LL-L "Phonology 2003.06.08 (05) [D/E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 08.JUN.2003 (05) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Ruud Harmsen <rh at rudhar.com>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2003.06.08 (02) [E]

GaidhealdeAlba at aol.com:
>To what extent is the /hw/ sound spread in English and its dialects? Is
>it in Scottish dialects of English, and is "wh" pronounced as such in
>Scots?
>
>On a broader note, are /hw/ and other /h/ + consonant combinations
>widespread in other Lowland languages?

All I know is that Danish writes hv in cognate words, but doesn't
pronounce it as such.
I think hvid = white, for example.

>Yes, I know one person who has this defect, a native speaker of Spanish
>from
>Colombia, caused (he claims) by an unusually short sub-lingual frenum,
>although in his case he replaced only the /rr/ with the /R/.

That would be the same as in the Portuguese of Portugal and
(differently) Brazil. Coincidence?
Is the Puerto-Rican (I think it was) Spanish uvular r (which I never
had the pleasure of hearing myself yet) also restricted to rr (and
initial r, being the same phoneme in Spanish and Portuguese), or is
it also used for non-initial written r?

>>>It is also interesting to note that Iberian Portuguese has the usual
>>>apical flap for /r/, except at the beginning of a word or in cases of
>>>_rr_ (where Castilian has a strongly trilled and often aspirated
/r/),
>>>in which case it is pronounced like a "French /r/" in Portuguese.  So
>>>you got *both* type in the same language!

True. But note that the Spanish-style strongly trilled apical r is
also used for this in Portugal by some. It is a minority today, but
not a very small one. Some used both:  Amalia Rodrigues - but
perhaps she did it only when singing - and some modern fadistas do
that too.

In many regions of Brazil the initial r and rr is phonetically very
close to a voiceless h today - the sound some Spanish speakers
(Cuba!) use for final s. Mr. Cahtro does, anyway.

>My theory about its existence in Portuguese is that it’s a relic of
some
>pre-Indo-European language which was able to establish itself due
to the
>fact that the speech area was at the very fringe of the Roman Empire.

Possibly. Or maybe French influence. The fact remains that a single
r between vowels is never uvular, in no accent worldwide of
Portuguese that I know of. The final r is often uvular in Brazil,
but never ever in Portugal. In other words, there is no type of pt
pronunciation which does not also have an apical r. There are styles
that have only apical r's though. If the uvular r were due to French
influence (as it may well be in Dutch and German), one would not
expect that.

>With regard to Vlaams, I believe (but I could be wrong) that almost the
>entire speech area uses apical /r/.

No. Not if you see "Vlaams" in the wider sense of "in Dutch speaking
parts of Belgium", which includes Brabantish and Limburgian
dialects. The uvular r is also quite common in Belgium, and not only
in Belgian Limburg.

Vlaamse dialecten worden gesproken in Oost- en West-Vlaanderen, en
die zijn heel anders dan het Brabantse dialect van Antwerpen
(hoofdstad van het Vlaamse Gewest, heel verwarrend). Oost- en
West-Vlaams schijnen ook onderling sterk te verschillen. Het
Brabants van Antwerpen is weer hoorbaar heel anders dan accenten en
dialecten in Nederlands Noord-Brabant, met steden als Breda,
Tilburg, Eindhoven, den Bosch.

Ik kan iemand uit Noord-Brabant binnen een paar seconden
onderscheiden van iemand uit Antwerpen, aan het accent, ook als ze
allebei gewoon Standaard-Nederlands spreken. En ik denk dat vrijwel
iedereen in Nederland dat kan. (In België misschien ook wel).
Toch zou ik het niet makkelijk vinden om aan te geven wat dan
fonetisch precies de verschillen zijn, want bijna alle klanken zijn
gewoon hetzelfde.
--
Ruud Harmsen http://rudhar.com/index/whatsnew.htm  Update 8 June 2003

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