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Posts tagged "r"
“Lauren: It’s a really nice example of how migration creates these little accent time capsules. The R sound is something that’s very easy to lose from the ends of words. Across languages this happens. It’s a very easy target for something to get lost. It was far more common in England four centuries ago when a lot of people migrated. The areas that people migrated from in England and the British Isles and the United Kingdom, more generally, people migrated to what is now the United States and Canada. They had more of this R at the end of words as a feature. Then a couple of centuries later, when the colonists arrived in Australia from the United Kingdom, that feature was far less common there. You don’t find it in Australian or New Zealand accents, but you do find it in those North American accents more predominantly. Not always – but as a general feature. You have this really nice time capsule just because the migrants came a couple of centuries earlier to the US than they did to Australia.
Gretchen: It’s neat – I mean, there are, obviously, historical records of when all this migration was happening, but it’s comforting to know that if we didn’t have those historical records, we would be able to reconstruct them from the accents.
”—
Excerpt from Episode 55 of Lingthusiasm: R and R-like sounds - Rhoticity
Listen to the episode, read the full transcript, or check out more links about phonology
Transcript Lingthusiasm Episode 55: R and R-like sounds - Rhoticity
This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 55: R and R-like sounds - Rhoticity. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 55 show notes page.
[Music]
Lauren: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Lauren Gawne.
Gretchen: I’m Gretchen McCulloch. Today we’re getting enthusiastic about R and R-like sounds, also known as “rhoticity.” But first, we have a liveshow! It’s happening in a very few days, late April 2021 if you’re listening to this from the future. You can get access to it by becoming a patron or, if you are already a patron, you will have access to it already. We will send you a link to the livestream video when it goes up.
Lauren: If you’ve missed the livestream, you can catch it as a bonus Lingthusiasm episode, along with 49 other bonuses, including our most recent one on speaking to kids and pets.
[Music]
Gretchen: It was really good that it was my turn to say what this episode was about because if you said the topic “R and R-like sounds,” Lauren, I feel like you might say it a little bit differently.
Lauren: I don’t know what’s wrong with talking about “/a/-like” sounds.
Gretchen: “/a/-like sounds” is a vowel.
Lauren: That is definitely convenient that you were the person to introduce this topic because rhoticity and this R-ness is something I can do, and I can definitely do it at the start of words like “red” or “rice,” but it’s a sound that is missing from the ends of words for me. So, it definitely is easier to hear exactly what we’re talking about with “/ɹoʊtɪsɪti/.” I can do it at the start, but when I’m talking about /aɹɹɹ/, I really have to work it to articulate that.
Gretchen: Welcome to International Talk Like a Pirate Day, Lauren, “Arrrrrrgh” is this whole episode.
Lingthusiasm Episode 55: R and R-like sounds - Rhoticity
The letter R is just one symbol, but it can represent a whole family of sounds. In various languages, R can be made in various places, from the tip of your tongue to the back of your throat, and in various ways, from repeatedly trilling a small fleshy part against the rest of your mouth to an almost fully open mouth that’s practically a vowel.
In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about R and R-like sounds, technically known as rhotics, including English r, French r, Spanish r and rr, and more. We also talk about how the presence or absence of R is a feature that distinguishes certain accents: think Canadian vs Australian English, northern vs southern varieties of English in the UK and US, and northern vs southern varieties of Mandarin.
Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here
Announcements:
We’re doing a virtual live show! It’s on April 24, 2021 and you can get access to it by becoming a patron of Lingthusiasm at any level. The Lingthusiasm liveshow is part of LingFest, a fringe-festival-like programme of independently organized online linguistics events for the week of April 24 to May 2. See the LingFest website for details on other events.
The week before LingFest is LingComm21, the International Conference on Linguistics Communication. LingComm21 is a small, highly interactive, virtual conference that brings together lingcommers from a variety of levels and backgrounds, including linguists communicating with public audiences and communicators with a “beat” related to language. Find out more about LingComm21.
This month’s bonus episode is about talking to babies and small children! We talk about how the way babies are addressed differs across cultures, how people sometimes alter their speech subtly for babies even when they think they don’t, and how infant-directed speech differs from similar genres like pet-directed speech. Join us on Patreon to get access to this, as well as 49 other bonus episodes - as well as a ticket for you and a friend to our upcoming liveshow!
Here are the links mentioned in this episode:
- Rhoticity in English
- Labovian studies in Crash Course Linguistics Episode 7
- Intrusive r
- R-coloured vowels
- Erhua
- Rhotic consonant
- All Things Linguistics best guides to improving your alveolar trills
- Rhotacism and sound change
- Acoustic phonetics
You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.
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Lingthusiasm is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com
Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.
Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.
Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production manager is Liz McCullough, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.
This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).
About Lingthusiasm
A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne.
Weird and deep conversations about the hidden language patterns that you didn't realize you were already making.
New episodes (free!) the third Thursday of the month.
