RHOTACISM

'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".

Contents

Orthoepy

Phonetics

Albanian

Dutch

English

German

Japanese

Latin

Neapolitan

Portuguese

Romanesco

Romanian

Sanskrit

Slovene

See also

External links

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").
Rhotacism is more common among speakers of languages which have a trilled R, such as Swedish, Finnish, Polish and Italian. 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. R may be also realized as an uvular trill—a pronunciation usually known as "French R". It used to be considered prestigious in Poland, but now it's usually believed to be a speech defect too.

Phonetics

In Indo-European languages, rhotacism can be seen in a conversion of another consonant — for instance "s" or "d" or "n" to "r" in many words.

Albanian

Albanian rhotacism changes "n" to "r";

★ ''ranë'' (from the Latin ''arena'') vs ''rërë'' (= "sand")

★ ''Valona'' (from the Latin ''Avlona'') vs ''Vlora'' (a town in Southern Albania)
that change took place in the 13th century in the southern (Tosk) dialects, which now dominate in the literary language. The Northern Gheg dialects, also spoken in Kosovo and Western Macedonia, keep the original "n". Hence "armik" (dictionary entry for "enemy") is "anmik" in Gheg.

Dutch

★ ''vriezen'' vs ''gevroren'' (from Germanic
★ ''friusana'' vs
★ ''fruzenaz'')
Compare also Gothic ''dags'' with Old Norse ''dagr'' (from Germanic
★ ''dagaz'')

English

★ ''was'' vs ''were'' (from Germanic
★ ''was'' vs
★ ''wēzun'')

★ ''lose'' vs ''forlorn'' (from Germanic
★ ''liusana'' vs
★ ''luzenaz'')
In Scouse, intervocalic dentals are realised as "r" when the stress pattern is STRESSED VOWEL-dental-unstressed vowel. "Got a lot of.." becomes "Gorra lorra...".

German

★ ''war'' vs ''gewesen'' (from Germanic
★ ''was'' vs
★ ''wēzun'')
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)

Japanese

The Japanese language does not have a phoneme equivalent to the English 'l' or 'r'; the closest sound is referred to as an alveolar lateral flap. Loanwords with 'l' or 'r' in the original language are represented using this sound, and in romanized Japanese text the letter 'r' is used, regardless of whether the original was an 'r' or 'l' to begin with. Accordingly, Japanese people are faced with rhotacism-type trouble in pronouncing the letters 'r' and 'l', as well as difficulty in differentiating between the two sounds.

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''
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 Portuguese, rhotacism of "l" in the syllable coda is characteristic of the ''caipira'' dialect.

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 ''fereastră''.
Some northern Romanian dialects and Istro-Romanian also further transformed all intervocalic "n" into "r". 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.

Slovene

Slovenian rhotacism consists of shift from (like in English vi'si'on) to vibrating :

★ ''moreš'' from ''možešь''

★ ''kdor'' from ''kъtože''
Slovenian rhotacism is already visible in the Freising manuscripts, a written document from the 10th century.
The same shift occurred in single words in other South Slavic languages.

See also

★ Vocalic r

External links

★ Curing rhotacism