Re: [tied] Re: Franco-Provençal

From: Rick McCallister
Message: 63179
Date: 2009-02-19

--- On Thu, 2/19/09, Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...> wrote:

> From: Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...>
> Subject: [tied] Re: Franco-Provençal
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Thursday, February 19, 2009, 12:31 PM
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen"
> <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister
> <gabaroo6958@> wrote:
> >
> > > --- On Wed, 2/18/09, Francesco Brighenti
> <frabrig@> wrote:
> > >
> > > . . .
> > > >
> > > > 1) Does the fact that, just to make an
> instance, many Irish,
> > > > Germans and so forth were among the early
> colonizers of the east
> > > > coast of the present U.S.A. have any bearing
> on the process of
> > > > formation of the different varieties of
> English spoken in the
> > > > U.S.A. today?
> > >
> > > Definitely, American English probably kept final
> /r/ dues to the
> > > large Scots and Irish presence, as well as the
> Germans, who tended
> > > to learn prescriptive English at school --hence
> Midwestern English
> > > as the US standard
> >
> > Try listening to the retroflex /r/ of this sample of
> Leids (from
> > Leyden) dialect, eg in 'woord' at 0:10.
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbuJpyfEqFw
> > To my ear, that /r/ is closer to the Standard American
> /r/ than
> > anything I've heard in Scots.
> >
> >
> > Torsten
> >
>
> That clip, "Leids voor beginners", is meant as
> humor, is it not? I
> found it very amusing. But yes, their /r/ is stunningly
> similar,
> almost identical, to American /r/, and it seems in all
> positions, not
> just final or before consonants like the pronunciation
> among most
> Dutch speakers I've heard (e.g. Mirren's
> "worden" with the long
> schwa). Nevertheless, because similar [r]'s can be
> found throughout
> England, I would doubt that the Dutch are definitively the
> cause of
> the American pronunciation of /r/. BTW, many linguists say
> that the
> commonest [r] in the U.S.A. is not actually retroflex [r]
> but what
> they call "bunched /r/", whose articulation
> I'm not really sure of but
> I think involves contracting the tongue into an arch,
> pointing the tip
> downward, and articulating the approximant somewhere close
> to the hard
> palate. Nevertheless the Leids /r/ is indistinguishable to
> me.
>
> Andrew

Your description of "bunched r" definitely seems to be on the mark as normal American r