Rhotacism (language change)

Rhotacism () or rhotacization is a sound change that converts one consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant: , , , or ) to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of to . When a dialect or member of a language family resists the change and keeps a sound, this is sometimes known as ''zetacism''.

The term comes from the Greek letter ''rho'', denoting .

Albanian

The southern, Tosk dialects, the base of Standard Albanian, changed to , but the northern, Gheg dialects did not:
* vs. 'the voice'
* vs. 'the knee'
* vs. 'Albania'
* vs. 'cheerful'
* vs. 'lost'
* vs. 'smiling'
* vs. 'broken'
* vs. 'touched'
* vs. 'amazed'
* vs. 'Albania' (older name of the country)
* vs. 'burnt'
* vs. 'drunk'
* vs. 'baked'
* vs. 'wood'
* vs. 'did'
* vs. 'put'
* vs. 'caught'
* vs. 'dust'
* vs. 'happy'
* vs. 'love'

Aramaic

In Aramaic, Proto-Semitic ''n'' changed to ''r'' in a few words:

* ''bar'' "son" as compared to Hebrew בֵן ''ben'' (from Proto-Semitic *''bnu'')
* ''trên'' and ''tartên'' "two" (masculine and feminine form respectively) as compared to Demotic Arabic ''tnēn'' and ''tintēn'', from Proto-Semitic *''ṯnaimi'' and *''ṯnataimi''. Compare also Aramic ''tinyânâ'' "the second one", without the shift.

Basque

Aquitanian *''l'' changed to the tapped ''r'' between vowels in Basque. It can be observed in words borrowed from Latin; for example, Latin ''caelum'' (meaning "sky, heaven") became ''zeru'' in Basque (''caelum'' > ''celu'' > ''zeru''; compare ''cielo'' in Spanish). The original ''l'' is preserved in the Souletin dialect: ''caelum'' > ''celu'' > ''zelü''.

Finnish

Western dialects of Finnish are characterised by the pronunciation or of the consonant written ''d'' in Standard Finnish ''kahden kesken- kahren kesken'' (two together = one on one). The reconstructed older pronunciation is .

Goidelic languages

In Manx, Scottish Gaelic and some dialects of Irish, a cluster developed into , often with nasalization of the following vowel, as in Scottish Gaelic ‘hill’.

Germanic languages

All surviving Germanic languages, which are members of the North and West Germanic families, changed to , implying a more approximant-like rhotic consonant in Proto-Germanic. Some languages later changed all forms to ''r'', but Gothic, an extinct East Germanic language, did not undergo rhotacism.

Note that the Modern German forms have levelled the rhotic consonant to forms that did not originally have it. However, the original sound can still be seen in some nouns such as '' Wesen'', "being" (from the same root as ''war''/''waren'') as well as '' Verlust'', "loss" and '' Verlies'', "dungeon" (both from the same root as ''verlieren''/''verloren'').

Because of the presence of words that did not undergo rhotacisation from the same root as those that did, the result of the process remains visible in a few modern English word pairs:
* ''is'' and ''are'' (PGmc. '' *isti'' vs '' *izi'')
* ''was'' and ''were (''PGmc. ''*wesaną'' vs ''*wēz)''
* the comparative and superlative suffixes ''-er'' and ''-est'' (PGmc. '' *-izô'' vs '' *-istaz'') and derived words such as ''more'' and ''most'' ('' *maizô'' vs '' *maistaz''), ''better'' and ''best'' ('' *batizô'' vs '' *batistaz''), etc
* ''rise'' and ''rear'' (as in 'to bring up'; PGmc. '' *rīsaną'' vs '' *raizijaną'')
* ''loss'' and ''forlorn'' (PGmc. '' *lusą'' vs '' *fraluzanaz'')

English

Intervocalic and are commonly lenited to in most accents of North American and Australian English and some accents of Irish English and English English, a process known as tapping or less accurately as flapping: ''got a lot of'' becomes . Contrast is usually maintained with , and the sound is rarely perceived as .

German

In Central German dialects, especially Rhine Franconian and Hessian, is frequently realised as in intervocalic position. The change also occurs in Mecklenburg dialects. Compare ''Borrem'' (Central Hessian) and ''Boden'' (Standard German).

Romance languages and Latin

Latin

Reflecting a highly-regular change in pre-Classical Latin, intervocalic in Old Latin, which is assumed to have been pronounced , invariably became ''r'', resulting in pairs such as these:

*''flōs'' — ''flōrem'' (Old Latin ''flōsem'')
*''genus'' — ''generis'' (from *''geneses'', cf. Sanskrit ''janasas'')
*''rōbus'', ''rōbustus'' — ''rōbur'', ''corrōborāre'' (verb from )
*''jūstus'' — ''de jūre'' (from ''de jouse'')
*''est'' — ''erō'' (from ''esō'')
*''gessī'', ''gestō'' — ''gerō'' (from ''gesō'')

Intervocalic ''s'' in Classical Latin suggests either borrowing (''rosa'') or reduction of an earlier ''ss'' after a long vowel or a diphthong (''pausa'' < ''paussa'', ''vīsum'' < ''*vīssum'' < ''*weid-tom''). The ''s'' was preserved initially (''septum'') and finally and in consonant clusters.

Old Latin ''honos'' became ''honor'' in Late Latin by analogy with the rhotacised forms in other cases such as genitive, dative and accusative ''honoris'', ''honori'', ''honorem''.

Another form of rhotacism in Latin was dissimilation of ''d'' to ''r'' before another ''d'' and dissimilation of ''l'' to ''r'' before another ''l'', resulting in pairs such as these:

*''medius'' — ''merīdiēs'' (instead of *''medi-diēs'')
*''caelum'' — ''caeruleus'' (instead of *''cael-uleus'')

The phenomenon was noted by the Romans themselves:

Neapolitan

In Neapolitan, rhotacism affects words that etymologically contained intervocalic or initial , when this is followed by a vowel; and when is followed by another consonant. This last characteristic, however, is not very common in modern speech.

*LAT. > Neap. "tooth"
*LAT. > Neap. "foot"
*LAT. > Neap. (or ) "money"

Portuguese and Galician

In Galician-Portuguese, rhotacism occurred from to , mainly in consonant clusters ending in such as in the words ''obrigado'', "thank you" (originally from "obliged n honourably serving my Sir); ''praia'', "beach"; ''prato'', "plate" or "dish"; ''branco'', "white"; ''prazer''/''pracer'', "pleasure"; ''praça''/''praza'', "square". Compare Spanish ''obligado'' (obliged), ''playa, plato, blanco, placer, plaza'' from Latin ''obligatus, plagia, platus, blancus'' (Germanic origin), ''placere'' (verb), ''platea''.

In contemporary Brazilian Portuguese, rhotacism of in the syllable coda is characteristic of the Caipira dialect. Further rhotacism in the nationwide vernacular includes ''planta'', "plant", as , ''lava'', "lava", as (then homophonous with ''larva'', worm/maggot), ''lagarto'', "lizard", as (in dialects with guttural coda ''r'' instead of a tap) and ''advogado'', "lawyer", as . The nonstandard patterns are largely marginalised, and rhotacism is regarded as a sign of speech-language pathology or illiteracy.

Romanesco Italian

Rhotacism, in Romanesco, shifts ''l'' to ''r'' before a consonant, like certain Andalusian dialects of Spanish. Thus, Latin ''altus'' (tall) is ''alto'' in Italian but becomes ''arto'' in Romanesco. Rhotacism used to happen when ''l'' was preceded by a consonant, as in the word ''ingrese'' (English), but modern speech has lost that characteristic.

Another change related to ''r'' was the shortening of the geminated ''rr'', which is not rhotacism. Italian ''errore'', ''guerra'' and ''marrone'' "error", "war", "brown" become ''erore'', ''guera'' and ''marone''.

Romanian

In Romanian, rhotacism shifted intervocalic ''l'' to ''r'' and ''n'' to ''r''.

Thus, Latin ''caelum'' ‘sky; heaven’ became Romanian ''cer'', Latin ''fenestra'' ‘window’ Romanian ''fereastră'' and Latin ''felicitas'' ‘happiness’ Romanian ''fericire''.

Some northern Romanian dialects and Istro-Romanian also changed all intervocalic to in words of Latin origin. For example, Latin ''bonus'' became Istro-Romanian ''bur'': compare to standard Daco-Romanian ''bun''.

Other languages

Rhotacism (''mola'' > ''mora'', ''filum'' > ''fir'', ''sal'' > ''sare'') exists in Gallo-Italic languages as well in Lombard, Western Lombard, Alpine Lombard and Ligurian.

In Umbrian but not Oscan, rhotacism of intervocalic ''s'' occurred as in Latin.

Sicilian

Rhotacism is particularly widespread in the island of Sicily, but it is almost completely absent in the Sicilian varieties of the mainland ( Calabrese and Salentino). It affects intervocalic and initial : ''cura'' from Latin
''caudam'', ''peri'' from Latin ''pedem'', '''reci'' from Latin ''decem''.

Spanish

In Andalusian Spanish, particularly in Seville, at the end of a syllable before another consonant, ''l'' is replaced with ''r'': ''Huerva'' for ''Huelva''. The reverse occurs in Caribbean Spanish: ''Puelto Rico'' for ''Puerto Rico'' (lambdacism).

Sanskrit

In Sanskrit, words ending in ''-s'' (-สฺ) other than ''-as'' ( ��สียงอะ+ สฺ) become ''-r'' (-รฺ) in sandhi with a voiced consonant:

*''naus'' (นอุสฺ) (before ''p'', ''t'', ''k'') vs ''naur bharati'' (นอุรฺ ภรติ)
*''agnis'' (อคฺนิสฺ) (before ''p'', ''t'', ''k'') vs ''agnir mata'' (อคฺนิรฺ มต)

That is not properly rhotacism since ''r'' and ''s'' are then simply allophones.

Turkic

Among the Turkic languages, the Oghur branch exhibits /r/, opposing to the rest of Turkic, which exhibits /z/. In this case, rhotacism refers to the development of *-/r/, *-/z/, and *-/d/ to /r/,*-/k/,*-/kh/ in this branch.

South Slavic languages

(This section relies on the treatment in Greenberg 1999.)

In some South Slavic languages, rhotacism occasionally changes a voiced palatal fricative to a dental or alveolar tap or trill between vowels:

*''moreš'' ( Slovene, dialectal Serbo-Croatian) 'you can' from earlier ''možešь''
*''kdor'' (Slovene) from earlier ''kъto-že''

The beginning of the change is attested in the Freising manuscripts from the 10th century AD, which show both the archaism (''ise'' 'which' < *''jь-že'') and the innovation (''tere'' 'also' < *''te-že''). The shift is also found in individual lexical items in Bulgarian dialects, ''дорде'' 'until' (< *''do-že-dĕ'') and Macedonian, ''сеѓере'' (archaic: 'always'). However, the results of the sound change have largely been reversed by lexical replacement in dialects in Serbia and Bosnia from the 14th century.

Dialects in Croatia and Slovenia have preserved more of the lexical items with the change and have even extended grammatical markers in ''-r'' from many sources that formally merged with the rhotic forms that arose from the sound change: Slovene dialect ''nocor'' 'tonight' (< *''not'ь-sь-ǫ-'' + ''-r-'') on the model of ''večer'' 'evening' (< *''večerъ''). The reversal of the change is evident in dialects in Serbia in which the ''-r-'' formant is systematically removed: Serbian ''veče'' 'evening'.

See also

* Lambdacism, the related condition or phonetic shift with regard to the sound

References

Bibliography

*
*
*
*

{{LetterR

Phonetics
Sound changes