching Peep Show and I just discovered on the internet that the guy I thought was named "Superhands" is actually called "Super Hans".

Is it normal to confuse these two due to similarities in pronunciation? The 'd' is not silent in 'hands', is it? Or can they be phonetically equivalent in certain dialects?

Answer 1

In certain dialects of English, superhands and Super Hans may sound identical because of two reasons:

1. Insertion of [d] in Hans

Hans may be pronounced with an epenthetic/intrusive [d] because of a phenomenon called epenthesis. Epenthesis is the pronunciation of an unhistorical sound within a word. Consonants and vowels are usually inserted into words for the ease of pronunciation. Epenthesis happens for a variety of different reasons, but the one with which we're concerned here is:

Transition between a nasal and a fricative: when there's a fricative after a nasal in the same syllable, Anglophones are likely to insert an epenthetic stop between them. The reason is because the air comes out through the nose while articulating a nasal and as the nasal changes to an oral fricative, the airflow must be switched from nasal to oral and should be stopped before articulating an oral consonant, so there is a brief period in which both the nasal and oral airflow are stopped, this is a brief oral stop, homorganic (same place of articulation) with the nasal. ^{[Adopted from English After RP by Geoff Lindsey]}

Lindsey goes on to say that the plosive is more likely if the fricative is voiceless, ‘when the articulatory system has an additional voicing change to handle’. He also says that ‘it’s less likely if the fricative is at the beginning of a stressed syllable, e.g. in'sane’ (no epenthetic stop)

Some examples of epenthetic stops are:

• length is almost always pronounced lengkth, with an epenthetic k between the nasal [ŋ] and the oral fricative [θ]
• warmth and hamster are often pronounced warmpth and hampster, respectively (with an epenthetic p)
• thunder used to be þunor, the d is epenthetic. (Historical epenthesis)
• prince and prints are pronounced identically in certain dialects

Moving on to the original question, in Hans, the nasal and the fricative are in the same syllable, meaning it's a prime candidate for epenthesis. It's possible though that most speakers might insert a non-underlying/epenthetic stop between the /n/ and the /z/, making it sound more like hands. So it's one of the reasons Hans and hands sound similar.

2. Deletion of the underlying /d/ in hands

Another reason is the deletion of the underlying /d/ in hands. In some dialects, it's increasingly common to elide (delete) the /d/ when it occurs between two other voiced sounds. The d in ‘hands’ is flanked by two voiced sounds (/n/ and /z/), therefore most speakers are likely to remove the underlying /d/, making it sound like hans [hænz]. This process is generally called elision.

Conclusions

Hands may sound like Hans because of elision or vice versa because of epenthesis. It depends on who's pronouncing them:

• some dialects have what's called the PRINCE-PRINTS merger; they might insert an epenthetic stop in Hans
• some dialects might elide the underlying d from hands
• there are many other dialects that clearly distinguish between pairs such as prince-prints, Hans-hands, mince-mints etc

Answer 2

Is it normal to confuse these two due to similarities in pronunciation?

For most speakers, those words are completely different words and never get confused.

The 'd' is not silent in 'hands', is it?

No, it is not silent. In "handsome", it is silent but not in "hands".

Or can they be phonetically equivalent in certain dialects?

Maybe there are dialects that confuse them but speakers of most dialects do distinguish between them.

Also note that "Hans" can be pronounced with a broad A (like the A in "bar").