History of liquid phonemes in the English language
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The history of liquid phonemes in the English language describes the history of the phonemes /r/ and /l/.
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Rhotic and nonrhotic accents
English pronunciation is divided into two main accent groups, the rhotic and the nonrhotic, depending on when the phoneme Template:IPA (the letter "r", equivalent to Greek rho) is pronounced. Rhotic speakers pronounce written "r" in all positions (although many rhotic speakers omit it in French loan words where "r" is silent, such as dossier). Non-rhotic speakers pronounce "r" only if it is followed by a vowel (see "linking R"). In linguistic terms, non-rhotic accents are said to exclude Template:IPA in the syllable coda. This is commonly referred to as postvocalic R, although that term can be misleading because not all Rs that occur after vowels are excluded in non-rhotic English.
Development of nonrhotic accents
The earliest traces of a loss of Template:IPA in English are found in the environment before Template:IPA in spellings from the mid-15th century: the Oxford English Dictionary reports bace for earlier barse (today "bass", the fish) in 1440 and passel for parcel in 1468. In the 1630s, the word juggernaut is first attested, which represents the Hindi word jagannāth, meaning "lord of the universe". The English spelling uses the digraph er to represent a Hindi sound close to the English schwa. Loss of coda Template:IPA apparently became widespread in southern England during the 18th century; John Walker uses the spelling ar to indicate the broad A of aunt in his 1775 dictionary and reports that card is pronounced "caad" in 1791 (Labov, Ash, and Boberg 2006: 47).
A non-rhotic speaker pronounces the Template:IPA in red, torrid, watery (in each case the Template:IPA is followed by a vowel) but not the written "r" of hard, nor that of car or water. However, in most non-rhotic accents, if a word ending in written "r" is followed closely by another word beginning with a vowel, the Template:IPA is pronounced—as in water ice. This phenomenon is referred to as "linking R". Many non-rhotic speakers also insert epenthetic Template:IPAs between vowels (drawring for drawing). This so-called "intrusive R" is frowned upon by those who use the non-rhotic Received Pronunciation but even they frequently "intrude" an epenthetic Template:IPA at word boundaries, especially where one or both vowels is schwa; for example the idea of it becomes the idea-r-of it, Australia and New Zealand becomes Australia-r-and New Zealand.
For non-rhotic speakers, what was historically a vowel plus Template:IPA is now usually realized as a long vowel. So car, hard, fur, born are phonetically Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA. This length is retained in phrases, so car owner is Template:IPA. But a final schwa remains short, so water is Template:IPA. For some speakers some long vowels alternate with a diphthong ending in schwa, so wear is Template:IPA but wearing is Template:IPA. Some pairs of words with distinct pronunciations in rhotic accents are homophones in many non-rhotic accents. Examples in Received Pronunciation include father and farther; draws and drawers; formally and formerly; area and airier. In Australian English, which has the weak vowel merger, pairs like batted/battered or boxes/boxers are also homonyms. Syllabication interacts with rhoticity: sheer and Shia respectively have one and two syllables; in some non-rhotic speech, this may be insufficient for distinguishing them.
Image:Non rhotic-whites-usa.png
Distribution of rhotic and nonrhotic accents
Most speakers of American English have a rhotic accent. Outside of the United States, rhotic accents can be found in Barbados, most of Canada, Ireland and Scotland. In England, rhotic accents are found in Northumbria, the West Country, and parts of Lancashire. Other areas with rhotic accents include India (particularly in southern India and Maharashtra where the R's are rolled), Philippines, and Otago and Southland in the far south of New Zealand's South Island, where a small Scottish influence is apparent.
Areas with non-rhotic accents include Africa, Australia, Malta, most of the Caribbean, most of England (especially Received Pronunciation speakers), most of New Zealand, South Africa and Wales. Singapore and Malaysia are also two examples of countries in Asia with a non-rhotic accent.
In Canada, non-rhotic accents are found in the Maritimes. In the United States, large parts of The South were formerly non-rhotic, but this is sharply recessive. Today, non-rhoticity in Southern American English is found primarily among older speakers, and only in some areas like New Orleans, southern Alabama, Savannah, Georgia, and Norfolk, Virginia (Labov, Ash, and Bomberg 2006: 47-48). Parts of New England are non-rhotic as well as New York City and surrounding areas. The case of New York is especially interesting because of a classic study in sociolinguistics by William Labov showing that the non-rhotic accent is associated with older and middle- and lower-class speakers, and is being replaced by the rhotic accent. African American Vernacular English is largely non-rhotic.
There are a few accents of Southern American English where intervocalic Template:IPA is deleted before an unstressed syllable. In such accents, pronunciations like Template:IPA for Carolina are heard)
In some dialects of American English, people will add an Template:IPA to certain words through hypercorrection, the most common examples being Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA for wash, water, idea and draw.Template:Fact This hypercorrection also occurs in the Canadian and British English pronunciation of Template:IPA for khaki, although this is fading over time and many young Canadians now use the American pronunciation of Template:IPA.Template:Fact
L-vocalization
In linguistics, l-vocalization is a process by which an Template:IPA sound (a lateral consonant) is replaced by a vowel or semivowel sound. This happens most often to the velarized alveolar lateral approximant Template:IPA.
L-vocalization in English
L-vocalization is a notable feature of certain dialects of English, including Cockney and Estuary English, in which an Template:IPA sound occurring at the end of a word or before a consonant is replaced with a vowel sound, variously transcribed Template:IPA, Template:IPA or Template:IPA resulting in pronunciations such as Template:IPA, for milk, and Template:IPA, for middle.
Especially in Cockney, l-vocalization can be accompanied by phonemic mergers of vowels before the vocalized Template:IPA. For example, real, reel and rill, which are distinct in Received Pronunciation, are homophones in Cockney as Template:IPA. Other possible mergers include Val/veil/vowel, full/fool/fall and dole/doll.
In the accent of Bristol, syllabic Template:IPA vocalized to Template:IPA, resulting in pronunciations like Template:IPA (for bottle). By hypercorrection, however, some words originally ending in Template:IPA had this sound replaced by syllabic Template:IPA: the original name of the town was Bristow, but this has been altered by hypercorrection to Bristol.
In the United States, the dark L in African-American Vernacular English may change to an o, w, or be omitted altogether (i.e. fool becomes foo', roll becomes ro' or row).
L-vocalization in other languages
- In early 15th century Middle Scots /Template:IPA/ (except intervocalically and before /Template:IPA/), /Template:IPA/ and often /Template:IPA/ changed to /Template:IPA/, /Template:IPA/ and /Template:IPA/. For example all to aw, hald to haud (hold), colt to cowt, ful to fou (full).
- In Dutch, the combinations old and olt changed to oud and out during the Middle Ages. For example, oud corresponds with English "old".
- In Brazilian Portuguese, Template:IPA in syllable coda position becomes Template:IPA. For example, the name of the singer and government minister Gilberto Gil is pronounced Template:IPA.
- In Polish and the Sorbian languages, historical Template:IPA has become Template:IPA. For example, the word for "small" in all three languages is mały, pronounced Template:IPA (cf. Russian малый Template:IPA)
- In Serbo-Croatian, a historical Template:IPA in coda position has become Template:IPA and is now so spelled. For example, the Serbo-Croatian name of Belgrade is Beograd.
- In Austro-Bavarian, the etymological l is vocalised, surprisingly only after front vowels, into i or y, e.g. vui corresponding with High German viel ("much").
- In Bernese German, a historical /l/ in coda position has become [w], a historical Template:IPA—only occurring intervocalically—has become Template:IPA, whereas intervocalical /l/ persists. The absence of vocalization was one of the distinctive features of the upper class variety which is not much spoken any more. For example, the German name of the city of Biel/Bienne is pronounced Template:IPA.
- In Bulgarian, young people often pronounce the [ł] of the standard language as [w] or [o], especially in an informal context. For example, pronunciations which could be transcribed as Template:IPA or Template:IPA occur instead of standard Template:IPA ("a little"). Unlike the historical sound changes listed above, this is an example of a synchronic variation between speakers that might result in a sound change in the long run.
See also
References
- Labov, William, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg. 2006. The Atlas of North American English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-016746-8.
External links
- Chapter 7 of the Atlas of North American English by William Labov et al., dealing with rhotic and non-rhotic accents in the U.S. (PDF file)
- Rhotic vs non-rhotic, intrusive "r" from the alt.usage.english newsgroup's FAQ
- Transcribing Estuary English, by J. C. Wells - discusses the phonetics of l-vocalization in Estuary English and Cockney.
- L-vocalisations in Estuary Englishde:Rhotizität