Re: Scientist's etymology vs. scientific etymology

--- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
> > > French /R/ has spread to Germanic languages.
> >
> > Probably an independent development in these
> languages, not an
> > adoption from French.
>
> Extremely unlikely. East of France, French was the
> language of the
> better educated in the 18th century, north ans east
> of Germany German
> was in the 16th and 19th centuries. Today the border
> line runs
> somewhere in Småland in Sweden.
>
> > I have a Ukrainian friend who is unable to
> pronounce the alveolar
> > trill /r/ of Ukrainian and Russian so she
> substitutes /R/, even
> > though she has practically no knowledge of French.
> A similar
> > innovation could have happened in Germanic.
>
> There are always a few who do that. The interesting
> part happens when
> it becomes socially acceptable. All Danish dialects
> have had apical
> /r/ in historical times, uvular /R/ is now the norm
> everywhere.
>
>
> Torsten

Now, an odd question. Why does Hebrew gave uvular /R/
when most of its speakers have roots in Slavic and
Arabic countries where <r> is a tap or a trill? My
understanding is most of the very early speakers were
Poles, Ukrainians and Belorussians.