Re: Scientist's etymology vs. scientific etymology

> > 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