Rhotacism may refer to several phenomena related to the usage of the consonant r (whether as an alveolar tap, alveolar trill, or the rarer uvular trill). In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... Look up R, r in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The alveolar tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The uvular trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ...

• the excessive or idiosyncratic use of the r;
• conversely, the inability or difficulty in pronouncing r.
• the conversion of another consonant, e.g., s, into r.

The term comes from the Greek letter rho, denoting "r". The Greek alphabet is an alphabet that has been used to write the Greek language since about the 9th century BCE. It was the first alphabet in the narrow sense, that is, a writing system using a separate symbol for each vowel and consonant alike. ... 1. ...

Orthoepy

In medicine rhotacism is the inability or difficulty in pronouncing the sound "r". The Looney Tunes character, Elmer Fudd (originally voiced by Arthur Q. Bryan and later by Mel Blanc), is notorious for his exaggerated rhotacistic speech ("Be vewwy quiet… I'm hunting wabbits"). For the chemical substances known as medicines, see medication. ... Looney Tunes opening title Looney Tunes is a Warner Brothers animated cartoon series which ran in many movie theatres from 1930 to 1969. ... Elmer J. Fudd is a fictional cartoon character and one of the most famous Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies characters. ... Arthur Q. Bryan, as seen in one of his few film roles, from the 1941 film The Devil Bat Arthur Q. Bryan (May 8, 1899 - November 18, 1959) was a United States comedian and voice actor. ... Melvin Jerome Blanc (May 30, 1908 – July 10, 1989) was a prolific American voice actor. ...

Rhotacism is more common among speakers of languages which have a trilled R, such as Swedish, Italian, Polish and Spanish. This sound is usually the last one a child masters. Some people never learn to produce it correctly and substitute other sounds, like a velar or uvular approximant. R may be also realized as an uvular trill—a pronunciation usually known as "French R". It used to be considered prestigious in Poland, but now it's usually believed to be a speech defect too. The alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The velar approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiced uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ...

Phonetics

In Indo-European languages, rhotacism can be seen in a conversion of another consonant — for instance "s" or "d" or "n" to "r" in many words. For other uses, see Indo-European. ...

Albanian

Albanian rhotacism changes "n" to "r";

• ranë (from the Latin arena) vs rërë (= "sand")
• Valona (from the Latin Avlona) vs Vlora (a town in Southern Albania)

that change took place in the 13th century in the southern (Tosk) dialects, which now dominate in the literary language. The Northern Gheg dialects, also spoken in Kosovo and Western Macedonia, keep the original "n". Hence "armik" (dictionary entry for "enemy") is "anmik" in Gheg. Tosk is the southern dialect of Albanian language, spoken by about 3 million people. ... Geg is a northern Albanian dialect. ...

Dutch

• vriezen vs gevroren (from Germanic *friusana vs *fruzenaz)

Compare also Gothic dags with Old Norse dagr (from Germanic *dagaz)

English

• was vs were (from Germanic *was vs *wēzun)
• lose vs forlorn (from Germanic *liusana vs *luzenaz)

In Scouse, intervocalic dentals are realised as "r" when the stress pattern is STRESSED VOWEL-dental-unstressed vowel. "Got a lot of.." becomes "Gorra lorra...". This article is about the accent. ...

German

• war vs gewesen (from Germanic *was vs *wēzun)

In Central German dialects, esp. Rhine-Franconian and Hessian, d is frequently realized as r in intervocalic position. This change also occurs in Mecklenburg dialects.

• Borrem (Central Hessian) vs Boden (Standard German)

Japanese

The Japanese language does not have a phoneme equivalent to the English 'l' or 'r'; the closest sound is referred to as an alveolar lateral flap. Loanwords with 'l' or 'r' in the original language are represented using this sound, and in romanized Japanese text the letter 'r' is used, regardless of whether the original was an 'r' or 'l' to begin with. Accordingly, Japanese people are faced with rhotacism-type trouble in pronouncing the letters 'r' and 'l', as well as difficulty in differentiating between the two sounds. Not to be confused with the Javanese language. ... The alveolar lateral flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ...

Latin

• flos (nominative) vs florem (accusative) (Old Latin flosem)
• genus (nominative) vs generis (genitive) (from *geneses, cf Sanskrit janasas)
• corroborare vs robustus (verb from *conrobosare)
• de iure vs iustus (from de iouse)
• ero vs est (from eso)

This reflects a highly-regular change in pre-classical Latin. Intervocalic s in the oldest attested Latin documents invariably became r. Intervocalic s in Latin suggests either borrowing, reduction of an earlier ss, or the treatment of d+t into s (videre/visum). Old s was preserved initially (septum), finally, and in consonant clusters. For the Old Latin Bible used before the Vulgate, see Vetus Latina. ...

The English word hono[u]r is derived from French honour, which in turn was derived from Late Latin honor, earlier honos, which became honor by analogy with honoris (genitive), honorem (accusative)

Neapolitan

In Neapolitan rhotacism is seen in a shift from the sound of "d" to an "r" sound: Neapolitan (autonym: napulitano; Italian: ) is a Romance language spoken in the city and region of Naples, Campania (Neapolitan: Nàpule, Italian: Napoli); close dialects are spoken throughout most of southern Italy, including the Gaeta and Sora districts of southern Lazio, parts of Abruzzo, Molise, Basilicata, northern Calabria, and northern and...

(Italian vs Neapolitan)

• medesimo vs meresemo
• diaspora vs riaspro

and, to a lesser extent, from the sound of an "l" to an "r" sound:

• albero vs arvero
• ultimo vs urdemo

Portuguese

In Old Portuguese, rhotacism occurred from the "l" sound to the "r" sound, as in the words obrigado "obliged" and praça "plaza". In contemporary Brazilian Portuguese, rhotacism of "l" in the syllable coda is characteristic poorly educated speakers. A syllable (Ancient Greek: ) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. ...

Romanesco

Rhotacism in Romanesco consists of a shift from "l" to "r" when it is followed by a consonant. Thus, Latin altus (tall) which in Italian is alto in Romanesco becomes arto. In ancient Romanesco it also happened when "l" was preceded by a consonant, as in the word ingrese (english), but the modern way of speaking has lost this characteristic. Romanesco is a group of Romance dialects spoken in Rome and most of the surrounding regions of Lazio, Umbria, central Marche and extreme southern Tuscany in central Italy. ...

In Romanesco exists another kind of rhotacism: the shortening of the geminated "r". So the words errore, guerra and marrone (error, war, brown) in Romanesco become erore, guera and marone Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-07-20, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ...

Romanian

Romanian rhotacism consists of a shift from intervocalic "l" to "r" and "n" to "r".

Thus, Latin caelum became Romanian cer and Latin fenestra becomes Romanian fereastră.

Some northern Romanian dialects and Istro-Romanian also further transformed all intervocalic "n" into "r". For example, Latin bonus became Istro-Romanian bur, as compared to standard Daco-Romanian bun. Istro-Romanian is a Romance language - more specifically, an Eastern Romannce language - that is today still spoken in a few villages in the peninsula of Istria, on the northern part of the Adriatic Sea, in what is now Croatia, but which was spoken in a substantially broader part of the...

Sanskrit

In Sanskrit, words ending in -s other than -as become -r in sandhi with a voiced consonant: The Sanskrit language ( , for short ) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ... Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. ...

• naus (before p/t/k) vs naur bharati
• agnis (before p/t/k) vs agnir mata

This is not a case of rhotacism proper, since r and s are simply allophones in those positions. In Quebec, an allophone (French or English. ...

Slovene

Slovenian rhotacism consists of shift from [ʒ] (like in English vision) to vibrating [r]:

• moreš from možešь
• kdor from kъtože

Slovenian rhotacism is already visible in the Freising manuscripts, a written document from the 10th century. The Freising Manuscripts (also Freising Monuments; Slovene Brižinski spomeniki, German Freisinger Denkmäler, Latin Monumenta Frisingensia, Slovak Frizinské pamiatky) are the first Roman-script record of any Slavic language. ... As a means of recording the passage of time, the 10th century was that century which lasted from 901 to 1000. ...

The same shift occurred in single words in other South Slavic languages. This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...

See also

• Vocalic r

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into R-colored vowel. ...

External links

• Curing rhotacism

Look up R, r in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Rhotic consonants, or R-like sounds, are non-lateral liquid consonants. ... English pronunciation is divided into two main accent groups, the rhotic and non-rhotic, depending on when the phoneme (the letter r) is pronounced. ...   In phonetics, an r-colored vowel or rhotacized vowel is a vowel either with the tip or blade of the tongue turned up during at least part of the articulation of the vowel (a retroflex articulation) or with the tip of the tongue down and the back of the tongue... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... The linking R is a phonological phenomenon of most (but not all) non-rhotic dialects of English. ... The alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The alveolar approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. ... The alveolar tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The alveolar lateral flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The retroflex approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The retroflex flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The uvular trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiced uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The r rotunda in a Latin Bible of AD 1407, on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. ... R with stroke is a letter of the Latin alphabet, derived from R with the addition of a bar through the letter. ... The uvular trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The double grave accent is a diacritic used in scholarly discussions of the Serbo-Croatian language complex and sometimes of the Slovenian language. ... Å” is a letter used in the Romany alphabet. ... A cedilla is a hook (¸) added under certain consonant letters as a diacritic mark to modify their pronunciation. ... Ř is a letter used in the Romany alphabet. ... (minuscule: ) is a letter of the Latin alphabet, formed from R with the addition of a dot below the letter. ... Rd is a digraph of the Latin alphabet, a combination of R and D. It is used in the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages to represent a voiced retroflex stop (IPA: ). Due to allophony, it may also represent a voiceless retroflex stop (IPA: ) or retroflex flap (IPA: ). Categories: | | ... Rh is a digraph found in some languages. ... rr is a digraph which occurs in several natural languages. ... Raidô ride, journey is the suggested Proto-Germanic name of the r-rune of the Elder Futhark áš±. The name is attested for the same rune in all three rune poems, Norwegian Ræið Icelandic Reið, Anglo-Saxon Rad, as well as for the corresponding letter of the Gothic alphabet 𐍂 r... If you are having difficulty understanding this article, you might wish to learn more about algebra, functions, and mathematical limits. ... In mathematics, the real part of a complex number , is the first element of the ordered pair of real numbers representing , i. ... In mathematics, the real numbers may be described informally as numbers that can be given by an infinite decimal representation, such as 2. ... The Bass Red Triangle, was the first trademark registered in Britain in 1876. ... Enclosed R or circled Latin R () is a typographical symbol. ...