LL-L "Phonology" 2003.06.04 (05) [E]

Wed Jun 4 18:04:30 UTC 2003

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From: Ruud Harmsen <rh at rudhar.com>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2003.06.04 (03) [E]

08:07 AM 6/4/2003 -0700, R. F. Hahn:
>I similar case of influence exists in certain dialects of Romany
>(including Sinti).  Romany has an apical /r/.  Like Semitic, it
also has
>a uvular fricative [R] that is an allophone of /G/.  In the dialects of
>Eastern Europe the two remain distinct.  In Western European dialects
>(especially of sedentary groups, specifically Sinti of Germany)
sporadic
>adoption of uvular /r/ has been blurring this distinction.  I assume
>that this led to the adoption of the grapheme <rr> for /G/, as opposed
>to <r> for /r/, in the current Romany and Sinti orthographies (where I
>feel <gh> or an "accented" <g> would be more appropriate, e.g. _Ghoma_
>instead of _Rroma_ for the name of the ethnic group).  In dialects with
>uvular /r/, the <rr> is simply pronounced longer; thus, the system now
>equals that of predominant Brazilian Portuguese.

Not quite, if I understand your explanation of Roma r and g correctly.
In pt_BR, to keep things simple, r between vowels is apical, never
uvular, and all others r's are uvular,
Details (although they are hardly relevant for this discussion):
http://rudhar.com/foneport/alfaport.htm#Alfa-R
http://rudhar.com/foneport/noteport.htm#Note6
http://rudhar.com/foneport/noteport.htm#Note4Item5
http://rudhar.com/foneport/noteport.htm#Note4Item6

>To return to the Lowlands, for a while at least, uvular /r/ was used by
>some speakers of English in England.  You occasionally heard it on the
>radio or on T.V.  (I haven't heard it lately.)  I think we discussed
>this a long time ago, but I am not sure we ever came to any conclusion
>as to its origin.

My old 1956 Daniel Jones (but later editions exist) says this
happens in Durham, in the North of England. I don't know how exactly
that is supposed to sound.
I did hear people on BBC World Service several times (perhaps also
several persons?), who had some kind of approximant, probably
uvular, but difficult to pinpoint exactly, as their r. I do not know
if that is an individual accent or even speech defect, or a remnant
of such a North English regional accent. They otherwise spoke normal
BBC "RP" English though, nothing regional about it.

--
Ruud Harmsen  http://rudhar.com/index/whatsnew.htm  3 June 2003

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From: Gavin.Falconer at gmx.net
Subject:  LL-L "Phonology" 2003.06.04 (03) [E]

Reinhard wrote:

To return to the Lowlands, for a while at least, uvular /r/ was used by
some speakers of English in England.  You occasionally heard it on the
radio or on T.V.  (I haven't heard it lately.)  I think we discussed
this a long time ago, but I am not sure we ever came to any conclusion
as to its origin.

At the risk of bringing down the standard of debate and being awfully
obscure for those without access to the BBC, I think an example would be
Wally
Batty, the husband of Nora in 'Last of the Summer Wine', who tends to
say his
wife's name with a uvular /r/.  As far as I can make out, it seems
regionally
limited to parts of the north of England and even then more of a
regionally
limited speech defect than a dialectal feature.  Perhaps someone from
the area
might know more and set me to rights.

--
All the best,

Gavin

Gavin Falconer

Belfast: 02890 657935
Dublin: 00353 (0)1 831 9089
Work: 00353 (0)1 618 3386
Mobile: 0779 173 0627
Fax:  001 954 301 7991

"Wovon man nicht reden kann, darüber muss man
schweigen."

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From: "Jim Rader" <jrader at Merriam-Webster.com>
Subject:  LL-L "Phonology" 2003.06.04 (03) [E]

My assumption has always been that the uvular /r/ of Israeili Hebrew
was taken from Eastern Yiddish.  How Yiddish speakers--and not all of
them--came on it I don't know for certain, but I believe that most
scholars don't think it came from Western Europe.

As I think someone (our moderator?) noted, there is lots of allophonic
variation among speakers of Lowlands and Scandinavian languages
who have some kind of uvular /r/, as you native speakers across  the
Pond doubtless know.  I notice that many (most?) Dutch speakers from
the Randstand area, whether they use a uvular or alveolar /r/ initially
and medially, have a peculiar sound word-finally that is quite close to
American English /r/.  Collins & Mees call it a "prevelar bunched
approximant."

Has uvular /r/ penetrated West Frisian or Low German dialects?  Or do
they maintain an alveolar trill or tap?  What about Dutch dialects in
Belgium?

Regards,
Jim Rader

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject:  Phonology

Ruud (above):

> I did hear people on BBC World Service several times (perhaps also
> several persons?), who had some kind of approximant, probably
> uvular, but difficult to pinpoint exactly, as their r.

Yes, that's how I hear it too.  I am tempted to describe it as a
"uvular/postvelar glide."  It has little friction, rather like the
voiced ("Czech/Slovak" and in some environments also Afrikaans) <h>, but
without the aspiration, if you know what I mean.  I don't think there is
an IPA symbol for it.  The closest IPA symbol may be the upside-down "r"
(postalveolar approximant, SAMPA [r\]), but I think it is pronounce a
bit farther back.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

P.S.: Someone recently asked what the strange symbols are we sometimes
use.  I believe he was referring to SAMPA symbols, a US-ASCII substitute
for the International Phonetic Alphabet
(http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/home.htm)

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