Somebody (Mark O?) to Torsten:
>>I doubt, however, that the American R is Dutch derived.
I think it's time for a Canadian perspective :) First of all,
assuming that the "American R" is short for the *NORTH* American
R, the retroflex variant seen even in CANADA which is actually
a real country seperate from the US (although on a tight leash), I
was under the impression that this R arises from an overwhelming amount of
Irish immigrants to the New World who liked the concept
of large farmland (perhaps for potatoes), people who also
pronounced English with a retroflex rhotic anyway. Of course, the
loss of "r" is a British introduction along the appropriately named New
England coast.
Oh and by the way, there _were_ people coming to Canada too, not
just New York :P And, something else to consider, we had the
Underground Railway for those that didn't have so much fun down
south, although I'm not sure if such a movement had an impact on
the dialectology of North America.
Finally, as for Low German, it exists even in this ol' prairie
province of mine. In the town of Steinbach (near Winnipeg,
Manitoba), you will here the sounds of Mennonites speaking their
own Low German tongue. I doubt however that they even had a
detectable effect on pronunciation here either. (Especially,
since they are not the only immigrants to come here.)
- gLeN
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