LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.12.06 (11) [A/E]

Tue Dec 7 02:40:34 UTC 2004

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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at worldonline.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.12.06 (04) [A/E]

Elsie het geskryf:

> Ingmar, die brei-R word nie in Afrikaans as 'n spraakdefek beskou nie,
maar
> wel as  Hugenote Frans invloed, wat dalk 'n foutiewe aanname is siende dat
die
> Achterhoekers dit dan ook doen!

>>>>> Uvular R is known from many languages; in French, German and Hebrew of
course,
but that doesn't mean that the Huguenots, who were I think mainly from
Southern France,
brought it with them to S.A., they may have had trilled r in their speech,
or both types. Same with the
many Germans in S.A., if they came mostly from Northern Germany this could
mean they used
a tongue r in stead of the present "Standard" German uvular pronunciation.

Although it sounds unexpected, uvular R in Afrikaans may even have
Indonesian/Malay
amongst its ancestors: in Eastern Java at least this is a variety
pronunciation of  otherwise
tongue tip r. I know this because my former father-in-law was an Indo from
Surabaya,
and he used that kind of r along with his otherwise broad Indonesuan accent,
which surprised
me a lot when I met him, because the strongly roled tongue r is one of the
supposed features
of the way they speak, according to the Dutch.
Probably the Pilipino/Tagalog 'g' where Indonesian has 'r' has developed via
uvular r, but that is
just a thought of my own that never has been examened by me or so.

What I meant was that the Afrikaans word 'breie' may come from Low Saxon
'breien'
and not from Dutch, because Du has 'brouwen'.
But where this R-pronunciation in Afrikaans came from is hard to say.
In the case that it's French (Huguenot) influence, isn't it said that Louis
Quatorze introduced this
'Parisian R' in French because he had a speech-defect and everybody imitated
it, not to offend him?

Maybe it comes from Jewish influence, who knows? I don't think Yiddish and
other Jewish languages
took their r from German (or French) as one might say, because even old
Judeo-Arabic dialect, in Marocco,
Egypt and Iraq, have a uvular in stead of a tongue r... The fact that many
cities with uvular r are surrounded
by trilled r country regions can be an indication for that, because the fast
majority of Jews lived in cities, at
least in Western Europe. Maybe Hebrew already had uvular pronunciation?
Probably there are also Jews with trilled rs, like there are Indonesians
with uvular ones.
But here in the Netherlands, all Jewish people I've met, heard or seen on TV
have uvular r.

Ingmar

----------

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

Ingmar (above):

> Maybe it comes from Jewish influence, who knows? I don't think Yiddish and
> other Jewish languages
> took their r from German (or French) as one might say, because even old
> Judeo-Arabic dialect, in Marocco,
> Egypt and Iraq, have a uvular in stead of a tongue r...

Are you sure about that?  I've never in my life come across an Arabic
dialect that realizes /r/ (written (<ر>) as [R].  As far as I know, it's
always apically trilled [r] (in special singing style often a slightly
retroflex fricative).  You are not by any chance confusing this with another
Arabic -- actually Semitic -- phoneme, the _ghain_ (written <غ>), which is
realized as a voiced uvular fricative?  This sounds somewhat like, or
actually very close to the uvular /r/ of Europe and Modern Hebrew, and
Arabic speakers tend to use it for /r/ when speaking French, *even though in
their own language this sound is not at all associated with /r/*.  Modern
Hebrew pronunciation is a far cry from Ancient/Classical Hebrew
pronunciation, is a watered-down approximation with a very, very strong,
even distorting European accent, several phonemes having come to be
pronounced alike, though still spelled differently.  Originally, the
pronunciation was very much like that of Arabic.  This means that <ג>
_ghimel_, the fricative variant of /g/ _gimel_ <גּ>, used to be pronounced
like the Arabic _ghain_, and Hebrew <ר> _resh_ used to be pronounced like
its Arabic equivalent.  This still applies to both Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew
of Arabic countries.  In Modern "acceptable" Hebrew, the sound of _ghimel_
has come to be used for the _resh_, and the _ghimel_ is no longer pronounced
fricative but identical to _gimel_, i.e. [g].  However, many older
immigrants in Israel still pronounce the /r/ apically (while younger ones
tend to bow to uvular peer pressure).  (Like a few others I delighted in the
Old-Hebrew-like pronunciation of North African immigrants, but the younger
ones switched to the "European accent" very soon, apparently in fear of
giving away their "Oriental" origin, something I found really sad.)

Yiddish has a lot of dialectal variation.  /r/ is realized as either [r] or
[R], depending on the dialect.  I assume that [r] is older and is also
reinforced by Baltic, Slavonic, Hungarian, Romanian, etc.  I further assume
that [R] began as an "affectation" of those who wanted to come across as
sophisticated by approximating French and/or German.  Before WW II, German
tended to be seen as a sophisticated equivalent of _daytsh_, and many
Yiddish speakers looked up and learned German (which makes the Holocaust
crimes committed against them seem even more cruel, if this were possible).
Latvian Yiddish was once chosen as "standard" or stage Yiddish because its
pronunciation was closest to German.

I can think of no other Jewish language that uses [R] for /r/, though
perhaps some remnant (genuine) West Yiddish dialects may do so, perhaps also
dialects of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) in [R]-dominated areas, and perhaps also
the now extinct Zarphatic (Judeo-French).  Certainly, no Jewish language of
Asia and Africa does, except Modern Hebrew.

> The fact that many
> cities with uvular r are surrounded
> by trilled r country regions can be an indication for that, because the
> fast
> majority of Jews lived in cities, at
> least in Western Europe. Maybe Hebrew already had uvular pronunciation?
> Probably there are also Jews with trilled rs, like there are Indonesians
> with uvular ones.
> But here in the Netherlands, all Jewish people I've met, heard or seen on
> TV
> have uvular r.

Generally speaking, Jews have always adopted the languages of their diaspora
host countries, certainly where those became their actual home countries.
After a generation or two, they spoke/speak those languages like anyone
else, and they became/become first languages for most of them.  Though some
languages have, directly or indirectly, borrowed terms from Jewish
languages, Jewish languages are not known to have had such great impact on
non-Jewish languages as to alter their pronunciation.  On the contrary,
Jewish languages tend to adapt to dominant languages.  This is all the more
the case since the European "Jewish Emancipation" (i.e., integration)
movements of the 19th century (with roots going back much earlier), which
brought about rapid decline of Judeo-specific languages and rapid
acculturation in Western Europe.  Already during the Middle Ages there were
there great Jewish masters of German, French, Provençal, Spanish, Arabic and
other language arts, people that happened to be of Jewish background and/or
religion and where great, influencial scholars and bards using the various
local languages.  (Yiddish began as a Jewish German variety; and its rapid
development even before eastward migration was due to an Anti-Semitic wave
resulting in institutionalized ghettoization, thus separation.)  I do not
think that Jewish contributions to "mainstream" language arts cause
Judaeification in any way.

A brilliant example is Tajik (an Iranic language) whose greatest performance
masters traditionally are Jewish families, especially in the great cities of
Uzbekistan, primarily Bukhara.
Yes, there is a Judeo-Iranic variant known as "(Judeo-)Bukharan," but Tajik
lyric performances, handed down among Jews, are generally considered "pure"
and exemplary Tajik language and delivery.

Rather than grasping at straws like this one, why not look at what to me
seems the most obvious possibility in the spread of uvular /r/: French
influence, going back to the eras of Europe's "Francomania", when everyone
who wanted to be sophisticated learned French and tried to come across as
French, even put on French accents and interspersed their native languages
with French words and phrases.  Obviously, these were folks with access to
formal education.  Who were they?  Well-to-do city dwellers (and country
aristocrats that followed their lead).

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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