One of my fave facts: The “R” sound that we have in English appears naturally in almost no other language except for the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, so it’s in almost no languages but used by a near majority of humans, since those are the most common languages spoken. - ThreadSky

efrex.bsky.social • 40 days ago

One of my fave facts:

The “R” sound that we have in English appears naturally in almost no other language except for the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, so it’s in almost no languages but used by a near majority of humans, since those are the most common languages spoken.

Reposted from Lingthusiasm

💯 It's our 100th episode! 💯

To celebrate, we're giving you 100 fun facts about linguistics this month

See how many you recognize and tell us about your favourite linguistics facts this month in honour of our 100th episodiversary!

Comments

illinoynce.bsky.social•40 days ago

Wee-lee?

fergham.bsky.social•40 days ago

In American English? “R” is pronounced quite differently in English in different places in the world

efrex.bsky.social•40 days ago

I mean the “voiced retroflex approximant” sound which is found in AFAIK, all American, British, and Australian dialects (IMPORTANTLY: NOT in the same places, and there are other rhotic sounds in all of those). Shoulda been more specific, but character limits, etc.

efrex.bsky.social•40 days ago

See here for more:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lingthusiasm-a-podcast-thats-enthusiastic-about/id1186056137?i=1000517332525

idlewild5.bsky.social•40 days ago

What does this mean? What "R" sound in English doesn't appear in other languages? Because this makes no sense thinking about as many languages as I can identify words with "R" sounds in them. Would love to hear more about this.

scriptor.bsky.social•40 days ago

The actual R sound in English is very different from how 'r' might be pronounced in, say, most Italian or German dialects

idlewild5.bsky.social•40 days ago

Interesting! I don't have the ear to hear for ex: why the R in "risotto" or "tren" is different in Italian from an English language R. I love learning about the differences, just have a lousy phonetics ear.

scriptor.bsky.social•40 days ago

yeah if you're not used to listening for it it's hard to hear. One difference is that in most Italian dialects the 'r' is spoken with the tongue towards the front of the mouth, almost where your upper teeth are. In standard American English the tongue is further back

idlewild5.bsky.social•40 days ago

Mmm. And my English is Cultivated Australian plus 25 years in Boston so my understanding of the pronunciation of "r" is fundamentally busted up. (Technical term.)

scriptor.bsky.social•40 days ago

Here's a good video if you're ever curious to learn more! https://youtu.be/Tjf_MOyB0K4?si=_AFCAHhYGPIOHLiO

ailbhe.ossifrage.net•40 days ago

The actual R sound in English is very different depending on whether it's being pronounced by someone from England, Ireland, Scotland or Wales.

scriptor.bsky.social•40 days ago

yep, and there's a ton of variety even within the US too, but one thing at a time and all that

ailbhe.ossifrage.net•40 days ago

Anglo-English R is quite German (sounds absent to me but they swear it's there), and Hiberno-English R has several different options depending on where in the word it is. Which ones differ from "most Italian dialects"?

scriptor.bsky.social•40 days ago

Italian uses an alveolar trill, which is only found in a small number of English variants, like a few Scottish dialects

efrex.bsky.social•40 days ago

Right here (which is the source of my original post):

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lingthusiasm-a-podcast-thats-enthusiastic-about/id1186056137?i=1000517332525

efrex.bsky.social•40 days ago

To forestall “huh?” comments, check out the following (which, really now, how have you not already?):

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lingthusiasm-a-podcast-thats-enthusiastic-about/id1186056137?i=1000517332525

berfield.com•40 days ago

That's fascinating. I wonder why it is such a rare sound.

domwatt.bsky.social•40 days ago

According to the PHOIBLE repository of cross-linguistic phonological inventory data (https://phoible.org), the voiced retroflex approximant [ɻ] is present in 306 of the languages in the database, or 10% of the world's spoken languages.

It's unusually popular in Australian languages, by the look of it.

cherrymilkshake.bsky.social•39 days ago

The majority of American English speakers don’t retroflex their Rs though. SLPs refer to a “bunched” R, which is articulated more like a post-alveolar approximant and this is the dominant R in American English, something around 80% if I recall but I don’t have the citation on hand.

domwatt.bsky.social•39 days ago

Just to be clear, the use of [ɻ] in American English was Efrex's claim. It may also be made in the Lingthusiasm episode - I confess I haven't listened to it.

[ɻ] is used in several varieties of English, though, accounting for PHOIBLE's inclusion of English as one of the 306 languages.

kathyjohnstone.bsky.social•39 days ago

Arg!

sanddorn.bsky.social•40 days ago

» Although data are not precise, about 20 percent of the world's languages contain retroflex consonants of one sort or another.[12] About half of these possess only retroflex continuants, (…)

Yeah, no.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroflex_consonant#Occurrence

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply