From: tgpedersen
Message: 63482
Date: 2009-02-27
> > And the Germans arrived through New York in large numbers, in manyAnd once there, they started learning the top dog dialect at the time,
> > parts of the Midwest people of German extraction were the largest
> > component until recently.
>
> German settlers went directly to the Midwest. They normally arrived
> in colony groups with land and supplies already paid for. The only
> thing they did in NY, Philly, Boston, etc. was get off the boat and
> catch a train or a river ship, etc. to get to the Midwest ASAP.
> > Besides, in all I read on /r/ in American English, they make aUlster has retroflex r, and it's opposite Liverpool, which was an
> > semantic slide. They are looking for the origin as the American
> > English *retroflex* /r/ in the *rhotic* dialects of Britain. But
> > none of those AFAIK have *retroflex* /r/ which are the cause of
> > the American English *r-colored vowels*
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-colored_vowel#R-colored_vowel
> > 'A vowel may have either the tip or blade of the tongue turned up
> > during at least part of the articulation of the vowel (a retroflex
> > articulation) or with the tip of the tongue down and the back of
> > the tongue bunched. Both articulations produce basically the
> > same auditory effect, a lowering in frequency of the third
> > formant. Although they are rarely attested, they occur in some
> > non-standard varieties of Dutch and in a number of rhotic accents
> > of English like General American. The English vowel may be
> > analyzed phonemically as an underlying /&r/ rather than a
> > syllabic consonant.'
>
> The closest thing to American English is Ulster English. I've met a
> lot of people from there and they often sound very close to
> Americans. Some had the retroflex /R/ but I don't know if from
> there or here but they had been in the US for only a couple of
> months. Check it out.