Rhoticity

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As rhotic ( English rhotic ), noun rhoticity ( rhoticity ), variants of the English language are referred to in English linguistics , in which the letter <r> is also pronounced as an R sound in every word position, regardless of whether it is before a vowel , a consonant or at the end of a word. American English , which is rhotic in most US regions, is particularly well known in this context . In contrast, the standard British English pronunciation , Received Pronunciation (RP), is non-rhotic: RP only knows the sound [r] before vowels, i.e. H. the <r> is pronounced in right , try and very ; it is not spoken in poor or better .

description

The term rhotic is derived from the Greek letter rho (Ρ and ρ). In the rhotic versions of English, both pre- and post-vowel (before and after a vowel) R is always pronounced: for example, in American English hard [ hɑːrd ], far [ for ] and four [ for ]. Words like wear [ ˈwɛɚ ] have a so-called r-colored black [ɚ] as the end-r .

In contrast to this, in non-rhotic English variants, an R (mostly as [ ɹ ]) is only spoken in the pre-vowel position, i.e. in front of a vowel: in rich [ ˈrɪtʃ ], barrel [ bærel ] and pressure [ ˈpreʃə ], but not in Words like card [ kʰɑːd ], bark [ bɑːk ], car [ kʰɑː ] and wear [ wɛə ]. However, if a final R is followed by a word that begins with a vowel - as with far away and four eggs - the R is pronounced (so-called linking r ).

Geographical distribution

Rhotic (red) and non-Rhotic (white) dialects in England in the late 20th century

The standard variants of Scottish , Irish , Canadian , American, and Indian English are Red, as is English in larger parts of the Caribbean (e.g. Barbados and Jamaica ). On the other hand, British English in most of England and Wales , Australian , New Zealand and South African English and English in some parts of the Caribbean (e.g. Trinidad and Tobago ) are non-Gothic .

At the dialect level, however, there are some variations: in England, dialects in the south-west and parts of the north are Red. In the USA there are also non-rhotic variants, such as the English on the east coast and in parts of the southern states as well as the African-American Vernacular English .

history

Postvowel [r] began to disappear in south-east England in the 17th and 18th centuries: At first, the omission of the postvowel [r] is only found sporadically, but between 1740 and 1770 it disappeared mainly after closed vowels. By the early 19th century, standard English had become non-Rhotic in the south of England. In what is now the United States, the <r> was originally spoken by the settlers. However, after children of wealthy east coast settlers attended British schools and brought the non-rhotic accent home, the non-rhotic accent began to spread to the east coast and south as well.

Other languages

The vocalization or deletion of so-called post-vocal r is a characteristic feature of many variants of English. The phenomenon is also observed in other languages, including German, but to a lesser extent: The <r> is pronounced after short vowels in conservative German ( Herr , Wirt ), while it is more vocalized after long vowels ( Uhr , Heer ). Even in unstressed syllables there is no R-sound in the pronunciation ( tenant , expired ). In some literature it is therefore stated that conservative German is a partial rhotic accent.

See also

literature

  • William Labov, Sharon Ash, Charles Boberg: The Atlas of North American English. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-11-016746-8 .
  • Peter Trudgill: Language in the British Isles . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1984.
  • John C. Wells: Accents of English . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Paul Skandera, Peter Burleigh: A Manual of English Phonetics and Phonology , 3rd edition. Narr Francke Attempto, Tübingen 2016, ISBN 978-3-8233-6996-7 , p. 60.
  2. ↑ Ernst-August Müller: Standard Vowel Systems of English, German, and Dutch: Variation in Norm . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2012, ISBN 978-3-631-63270-3 , p. 24.
  3. ↑ Klaus Hansen, Uwe Carls, Peter Lucko: The differentiation of English into national variants . Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-503-03746-2 , p. 115.
  4. ^ Roger Lass: Phonology and Morphology . In: Roger Lass (Ed.): The Cambridge History of the English Language , Volume III: 1476–1776. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999, ISBN 0-521-26476-6 , pp. 56-186.
  5. ^ William O'Grady, Michael Dobrovolsky, Francis Katamba: Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction , 3rd edition. Longman, London / New York 1996, ISBN 0-582-24691-1 , p. 349.
  6. ↑ Ernst-August Müller: Standard Vowel Systems of English, German, and Dutch: Variation in Norm . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2012, ISBN 978-3-631-63270-3 , pp. 97-98.