From: Rick McCallister
Message: 63545
Date: 2009-03-01
> From: Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...>Look at early colonial topos named for places in the UK, this is a clue to where the settlers were from.
> Subject: [tied] Re: American Dutch dialects
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Sunday, March 1, 2009, 4:38 PM
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
> <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> >
> > On 2009-03-01 19:53, Andrew Jarrette wrote:
> >
> > > Incidentally Torsten I just spoke on the phone
> with my sister, who has
> > > been to Cornwall and Devon in England where she
> heard the people there
> > > speaking with r's much the same as in Canada
> or the U.S., i.e. in
> > > syllable-final position. She couldn't be sure
> whether they were
> > > retroflex because she does not have training in
> phonetics, but when I
> > > described retroflex pronunciation she thought
> that was probably what
> > > she heard. Also the character on "Coronation
> Street" who uses these
> > > strong retroflex r's is Fred Elliott, in case
> you might get and/or
> > > watch the program in Denmark.
> >
> > SW England is where the American-type /r/ most likely
> comes from, and
> > it's also the largest surviving stronghold of
> rhoticity in England. The
> > West Country pronunciation of /r/ is usually regarded
> as retroflex, but
> > as I point out in my article, variation between the
> true retroflex
> > (technically, subapico-postalveolar) articulation and
> the "bunched"
> > (mediodorso-mediopalatal) one is probably their
> natural mode of
> existence.
> >
> > Interestingly, residual rhoticity is still found in
> the West Midlands,
> > but the prevailing realisation of syllable-coda /r/
> there seems to be
> > apico-alveolar rather than retroflex/bunched:
> >
> > http://www.leeds.ac.uk/linguistics/WPL/WP2007/5.pdf
> >
> > Piotr
> >
>
>
> The thing I found most interesting in this paper was the
> map of
> rhoticity in Britain in 1889: even at this relatively late
> date,
> Ellis's survey indicates that roughly half of England
> was rhotic.
> thus there is ample room for migrants from England to be
> the source or
> part source of American and Canadian /r/'s. They could
> be part source
> along with Irish and Scottish settlers (and Welsh if they
> were rhotic
> at this time). The fact that in 1889 roughly half of
> England was
> rhotic suggests that in the 1700's the majority of
> England would have
> been rhotic, and although I don't know the statistics,
> I would bet
> that most immigrants from England immigrated before the
> 19th century,
> when England was predominantly rhotic.
>
> I found this paper somewhat disappointing as it commented
> little on
> the pronunciation of younger speakers. It also seems to
> say in the
> conclusion that today the Black Country is completely
> non-rhotic --
> where did you see that the West Midlands still has residual
> rhoticity,
> Piotr?
>
> Andrew