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Rhotacism
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Rhotacism may refer to several phenomena related to the usage of the consonant r (whether as an alveolar tap, alveolar trill, or the rarer uvular trill).
- the excessive or idiosyncratic use of the r;
- conversely, the inability or difficulty in pronouncing r.
- the conversion of another consonant, e.g., s, into r.
The term comes from the Greek letter rho, denoting "r".
Orthoepy
In medicine, rhotacism is the inability or difficulty in pronouncing the sound "r". The Looney Tunes character, Elmer Fudd (originally voiced by Arthur Q. Bryan and later by Mel Blanc), is notorious for his exaggerated rhotacistic speech ("Be vewwy quiet… I'm hunting wabbits"). A more modern cartoon character would be Homestar Runner, who talks in much the same way. In popular culture it would be Jonathan Ross.
Rhotacism is more common among speakers of languages which have a trilled R, such as Swedish, Italian, Polish and Spanish. This sound is usually the last one a child masters. Some people never learn to produce it correctly and substitute other sounds, like a velar or uvular approximant (such as the interviewer Barbara Walters). R may be also realized as a uvular trill—a pronunciation usually known as "French R". It used to be considered prestigious in Poland, but now it is usually considered a speech defect.
Linguistics
In linguistics, rhotacism can be seen in a conversion of another consonant — for instance , , or — to the language's rhotic consonant in some environment or other. The most common may be of to .
Albanian
The southern Tosk dialect (which is now the dominant literary language) of Albanian changed to while, for example, the Gheg dialects did not. Compare:
- zëri vs zâni ('the voice')
- gjuri vs gjuni ('the knee')
- Shqiperi vs Shqypni ('Albania')
Aramaic
In Aramaic, proto-Semitic n is often changed to r:
- bar "son" as compared to Hebrew ben (from Proto-Semitic *bnu)
- trên and tartên "two" (masculine and feminine form respectively) as compared to Demotic Arabic tnen and tinten (from Proto-Semitic *?naimi and *?nataimi). Cf. also Aramic tinyânâ "the second one", without the shift.
Scottish Gaelic
In Scottish Gaelic. a prevocal cluster developed into often with nasalization of the following vowel as in cnoc ('hill').
Germanic languages
All surviving Germanic languages underwent a change of intervocalic to , implying a more approximant-like rhotic consonant in early Germanic.
English
- was vs were (from Germanic *was vs *wezun)
- lose vs forlorn (from Germanic *liusana vs *luzenaz)
Many people wrongly believe that, in Scouse, intervocalic dentals are realised as "r" when the stress pattern is stressed vowel - dental - unstressed vowel (i.e., "got a lot of" becoming "gorra lorra"). Mancunians and people from Yorkshire use this construction much more frequently.
The flapping of intervocalic and in a number of English dialects is a type of rhotacism.
German
- war vs gewesen (from Germanic *was vs *wezun)
In Central German dialects, esp. Rhine-Franconian and Hessian, d is frequently realized as r in intervocalic position. This change also occurs in Mecklenburg dialects.
- Borrem (Central Hessian) vs Boden (Standard German)
Dutch
- vriezen vs gevroren (from Germanic *friusana vs *fruzenaz)
- was vs waren (from Germanic *was vs *wezun)
- verliezen vs verloren (from Germanic *liusana vs *luzenaz)
- kiezen vs uitverkoren
It should be noted that the degree of rhotacism differs greatly between the different dialects of Dutch.
Compare also Gothic dags with Old Norse dagr (from Germanic *dagaz)
Latin
- flos (nominative) vs florem (accusative) (Old Latin flosem)
- genus (nominative) vs generis (genitive) (from *geneses, cf Sanskrit janasas)
- corroborare vs robustus (verb from *conrobosare)
- de iure vs iustus (from de iouse)
- ero vs est (from eso)
This reflects a highly-regular change in pre-classical Latin. Intervocalic s in the oldest attested Latin documents invariably became r. Intervocalic s in Latin suggests either borrowing, reduction of an earlier ss, or the treatment of d+t into s (videre/visum). Old s was preserved initially (septum), finally, and in consonant clusters.
The English word hono[u]r is derived from French honour, which in turn was derived from Late Latin honor, earlier honos, which became honor by analogy with honoris (genitive), honorem (accusative).
Neapolitan
In Neapolitan rhotacism is seen in a shift from the sound of "d" to an "r" sound:
(Italian vs Neapolitan)
- medesimo vs meresemo
- diaspora vs riaspro
- madonna vs maronna
and, to a lesser extent, from the sound of an "l" to an "r" sound:
- albero vs arvero
- ultimo vs urdemo
Portuguese
In Old Portuguese, rhotacism occurred from the "l" sound to the "r" sound, as in the words obrigado "obliged" and praça "plaza". In contemporary Brazilian Portuguese, rhotacism of "l" in the syllable coda is characteristic of poorly educated speakers.
Romanesco
Rhotacism in Romanesco consists of a shift from "l" to "r" when it is followed by a consonant.
Thus, Latin altus (tall) which in Italian is alto in Romanesco becomes arto. In ancient Romanesco it also happened when "l" was preceded by a consonant, as in the word ingrese (English), but the modern way of speaking has lost this characteristic.
In Romanesco exists another kind of rhotacism: the shortening of the geminated "r". So the words errore, guerra and marrone (error, war, brown) in Romanesco become erore, guera and marone.
Romanian
Romanian rhotacism consists of a shift from intervocalic "l" to "r" and "n" to "r".
Thus, Latin caelum became Romanian cer and Latin fenestra becomes Romanian fereastra.
Some northern Romanian dialects and Istro-Romanian also further transformed all intervocalic into . This occurred only with words of Latin origin. For example, Latin bonus became Istro-Romanian bur, as compared to standard Daco-Romanian bun.
Sanskrit
In Sanskrit, words ending in -s other than -as become -r in sandhi with a voiced consonant:
- naus (before p/t/k) vs naur bharati
- agnis (before p/t/k) vs agnir mata
This is not a case of rhotacism proper, since r and s are simply allophones in those positions.
South Slavic languages
(This section relies on the treatment in Greenberg 1999)
In the South Slavic languages (Slovene, Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian; Macedonian, Bulgarian) rhotacism consists of the change from a voiced palatal fricative to a dental/alveolar tap or trill , usually occurring between two mid-vowels, e.g.:
- moreš 'you can' from earlier možeši
- kdor from earlier k?to-že
The beginning of the change is attested in the Freising manuscripts, a written document from the 10th century AD, which shows both the archaism (ise 'which' < *j?-že) and the innovation (tere 'also' < *te-že). It progressed eastward and is still found in individual lexical items in Bulgarian dialects, e.g., dorde 'until' (< *do-že-de). However, the results of the sound change have largely been reversed by lexical replacement in dialects spoken by speakers associated with Orthodoxy, beginning in the fourteenth century. Speakers belonging to Catholic communities have not only preserved more of the lexical items with the change, but have extended grammatical markers in -r- from heterogeneous sources that formally merged with the rhotic forms that arose due to the sound change, e.g., Slovene dialect nocor 'tonight' (< *not'?-s?-o- + -r-) on the model of vecer 'evening' (< *vecer?). The reversal of the change is evident in Orthodox speech, where the -r- formant is systematically removed, e.g., Serbian vece 'evening'.
See also
Bibliography
- Crowley, Terry. (1997) An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.*
External links
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