Re: American Dutch dialects

--- On Sat, 2/28/09, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

> From: tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...>
> Subject: [tied] Re: American Dutch dialects
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Saturday, February 28, 2009, 5:32 AM
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew Jarrette"
> <anjarrette@...> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com,
> "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > > AFAIK Southwestern England today has
> retroflex r's including
> > > > syllable-final, and I believe Shropshire
> does as well.
> > >
> > > Those sites I've seen present this
> 'retroflex r' in initial
> > > position. The interesting retroflex r is the
> syllable-final one
> > > which produces the preceding vowel to be
> r-colored. Do you have a
> > > reference on such a phoneme on the British.
> > >
> >
> >
> > I don't have a reference, but I've heard it.
> Up until recently
> > (perhaps a year ago) one of the characters on the
> British show
> > "Coronation Street" had a strongly
> retroflexed /r/ even in
> > syllable-final position, but he was definitely English
> and not North
> > American or Australian or other. I don't know
> where he hailed from
> > though. I have also seen various British people
> interviewed on TV
> > programs who had North-American style /r/'s,
> including syllable-
> > final, but otherwise had British pronunciation (the
> most recent one
> > was a program on children with extremely high
> IQ's). Again I can't
> > remember where they were from, but I know for sure
> that they were
> > English from England (their home town was indicated)
> and had
> > noticeable North-American-style /r/'s.
>
> Okay. Now you just have to find a way to make this English
> dialect
> become import this feature into the main dialect of
> American English.
>
>
> Torsten

Consider also when final /-r/ began to disappear from English, where it started and how long it took to spread. I've heard it said the change came around Cromwell's time, but was that when it was picked up by the elite in London --as French /r/ was by the elite in Paris during the Revolution?