Rhotacism

Not to be confused with R-colored vowel.

Sound change and alternation
Metathesis Quantitative metathesis
Lenition Consonant gradation Consonant voicing and devoicing Assibilation L-vocalization Debuccalization
Fortition
Epenthesis Anaptyxis Excrescence Prosthesis Paragoge Unpacking Vowel breaking
Elision Apheresis Syncope Apocope Haplology Fusion Cluster reduction
Cheshirization Compensatory lengthening Nasalization Tonogenesis Floating tone
Assimilation Coalescence Coarticulation Palatalization Velarization Labialization Final devoicing Metaphony (vowel harmony, umlaut) Consonant harmony
Dissimilation
Sandhi Liaison, linking R Consonant mutation Tone sandhi Hiatus Synalepha  Elision Crasis Synaeresis and diaeresis Synizesis
Other types Rhotacism Rhinoglottophilia Sulcalization

Rhotacism refers to several phenomena related to the usage of the consonant r (whether as an alveolar tap, alveolar trill, or the rarer uvular trill):

• the excessive or idiosyncratic use of the r;
• conversely, the inability to or difficulty in pronouncing r.
• the conversion of another consonant into r.

The term comes from the Greek letter rho, denoting "r".

Orthoepy

In medicine, rhotacism is the inability or difficulty in pronouncing the sound r. In English, the most common occurrence of this type is a pronunciation perceived as closer to [w]. The Looney Tunes character Elmer Fudd is notorious for his exaggerated rhotacistic speech, as in, "Be vewwy quiet: I'm hunting wabbits." The cartoon character Homestar Runner talks in much the same way. Another example is the depiction of Pontius Pilate in Monty Python's Life of Brian. In popular culture, examples include Barry Kripke (from the Big Bang Theory), Roy Hodgson, Matt Bellamy, Jonathan Ross, Frank Muir, Sister Wendy Beckett, Terry Jones, and the politician Roy Jenkins. Other examples are interviewer Barbara Walters, actress Kay Francis and Bradley Welling.

Rhotacism is more common among speakers of languages that have a trilled R, such as Swedish (except in the landscapes of Skåne, Halland, Blekinge, Öland and southern Småland), Finnish, Italian, Polish, and Spanish. This sound is usually the last one a child masters. Some people never learn to produce it; they substitute other sounds, such as the velar approximant, the uvular approximant, and the uvular trill (often called "French R").

Many speech pathologists call this problem de-rhotacization, because the sounds lose their rhotic quality rather than becoming rhotic.

Linguistics

In linguistics, rhotacism or rhotacization is the conversion of a consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant — /z/, /d/, /l/, or /n/) to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of /z/ to /r/.

Albanian

The southern, Tosk dialect, which contributed the most to modern standard Albanian, changed /n/ to /r/ while, for example, the Gheg dialects did not. Compare:

• zëri vs. zâni ('the voice')
• gjuri vs. gjuni ('the knee')
• Shqypni vs. Shqipëri ('Albania')
• i gëzuam vs. i gëzuar ('happy')
• i tretun vs. i tretur ('lost')

Aramaic

In Aramaic, proto-Semitic n is often changed to r:

• bar "son" as compared to Hebrew ben (from Proto-Semitic *bnu)
• trên and tartên "two" (masculine and feminine form respectively) as compared to Demotic Arabic tnēn and tintēn (from Proto-Semitic *ṯnaimi and *ṯnataimi). Cf. also Aramic tinyânâ "the second one", without the shift.

Basque

Ancient Basque *l has changed into a tapped R between vowels in Basque. This can be observed in words borrowed from Latin, for example.

Gaelic

In Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic a prevocal /kn/ cluster developed into /kr/ often with nasalization of the following vowel as in cnoc [krɔ̃xk] ('hill').

Germanic languages

All surviving Germanic languages, members of the North and West Germanic families, underwent a change of /z/ to /r/, implying a more approximant-like rhotic consonant in early Germanic. Some languages have regularized, giving all forms an r. Gothic retains s or z, since it did not undergo rhotacism.

Proto-Germanic	Gothic	Old Norse	Old English Modern English	Old Frisian	Dutch	(Old High German) Modern German
*was,1st/3rd sg *wēzun1st pl	was, wēsum	var, vārum	(wæs, wǽron) was, were	was, wēren	was, waren	(was, wārum) war, waren
*fraleusanaN,inf *fraluzanazp.part.	fraliusan, fralusans	—	(forléosan, forloren) forleese, forlorn	urliāsa, urlāren	verliezen, verloren	(farliosan, farloren) verlieren, verloren
*deuzaN,nom *deuzasgen	dius, diuzis	dýr, dýrs	(déor, déores) deer, deer's	diār, diāres	dier, diers	(tior, tiores) Tier, Tieres

English

Pronouncing the letter "r" in every case has lost popularity in the English of most of England, Australia, and New Zealand, but retained its popularity in American, Canadian, Irish, Welsh and Scottish English. Softening the letter "t" to a "d" is popular in many languages. Many modern English dialects do the same (e.g. "got a lot of" becoming "godda lodda" or "gorra lorra").

German

In Central German dialects, esp. Rhine-Franconian and Hessian, /d/ is frequently realized as [ɾ] in intervocalic position. This change also occurs in Mecklenburg dialects.

• Borrem (Central Hessian) vs Boden (Standard German)

Korean

In Korean, the consonant ㄴ, /n/, can be realized as /l~ɾ/, as in the surname Roh, and will assimilate into a following ㄹ /l~ɾ/.

Romance languages

Latin

• flōs^nom — flōrem^acc (Old Latin flōsem)
• genus^nom — generis^gen (from *geneses, cf. Sanskrit janasas)
• rōbus, rōbustus — rōbur, corrōborāre (verb from *conrobosare)
• jūstus — de jūre (from de jouse)
• est — erō (from esō)

This reflects a highly regular change in pre-classical Latin. Intervocalic s in the oldest attested Latin documents (assumed to have been pronounced /z/) invariably became r. Intervocalic s in Classical Latin suggests either borrowing (e.g. rōsa) or reduction of an earlier ss (e.g. pausa < paussa, vīsum < *vīssum < *weid-tom). Old s was preserved initially (septum), finally, and in consonant clusters.

The English word honour or honor is derived from Anglo-Norman honour, which in turn was derived from Late Latin honor, earlier honos, which became honor by analogy with the oblique stem of honoris (genitive).

The consonants d or l changed to r before another d or l, so that the same consonant would not appear twice in a row (dissimilation).

• medius — merīdiēs (from *medi-diēs)
• caelum — caeruleus (from *cael-uleus)

This phenomenon was noted by the Romans themselves:

In many words in which the ancients said s, they later said r... foedesum foederum, plusima plurima, meliorem meliosem, asenam arenam

—Varr. De lingua Latina, VII, 26, In multis verbis, in quo antiqui dicebant s, postea dicunt r... foedesum foederum, plusima plurima, meliosem meliorem, asenam arenam

Neapolitan

In Neapolitan rhotacism is seen in a shift from the sound of "d" to an "r" sound:

(Italian vs Neapolitan)

• medesimo vs meresemo
• diaspora vs riaspro
• madonna vs maronna

and, to a lesser extent, from the sound of an "l" to an "r" sound:

• albero vs arvero
• ultimo vs urdemo

Portuguese

In Old Portuguese, rhotacism occurred from the "l" sound to the "r" sound, as in the words obrigado "obliged" and praça "plaza". In contemporary Brazilian Portuguese, rhotacism of "l" in the syllable coda is characteristic of the caipira dialect.

Romanesco

Rhotacism in Romanesco consists of a shift from "l" to "r" when it is followed by a consonant. Thus, Latin altus (tall) which in Italian is alto in Romanesco becomes arto. In ancient Romanesco it also happened when "l" was preceded by a consonant, as in the word ingrese (English), but the modern way of speaking has lost this characteristic.

Another change related to r was the shortening of the geminated rr. This is not rhotacism. So the words errore, guerra and marrone (error, war, brown) in Romanesco become erore, guera and marone.

Romanian

Romanian rhotacism consists of a shift from intervocalic "l" to "r" and "n" to "r".

Thus, Latin caelum became Romanian cer and Latin fenestra becomes Romanian fereastră.

Some northern Romanian dialects and Istro-Romanian also further transformed all intervocalic [n] into [ɾ]. This occurred only with words of Latin origin. For example, Latin bonus became Istro-Romanian bur, as compared to standard Daco-Romanian bun.

Sanskrit

In Sanskrit, words ending in -s other than -as become -r in sandhi with a voiced consonant:

• naus (before p/t/k) vs naur bharati
• agnis (before p/t/k) vs agnir mata

This is not a case of rhotacism proper, since r and s are simply allophones in those positions.

South Slavic languages

(This section relies on the treatment in Greenberg 1999)

In the South Slavic languages (Slovene, Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian) rhotacism consists of the change from a voiced palatal fricative [ʒ] to a dental/alveolar tap or trill [r], usually occurring between two mid-vowels, e.g.:

• moreš 'you can' from earlier možeši
• kdor from earlier kъto-že

The beginning of the change is attested in the Freising manuscripts, a written document from the 10th century AD, which shows both the archaism (ise 'which' < *jь-že) and the innovation (tere 'also' < *te-že). It progressed eastward and is still found in individual lexical items in Bulgarian dialects, e.g., dorde 'until' (< *do-že-dĕ). However, the results of the sound change have largely been reversed by lexical replacement in dialects spoken by speakers associated with Orthodoxy, beginning in the fourteenth century. Speakers belonging to Catholic communities have not only preserved more of the lexical items with the change, but have extended grammatical markers in -r- from heterogeneous sources that formally merged with the rhotic forms that arose due to the sound change, e.g., Slovene dialect nocor 'tonight' (< *not'ь-sь-ǫ- + -r-) on the model of večer 'evening' (< *večerъ). The reversal of the change is evident in Orthodox speech, where the -r- formant is systematically removed, e.g., Serbian veče 'evening'.

Bibliography

• Catford, J.C. (2001), "On Rs, rhotacism and paleophony", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 31 (2): 171–185, doi:10.1017/S0025100301002018 
• Crowley, Terry. (1997) An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.
• Greenberg, Marc L. (1999), "Multiple Causation in the Spread and Reversal of a Sound Change: Rhotacism in South Slavic", Slovenski jezik/Slovene Linguistics Studies 2: 63–76 http://hdl.handle.net/1808/803 
• Nandris, O (1963), Phonétique Historique du Roumain, Paris: Klincksiek 

External links

• Curing rhotacism