Query: /w/ for /r/ in any British dialects?

[Paul Johnston]

A lot of American dialects (like NYC, for one, and seemingly Great Lakes varieties too) have no retroflexion either.  What I have, for instance, is a "molar r", with the tongue retracted to approximately the palato-alveolar position) and somewhat spread across the mouth sideways.  The palatal resonance is present for me (Roger Lass has stated that this is really the direct descendant of the [@I] that used to be regular in NYC, with increased closure, in words like bird), but there is no shaping by the lips.

For 19c RP, the lip rounding might be the factor in the sound that makes it /w/-like.

I wonder if older Boston speakers had a similar sound.  The place where I hear the most lip /r/'s here isn't so much Boston itself (though I wonder about real Southie vernacular), but places like Lowell and Worcester- Barbara "Wawa" Walters and the late Paul Tsongas were famous for them, but I hear it from some of the contractors on the This Old House program.  Providence evidently lacks it, at least from anecdotal evidence.

Paul Johnston
On Nov 24, 2013, at 9:46 PM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Query: /w/ for /r/ in any British dialects?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> According to the late Peter Ladefoged, RP has a non-retroflexed rounded
> central approximant, like American /r/ without the retroflexion.  Just as a
> WAG, American speakers may have heard that as a /w/ rather than an /r/, if
> 19th c. RP had that sound.
>
> Herb
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 24, 2013 at 3:39 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at mst.edu>wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at MST.EDU>
>> Subject:      Query: /w/ for /r/ in any British dialects?
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Are there any British dialects where /w/ can be substituted for /r/, such
>> as "gwand" for "grand" and "dweadful" for "dreadful"? This feature turned
>> up in the speech of at least some 19th century (U.S.) "dudes", who somehow
>> took it to be refined British speech.  Was it based on anything actually
>> spoken in Britain?
>>
>> Gerald Cohen
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org