Carrying a Numbrella

My three year old granddaughter was playing with an umbrella recently and she asked me, "What is this called?"  She is very smart and inquisitive.

I told her that it was an umbrella and she went around talking about her "Numbrella." What she heard me say was "a numbrella."

The reason she was saying this is that in English we add an "N" between ending and starting vowels in consecutive words so as to avoid what is called a hiatus. To us the hiatus sounds almost like a hiccup.  

To  avoid the hiccup, the indefinite article changes from a to an. So, properly, it is "an umbrella" rather than "a umbrella." But, of course, my granddaughter is three and doesn't yet know proper English grammar.

This made me think of the Koine (Common) Greek used in the New Testament.  The same device is used for two vowel sounds occurring consecutively.  This is called the movable n (nee). I think that this device originated with the ancient Attic-Ionic versions of Greek.  Some of the linguists out there may know if it is found in earlier languages.

(Not all languages use this device.  In Samoan for example, every vowel is fully pronounced even when two vowels occur in succession; the surname Tuiasosopo is pronounced as "too-ee-AH-suh-so-po".  The name of the Hawaiian oo bird is pronounced "oh-oh.")