Re: Estimated timeframe of albanian s->sh transformation

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Mate Kapovic" <mkapovic@...> wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2004 1:22 PM
> Subject: [tied] Re: Estimated timeframe of albanian s->sh

transformation

>
>
> > That's interesting, since the American War of Independence was in
> > that period, and since the Americans (at least in the standard

(low,

> > Dutch-influenced?) dialect that spread from New York) didn't
> > drop /r/'s. Any indication that this had become a English/American
> > shibboleth already then?
>
> NY traditionally drops the r's. The fashion of dropping the r's

spread (and

> generalized) there and in other cities on the East coast in the 19th
> century. But since 1945. r-pronouncing American became prestigous.

You can

> still hear the old r-less pronouciation norm in American films or

series

> where the older East coast ladies and such tend to speak that way.

In those

> same movies and TV shows, younger people tend to pronounce the r-s.
>

This is the way I reconstruct it, without too many hard facts:
There are basically three dialects in the USA: New England, Southern
and Standard. Standard stretches from New York west like smoke from a
smokestack. New England is the old North, behind the port of Boston,
and Southern is the old South, based in Virginia. New York was the
noveau riche immigrant port in the middle, originally with a Dutch
substrate. Amsterdam and Rotterdam Dutch has retroflex r's, as does
Standard American, unless New England and Southern. America has taken
over some folklore from Dutch (Santa Claus etc). If New York was
looking for a 'folksy' pronunciation in the 19th century, it would
have included some Dutch features. Later immigration caused
Brooklynese 'toity-toid street' etc, thus dropping r's in its own way.

Torsten