LL-L "Phonology" 2003.06.07 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 07.JUN.2003 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: Gavin.Falconer at gmx.net
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2003.06.06 (11) [E]

Críostóir wrote:

Fah az ah kun rememba, r-saanz in Lankishuh (Lankie) uh mor abaat
rhotics, az in thuh phrase (well rendud in Brendan
Behan's buk Borstal Boy): "Hast thar radd thy cuckoo?"

R-liaison in English is a separate issue.  I've read that it was
originally
the case that it only happened in phrases where there was historically
an
/r/, such as "better or worse" — making it not unlike the retained /s/
in
Standard French liaison — but then spread to other environments.  I
assume that the
example above is "Hast thou had thy cuckoo?", which wouldn't be very
different from "law of the land", where the insertion of an /r/ between
"law" and
"of" would hold true for most natives of England (evidently a good way
of
spotting Scottish speakers of RP is that they have a glottal stop
instead).

I read recently that the vast majority of English people lost their
postvocalic /r/ very late in the nineteenth century, though the process
started in
the eighteenth.  I've never heard anyone from the north of England in
the
British broadcast media with postvocalic /r/; nor did I hear it when
studying at
Liverpool University, which suggests that it is weaker there than in the
south-west of England, the area typically associated with postvocalic
/r/.  The
map on page 82 of the 'dtv-Atlas Englische Sprache' shows three areas:
the
south-west; Lancashire, Cumbria and the Isle of Man; and the border
regions of
England north of a straight line drawn eastwards from the Solway Firth.
I
suspect that the linguistic situation has now changed, however, since
the most
recent research the map is based on is 1955.

Does anyone know which accents of northern England would pronounce the
word
"north" with two syllables?  It occurs to me that it might be related to
the
postvocalic /r/ issue.

Most natives of England have stopped short of weakening their /r/ in
other
environments to the point where it is vocalised somewhere between /r/
and /w/,
since it's subject to stigma.  However, there are numerous public
figures
who display it.  I watched Johnathan Ross interview the unfortunate
Franka
Potente, who obviously had to concentrate on his show.  Roy Jenkins had
it, and
Michael Howard has it slightly too.  Interestingly, the latter two are
not
English but Welsh.  I heard that one Welsh dialect has it, but both
neither
Jenkins nor Howard sounds particularly Welsh, and I don't know how
Jenkins
sounded before he adopted RP at university.

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

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From: Gary Taylor <gary_taylor_98 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Phonology

Hi all

Criostóir wrote:
"My remark was a dithering question, best reformed
thus: have Midland,
Southern and Northern Englishes (South-West
is excluded) always lacked a definite r-sound or has
this been a
development of Modern English? If so, why, how and
when exactly were r-sounds in English largely
dropped?"

Difficult questions... 'When' is not as difficult.
Apparently it's a feature that spread from London -
can't say an exact date, but it's been around a long
time, although originally treated as sub-standard. Its
prominence in the standard of British English has only
been in the last three hundred years or so.

'Why' is an interesting question. 'r' tends to have
the effect of lowering the previous vowel (which is
why fir and fur are now pronounced the same). This
lowering of the vowel can then form the impression
that the r is present and the actual realisation of
the r becomes unnecessary, purely because the previous
vowel has changed. In a word like 'beer' for example I
don't pronounce the r, however the ee sound has become
a diphthong and I have the feeling that the r is
present, even though it's not. The process for its
loss probably went /bi:r/ > /bI at r/ > /bI@/. In most
American Englishes on the other hand the second stage
has not occurred and thus the dropping of r is not
permitted as there's no marker on the vowel that the
'r' is there.

A similar thing is happening in most Lowlands
languages now, probably more due to the influence of
High German, which is also starting to drop its r's.

Also getting back to my other favourite -
l-vocalisations are similar. A word like 'bell' has
historically undergone the changes /bel/ > /beol/ >
/beo/ where the last /o/ is the marker that the l is
present even though it's not.

Consonant dropping or vocalisations is a very
interesting subject for Lowlands. Similar changes have
occurred in other European languages, such as
l-vocalisation in French accounting for the difference
between 'bel' and 'beau' where 'bel' only occurs
before a vowel. However the Germanic languages due to
earlier developments have taken this to extremes and
can also account for differences in words like 'day'
in English but 'Tag' in German where the g in English
has been vocalised in a similar process to that
mentioned above. Why this is the case in Germanic
languages - I'll let you know more fully in a couple
of years once I've finished my PhD and can be a bit
more sure. I've got a hunch that it dates back to the
fixing of stress on the first syllable, which caused
later unstressed vowels to weaken and then to be
dropped leaving huge amounts of words with word final
consonants which is an unstable state of affairs for
languages. Also due to high amounts of vowels in
Germanic languages (in comparison to Romance, Finnic
and Slavic languages for example) the languages are
becoming more optimal by losing their final
consonants.

Its a completely natural process, which is why I'm
very proud to vocalise my l's and r's and do my bit
towards making English more optimal :)

Gary

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