Re: Scientist's etymology vs. scientific etymology

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
>
> > > 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.
>

Even in English Northumbrian dialects had (and perhaps still have, to
some degree) uvular /R/. I doubt that this was in imitation of French
because the French spoken in English up to the end of Middle English
probably did not have uvular /R/, and after that time French was not a
significant influence on English pronunciation, I'm sure. So just as
/R/ was an independent development in Northumbrian English, so could
/R/ have arisen independently in Germanic dialects and then spread to
the standard languages. (I just won't give up, will I?)

> > 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.
>

And that is solely due to the influence of French?

AJ

> Torsten
>