this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023

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Researchers fear the British spoken 'r' is ready to roll away from the last bastion of rhoticity (phys.org)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

17 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Traditionally, parts of Lancashire have very clearly articulated "r"s, similar to the stereotype of Cornwall and the West Country. The pronunciation of these "r"s towards the ends of words is called rhoticity.

In fact, historically, hundreds of years ago, people throughout England used to pronounce strong "r"s. But now, says the research paper, these strong "r"s are definitely dying out.

In Blackburn, young speakers do mostly say their "r"s, but they are, according to the research team, phonetically very weak and often difficult to perceive. And they pronounce them less frequently than older speakers.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I feel that the author could have fit more Rs into that title.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Only one of these 'r's is rhotic though

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I'm all for phasing that 'r' out.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

It's the principle of the thing.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I guess Scotland and wales don't fucking count as part of Britain

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

And Northern Ireland 😂

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Northern Ireland isn't part of Britain. Hence why the UK is great Britain and Northern Ireland.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The "British" denomym applied to the United Kingdom. Not just Great Britain. The term "Britain" in general applies to the United Kingdom. Hence the Great part. In fact, "Great Britain" is occasionally short for "Great Britain and Northern Ireland" such as at the Olympics.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Both of you two are right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminology_of_the_British_Isles

Britain is a political and geographic term which can refer to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, or the island of Great Britain.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

England*. Still strong in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Huh. Interesting.

"Speakers from places like Blackburn usually differentiate between pairs of words such as 'stellar' and 'stella', whereas most of England would consider them to be the same," says Dr. Turton.

Short of deliberately rolling the R, I don't actually know how I could pronounce it... I'd never thought about that before.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It's like ½ rolling your R.

Imagine how The Wurzels would say it, "stell-arr!".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Except when the next word starts with a vowel. Then they add extraneous "r" sounds.

[+] [email protected] -15 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Wait, is this the accent where they pronounce "water" like "wadugh"? Because they sound ridiculous. And I live in America where we have just so damned many stupid accents.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

Not quite - though I'm not sure what you mean exactly. It's about "ar" being pronounced either like "ah/uh" or "aRRR!/uRRR!" (Like a pirate, or breakfast cereal Tiger).

If "Baa" like a sheep and "Bar" like where you order drinks in a pub are pronounced the same, like "bah" = non-rhotic.

A pirate, or farmer from cornwall saying "Arr!" is very Rhotic.

As far as I'm aware, the majority of American accents are rhotic

[–] [email protected] -3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's a nationwide thing which to be honest I have not noticed with R's.

However, you are correct in the dropping of T's where preceded with a vowel. The T is pronounced from the back of the throat like the smallest of coughs or throat clearing. I'm not even sure how to phonetically spell it but the closest is "up" without the p. It's crap, silly, lazy.

Wa(u)er Bu(u) Ye(u) I(u)...

... and so it goes. It winds me up when I hear it and correct them with "There's a T in water... tttt". Petty but annoying.

Don't get me started on "like", that's another awful habit.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

I can only apologise that myself and the entire Northern half of the country offend you so much, though I'd call that a glottal stop, rather than a "lazy dropped T".

I guess it cropping up unexpectedly in some accents/dialects might seem lazy, but in the North, where we talk proper (as opposed to talking "properly" down South), that's how those words are meant to sound :)