--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:
> On 05-03-03 09:54, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:
>
> > Might this (children acquiring "correct" /r/ late, or not at
> > all) account for the variability of /r/ in so many
> > languages?
>
> How else?
>
It's a common observation that in languages with apical /r/ there
are always speakers who will have difficulty pronouncing it (I'm one
too, but that's no problem in Denmark), and one theory of the spread
of uvular /R/ says that somehow some of these speakers arrived in
the upper class and the habit spread from there. My own theory is
based on personal experience: micromercurialism (low dose chronic
mercury poisoning) will produce motor difficulties with fine
movements, noticeable first in the fingertips and tip of the tongue.
Increasing industrialisation, heavy metal pollution and especially
the quaint idea of placing a highly toxic metal in people's teeth
will produce exactly that result.
Note that it's the 'unspoilt' northern areas that keep the
trilled /r/: Scotland, Norrland in Sweden.
BTW there's probably not one German composer of genius who hasn't
been suspected of heavy metal poisoning.
Torsten