# The pronunciation of r



## J.F. de TROYES

*Split from **this thread**.*
*Frank (mod)*



0stsee said:


> Where I live, you can also notice that the "grasseyé" R was the newer one. Because the older people still tend to use "roulé" R.


 

The “r” pronunciation depends on the regions and on the age of the speaker users; at the present time the trilled “r” has become rare and is never used in standard French. The nowadays usual “R” (dorsal ) appeared during the 18th century in Paris and around ( the reason why is controversial, maybe due to English influence) and widely expanded into most of the cities . But in Burgundy and in some areas of southern France people generally old and living in the countryside still pronounce the trilled “r” .


----------



## francois_auffret

Hello,



J.F. de TROYES said:


> The “r” pronunciation depends on the regions and on the age of the speaker users; at the present time the trilled “r” has become rare and is never used in standard French. The nowadays usual “R” (dorsal ) appeared during the 18th century in Paris and around ( the reason why is controversial, maybe due to English influence) and widely expanded into most of the cities . But in Burgundy and in some areas of southern France people generally old and living in the countryside still pronounce the trilled “r” .


 
I think the study of the trilled 'R' is something that is missing and that seems very interesting to me. A few observations from a layman, correct me if I am wrong:

As far as my knowledge is concerned, a few Western European languages lost their trilled 'r' in the last two or three centuries: these are: English, German, French, and some dialects of Italian (I think they use the 'French' "r" around Parma in Italy). I have studied myself a few languages from different continents, and have never heard of any language lacking the trilled "r", which appear to be one of the basic sounds common to almost all of humanity, although it has a specific pronounciation in every language (heavily trilled in Arabic, lightly in Indian languages, to the extent of being close to an 'l', a liquid, as in Japanese). 
So as far as I know, these changes occured in parts of the world having undergone the Industrial revolution, and they date back to that period of time... This point calls for further study by people more qualified than I am... These pronounciations of 'r' also are definitely considered as 'urban' and not originating from the countryside...

Another interesting point is that the change from a trilled 'r' to the 'grasseyé' one is the consequence of speakers putting less muscular effort in the production of this sound... Instead of hitting the bottom of the teeth at the junction of the palate (alveolas) and trilling, vibrating, the tongue stays back and vibrate on its own, further back towards the throat... It is interesting to note that this sound seems different to me in French when it is pronounced by the new generation... it is less grasseyé (as in our grandparent's pronounciation or Brassens' or Piaf's songs) and closer to guttural sounds of the Arabic language for instance (something between arabic 'KH' in 'très' and 'GHAYN' in other contexts)...

I have never heard of any literature mentioning these points... If someone knows...


----------



## sokol

francois_auffret said:


> As far as my knowledge is concerned, a few Western European languages lost their trilled 'r' in the last two or three centuries: these are: English, German, French, and some dialects of Italian (I think they use the 'French' "r" around Parma in Italy).


Well, yes, but not quite, because as far as I know:

- in English, trilled 'r' still exists in some accents and dialects (and even in RP in some cases, I think); apart from that, in English there was no shift from trilled to fricative pronunciation of 'r' but rather between trilled one and rhotic pronunciation: this is a different thing altogether, you couldn't link that one with the other one

- in *French indeed the fricative pronunciation* of 'r' now dominates completely and the trilled pronunciation is limited to a very small number of speakers; certainly in French films you won't hear a rolled 'r' anymore, I'd say (or hardly ever and then for colour)

- in German too fricative 'r' is now dominating, but there are still regions where rolled 'r' is very common (both rolled at the uvula and with the tip of the tongue) and you certainly still could hear rolled 'r' in Films even though fricative 'r' will dominate

- in Italy the fricative 'r' is rather common in Northern Italy but in the Appenines and south of it rolled 'r', I think, is dominant; however, in Italian films (the few I saw) rolled 'r' was used, so it seems rolled 'r' is considered being the 'correct' Italian 'r' even though fricative 'r' is used

This just to make this clear, and yes, I am coming *back to topic,* sorry for the small digression ...: yes, French nowadays certainly has a fricative 'r' _(une 'r' grasseyé) _- this really should be clear to everyone even though some French native speakers still roll their 'r's. And yes, French fricative 'r' might very well be the cause for shifts in 'r'-pronunciation in German and Italian.

However, does this make today's French so much different from the one spoken in the past? Not for my ears; but French native speakers probably think otherwise.

The *reason why 'r' in 'très' might sound* 'Arabaic' to you, *francois_auffret*, might be a simple one: now that the 'r' is no more trilled but a fricative 'r' it is only natural that the 'r' becomes devoiced after a voiceless stop - this is coarticulation and can happen in any language.
And a voiceless, fricative 'r' would sound so much 'harder' to your ears than a voiced, fricative 'r'.


----------



## J.F. de TROYES

francois_auffret said:


> As far as my knowledge is concerned, a few Western European languages lost their trilled 'r' in the last two or three centuries: these are: English, German, French, and some dialects of Italian (I think they use the 'French' "r" around Parma in Italy). I have studied myself a few languages from different continents, and have never heard of any language lacking the trilled "r", which appear to be one of the basic sounds common to almost all of humanity, although it has a specific pronounciation in every language (heavily trilled in Arabic, lightly in Indian languages, to the extent of being close to an 'l', a liquid, as in Japanese).


 
I am afraid I don't think so. Many languages have a kind of "R", but the trilled "r" does'nt seem to me so worldwide ; so it is unknown in Chinese, Thai, Burmese, Vietnamese , and I suppose this feature is not specific to Eastern Asian languages. 




> So as far as I know, these changes occured in parts of the world having undergone the Industrial revolution, and they date back to that period of time... This point calls for further study by people more qualified than I am... These pronounciations of 'r' also are definitely considered as 'urban' and not originating from the countryside...


 
I think it's really uneasy to clear up the reasons why the pronounciation gradually changes, but your hypothesis is interesting: This change is originally urban, popular (?) and occurs about at the same period, but how to establish a link between a phonetic evolution and a historical or economical background ? Maybe these languages were mutually influenced. What is disappearing at the present time is the so called “Parisian accent” which was specific to a wide working class with a strongly grasseyed “R” ; it can be heard from famous actors’ voices in the 1930 s./ 1940 s. movies
as Gabin  or Arletty.




> Another interesting point is that the change from a trilled 'r' to the 'grasseyé' one is the consequence of speakers putting less muscular effort in the production of this sound... Instead of hitting the bottom of the teeth at the junction of the palate (alveolas) and trilling, vibrating, the tongue stays back and vibrate on its own, further back towards the throat...


 
I agree with your phonetic explanation. Between the trilled "r" and the dorsal "R" there was probably an intermediate step with a double vibration, the apical vibration being strengthened by another in the back part of the mouth, then the apex of the tongue fell and vibrations disappeared.


----------



## HKK

J.F. de TROYES said:


> I agree with your phonetic explanation. Between the trilled "r" and the dorsal "R" there was probably an intermediate step with a double vibration, the apical vibration being strengthened by another in the back part of the mouth, then the apex of the tongue fell and vibrations disappeared.



Have you tried this double vibration sound? I think it's impossible


----------



## Outsider

If Wikipedia is correct, there are two kinds of _r grasseyé_, one that is a uvular fricative, and another that is a uvular trill.

The latter should not be confused with the Spanish/Italian _alveolar_ trill. They sound quite different. In fact, I find the uvular trill much closer in sound to the uvular fricative than to the Spanish trill.


----------



## 0stsee

In Indonesian there are always people who use "French" R.
Their occurrence is quite random, comparable to lefthandedness.


----------



## francois_auffret

sokol said:


> The *reason why 'r' in 'très' might sound* 'Arabaic' to you, *francois_auffret*, might be a simple one: now that the 'r' is no more trilled but a fricative 'r' it is only natural that the 'r' becomes devoiced after a voiceless stop - this is coarticulation and can happen in any language.
> And a voiceless, fricative 'r' would sound so much 'harder' to your ears than a voiced, fricative 'r'.


 
Well, you know, I am a native speaker of French and having heard this sound for almost forty years now, I am seriously thinking that this is the most unstable of the whole French language and that is rapidly becoming something else. Depending on its environment it may change to a voiceless palatal fricative (in *très*) or to an voiced uvular fricative... (see under the following quote). I was rather asking native French speakers their opinion on this point... I mean the change, let's say in the last fifty years in the pronounciation of this 'R' sound in French... Has anyone noticed it???



Outsider said:


> If Wikipedia is correct, there are two kinds of _r grasseyé_, one that is a uvular fricative , and another that is a uvular trill.
> 
> The latter should not be confused with the Spanish / italian alveolar trill. They sound quite different. In fact, I find the uvular trill much closer in sound to the uvular fricative than to the Spanish trill.


 
THanks Outsider for this post. I meant that the French 'R' 50 years ago was rather a Uvular trill and that now it has almost completely turned to a Fricative... And that makes it sounds pretty close to the Arabic *GHAYN*, which it was not before... What would be interesting to know is wether the *uvular trill* you describe is a stable sound in other languages, as it seems to represent in modern French a transition point between the *alveolar trill* (the original 'R', still preserved in standard italian) and the *uvular fricative*



J.F. de TROYES said:


> I am afraid I don't think so. Many languages have a kind of "R", but the trilled "r" does'nt seem to me so worldwide ; so it is unknown in Chinese, Thai, Burmese, Vietnamese , and I suppose this feature is not specific to Eastern Asian languages.


 
Thanks for this remark. It made me wonder whether these sounds ever existed historically in these Eastern Asian languages???? But I guess that would be a new thread so let's keep the question pending and not make our moderator angry.

I pretty much think that this is indeed a very specific feature of this linguistic area, because: All of Europe has (or rather: had) it. All of the Indian subcontinent. Central Asia. Caucasus. Middle East. Africa (to be confirmed?). Native America (to be confirmed too?). *In order to check that, I am starting a new thread on this question...*


----------



## Cnaeius

sokol said:


> - in Italy the fricative 'r' is rather common in Northern Italy but in the Appenines and south of it rolled 'r', I think, is dominant; however, in Italian films (the few I saw) rolled 'r' was used, so it seems rolled 'r' is considered being the 'correct' Italian 'r' even though fricative 'r' is used


 
 Never heard fricative r in North Italy and nowhere in Italy (except in people with pronounciation defects). I think you are wrong on this.


----------



## 0stsee

francois_auffret said:


> It made me wonder whether these sounds ever existed historically in these Eastern Asian languages???? But I guess that would be a new thread so let's keep the question pending and not make our moderator angry.
> 
> I pretty much think that this is indeed a very specific feature of this linguistic area, because: All of Europe has (or rather: had) it. All of the Indian subcontinent. Central Asia. Caucasus. Middle East. Africa (to be confirmed?). Native America (to be confirmed too?). *In order to check that, I am starting a new thread on this question...*



Let's not forget that Indonesian-Malaysian, and I suppose Tagalog has an R.

It is pronounced in various ways, though, including the French way. Some Malaysians even use the English pronunciation of R.


----------



## Joannes

francois_auffret said:


> What would be interesting to know is wether the *uvular trill* you describe is a stable sound in other languages, as it seems to represent in modern French a transition point between the *alveolar trill* (the original 'R', still preserved in standard italian) and the *uvular fricative*


In most northern Dutch varieties it is. And I think in many German varieties as well. And maybe more up North too. 

(I myself have a uvular trill as /r/ (because I grew up in Brussels), but was never mocked for it in Antwerp, where the pronunciation as an alveolar trill is dominant. (People in Spain, on the other hand, say I speak Spanish like a Frenchman - maybe not only because of my /r/, but also because of my constructions . So, there it seems to be more marked.) I know people that pronounce their /r/ as a uvular fricative, and they are/were often mocked with it (at least in Antwerp, where - as I said - the alveolar trill is dominant). --- So, I think, in Antwerp/Belgium, the markedness of /r/ isn't as much in the place of articulation, but rather in the manner of articulation.)


----------



## sokol

Cnaeius said:


> Never heard fricative r in North Italy and nowhere in Italy (except in people with pronounciation defects). I think you are wrong on this.


I have it from literature, not from personal experience.

And even though I did search google for about an hour I didn't find a single reference to it any more, so I might have remembered wrong (or was it probably trilled uvular 'r' in Northern Italian dialects? - now I am not sure of anything anymore, sorry; yes I know, if I claim something I should be able to come up with a source ...).



francois_auffret said:


> (...) Depending on its environment it may change to a voiceless palatal fricative (in *très*) or to an voiced uvular fricative...


Voiceless palatal fricative, yes - this really would sound completely different. But as I am no native speaker of French I can only contribute that my French teacher (also no native speaker, of course!) only used _voiced velar fricative_ for her pronunciation of French.



Joannes said:


> And I think in many German varieties as well.


Yes, *uvular trill *is very common in German; especially in Switzerland and Austria, I'd say, but probably elsewhere too.
There also are some regions which use almost exclusively *velar fricative *(like Tyrol/Austria, where by the way this voiced velar fricative even could become voiceless after voiceless plosive - this is very typical for Tyrol and will be recognized as such).
Other regions still use predominately *apical trill* (with the tip of the tongue; this you don't hear often in Austria, but almost exclusively in some regions like especially Vorarlberg/Austria; Bavarians still consider the apical trill as the one and only 'proper' Bavarian 'r', and it may still be very much alive elsewhere).
Overall, I'd say that the most used variety of 'r' in German should be the velar fricative.


----------



## vince

Are there any languages that use the English pronunciation of "r"?

Someone on this thread mentioned certain accents of Malay. I've heard that some Brazilians also use the English "r", can anyone confirm?


----------



## francois_auffret

vince said:


> Are there any languages that use the English pronunciation of "r"?
> 
> Someone on this thread mentioned certain accents of Malay. I've heard that some Brazilians also use the English "r", can anyone confirm?


 
You must have heard about the Breton language, this celtic language spoken in Brittany on the other side of the Channel, south to Cornwall. This language is divided in four dialects *K*erne *L*eon *T*regor *G*wened... 

I have heard a number of persons from *Tregor *(the region around the cities of Tregor (Tréguier in French), Gwengamp (Guingamp), native speakers of Breton, using the English *R. *It's not like the whole of Tregor is using that English R, but I was so amazed, especially knowing that a direct influence of English has to be ruled out (am I wrong here???) although England is close (the other side of the Channel). I don't think any other part of Britanny uses the English R, but that discovery was quite a surprise to me...


----------



## sound shift

Cnaeius said:


> Never heard fricative r in North Italy and nowhere in Italy (except in people with pronounciation defects). I think you are wrong on this.



I heard it used by an Italian called Francesco da Mosto, who had a series on UK television. He is a descendant of Sicilian noblemen, and comes from Venice. I wonder if there was a tradition of French tutors in his family or if the Italian nobility regarded French culture as a model that should be imitated.


----------



## 0stsee

vince said:


> Are there any languages that use the English pronunciation of &quot;r&quot;?
> 
> Someone on this thread mentioned certain accents of Malay. I've heard that some Brazilians also use the English &quot;r&quot;, can anyone confirm?



 Hi. I wrote that some Malaysians use English R.  I know a Brazilian who also uses English R. If I'm not wrong he comes from Säo Paulo.  I heard a Puerto Rican who also used English R, not all the time, but often enough that you notice it.


----------



## sokol

sound shift said:


> I heard it used by an Italian called Francesco da Mosto, who had a series on UK television.



Probably only a curiosity, his velar 'r', as I did some further research and found again no hints of any Italian dialects where the 'r' is not an alveolar trill; for example, on *Orbis Latinus * Lombard dialects 'r' is described as alveolar flap (but alveolar for sure if not trill), and on the same site Venetian dialects' 'r' is stated as 'as in Italian' (it is not described but only said that it's not different from Italian).
So it may well be, as suggested by Cnaeius above, that indeed in Northern Italy velar 'r' is unheard of and that my suggestion that this is not so would be completely wrong.


----------



## Outsider

I was listening to the audio version of the Wikipedia article on the Welsh language (click on the right to hear it). I don't know if the reader is a native speaker but, if he is, then it's very curious, because his "r" does not sound alveolar to me, contrary to what the phonetic transcription in the article implies. It seems distinctly uvular! Do others agree? It would be nice if someone familiar with Welsh could give some input, though that does not seem likely...


----------



## Spectre scolaire

vince said:


> Are there any languages that use the English pronunciation of "r"?


 If you mean British “received pronunciation”, I could think of Swedish and Turkish – with some restrictions, though:

In Swedish it would depend both on position (in the word) and on dialect – the phoneme /r/ being to some extent as complicated distributionally and geographically as /ɧ/ (about the latter, see here). 

As far as Turkish is concerned, the [r] in question would only be found in Istanbul Turkish and among speakers of this (historically) _prestigious dialect_. One could possibly say that /r/ in Turkish constitutes a kind of _shiboleth_. 

Speakers of Norwegian dialects in Northern Norway would equally exhibit the same _phonetic particularity_. I have heard a claim of a Sami substratum to this effect, but I am unable to judge how likely that would be. 




francois_auffret said:


> I am a native speaker of French and having heard this sound for almost forty years now, I am seriously thinking that this is the most unstable [phoneme] of the whole French language and that [it] is rapidly becoming something else. Depending on its environment it may change to a voiceless palatal fricative (in *très*) or to an voiced uvular fricative... [...] I was *would* rather asking native French speakers [about] their opinion on this point... I mean the change, let's say in the last fifty years in the pronounciation of this 'R' sound in French... Has anyone noticed it???


 I have indeed noticed it, and I find the question intriguing. Honestly, I don’t think native speakers would be the best informants on this issue, and the reason for such an _impertinent claim_, as it were, a claim which is not quite appreciated among your linguistically observant fellow countrymen,  is that with the exception of Frenchmen who have lived abroad (and notably in another linguistic community for a long period of time), Frenchmen are like anybody else: we only discover tiny changes in our everyday linguistic habits _in hindsight_ and not _in progress_. A person who has not lived in France for a long time – f.ex. a foreign student coming back after 30 years – will inevitably discover things that the natives are only becoming aware of after being confronted with them. 

Essentially, it boils down to the socio-anthropological dilemma: you can’t be both “one of us” and “one of them”. But the socio-anthropologist (and indeed the linguist) have got some small “advantages”. They are in possession of a descriptive tool and a method of observation which only systematically trained natives (professional linguists, teachers, etc.) have got when it comes to observing their own language. See this example which has largely influenced my own opinion on this subject. Recently, I was involved myself in a similar case of native non-acceptance of a native phonetic reality. 

I am not surprised at all that your question has remained without any reaction for just about three weeks by now. 

Elaborating on the phenomenon linked to your request may be a “delicate matter” because of the comparisons which necessarily have to be made. *1*) One interesting parameter is the French language of immigrants, especially second generation. *2*) Another one is French spoken (and widely used) in Maghrebine North Africa – and indeed by immigrants in France.



francois_auffret said:


> I meant that the French 'R' 50 years ago was rather a Uvular trill and that now it has almost completely turned to a Fricative... And that makes it sounds pretty close to the Arabic GHAYN, which it was not before...


 If you mean غ, I agree with you, and yet the quality of this velar fricative is slightly different from the “contemporary version”, so to say, of French /r/ (depending on position in the word). The observation, however, is a very acute one.

*3*) A third parameter is “linguistic drift”. 

The French phoneme /r/ is _drifting_ – there is no doubt about that. The question as to _why_ this is happening is controversial. In fact, phenomena like _drift_ and _merging phonemes_ are controversial matters in any language. In French (and in some other languages with a heavy literary tradition), it also touches upon a taboo. 
 ​


----------



## Wynn Mathieson

Outsider said:


> I was listening to the audio version of the Wikipedia article on the Welsh language (click on the right to hear it). I don't know if the reader is a native speaker but, if he is, then it's very curious, because his "r" does not sound alveolar to me, contrary to what the phonetic transcription in the article implies. It seems distinctly uvular! Do others agree? It would be nice if someone familiar with Welsh could give some input, though that does not seem likely...



I don't know why you would think that such input would be unlikely, Outsider! 

The reader you refer to is certainly not a native speaker (his quotations from Welsh are pronounced with a distinct English accent) -- and I very much doubt he is even Welsh. The geographic origin of his accent is hard to pinpoint precisely, but I would place it somewhere in Northwestern England. His l's and his r's both sound very un-Welsh -- in fact he  pronounces the letter "rh"  in a very curious French-sounding manner!

Wynn


----------



## Outsider

Thank you! 

I said unlikely because in the Other Languages forum queries about Welsh usually don't get many replies.

I thought his "r", especially, sounded rather French-like. Is that typical of any English accent in Great Britain?


----------



## Wynn Mathieson

Outsider said:


> I thought his "r", especially, sounded rather French-like. Is that typical of any English accent in Great Britain?



Yes: of the "Geordie" accent of Newcastle upon Tyne in north-east England.

Go to 

http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/geordie/consonants/ 

and click on the words

"it was delivered very often the same day it was produced"

at the bottom of the page.

Wynn

P.S. To be more accurate, you don't really hear a lot of it in urban Newcastle speech today: it tends to be more of a rural  feature.


----------



## Outsider

Thanks a lot, I can see the pictures. 

You're right, the "r" sounds totally different.



Wynn Mathieson said:


> P.S. To be more accurate, you don't really hear a lot of it in urban Newcastle speech today: it tends to be more of a rural  feature.


Fascinating, I had no idea!


----------



## avok

Wynn Mathieson said:


> Yes: of the "Geordie" accent of Newcastle upon Tyne in north-east England.
> 
> Go to
> 
> http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/geordie/consonants/
> 
> and click on the words
> 
> "it was delivered very often the same day it was produced"
> 
> at the bottom of the page.
> 
> Wynn
> 
> P.S. To be more accurate, you don't really hear a lot of it in urban Newcastle speech today: it tends to be more of a rural feature.


 
Hi Wynn, I listened to the link you gave many times however  it does not sound guttural as in French or German to me . But yes,it is different.


----------



## Scalloper

an uvular R sound is increasingly rare even in rural Northumberland. You would not hear it at all on Tyneside. You could hear some recordings from about 50 years ago on the collectbritain website where the pronunciation is very , um, traditional. Listen to the one from Embleton in particular.


----------



## brian

Going back to the question of whether other languages have the English 'r', and also bringing up Italian and Italian dialects again , when I was living in Sicily I noticed that many older Sicilians did not roll their _r_'s at all--neither alveolar nor uvular trill--and neither in Sicilian nor in standard Italian.

So I just did a quick search and found this (in Italian). If you scroll down to the bottom, you'll see where it says that the prounciations of _r_ in the Sicilian words _russu, tri, _and _strittu_ are similar to the pronuncations of English _r_ in _red, tree, _and _street_, respectively.


----------



## Wynn Mathieson

avok said:


> Hi Wynn, I listened to the link you gave many times however  it does not sound guttural as in French or German to me . But yes,it is different.



Indeed, it is not "guttural" -- but then neither is the (north) German "r".  It is uvular (like the north German / Danish / Skåne "r").  

W.


----------



## Outsider

"Guttural" is a generic, informal term, not a technical one. According to Wikipedia, it can include uvular consonants.


----------



## Wynn Mathieson

Outsider said:


> "Guttural" is a generic, informal term, not a technical one. According to Wikipedia, it can include uvular consonants.



Thanks, Outsider.

By that reasoning, uvular consonants (such as the "Northumbrian r") should indeed be counted as "guttural".

W


----------



## Forero

The "r" in "produced" was our usual English "r", but the "German-like" one in "delivered" sounded to me more like a "dark l", velar rather than uvular or pharyngeal.

"Rhotic" refers to a pronunciation that includes "r" sounds after vowels, not a particular kind of "r" sound.  Some rhotic pronunciations use rolled (alveolar) "r", some flapped (alveolar) "r", and some an American-style "r".  Some mix them up as needed.

Mandarin Chinese has both an almost American-style "er" sound (more like Irish actually) as well as an initial "r" sound that resembles the English "r" but a little quicker with the lips less rounded and the tongue curled back a little more.

Besides the "kha" (like German "ch") and "ghayn" (like Greek "ghamma") sounds, Arabic has a "ayn" (initial consonant somewhere between r grasseyé and a yawn) sound, and also a "ra" sound, that I have heard is subject to considerable variation, including at least one uvular variety.


----------



## berndf

sokol said:


> - in German too fricative 'r' is now dominating, but there are still regions where rolled 'r' is very common (both rolled at the uvula and with the tip of the tongue) and you certainly still could hear rolled 'r' *in Films* even though fricative 'r' will dominate.


 
This is stage pronunciation. Up to the 1950 most German motion piture actors used stage pronunciation.


----------



## sound shift

I don't think it was just stage pronunciation. I've heard recordings, made before the Second World War, of dialect speakers from all over the German-speaking area, and all of them use a trilled ("Zungenspitze") "r".


----------



## berndf

sound shift said:


> I don't think it was just stage pronunciation. I've heard recordings, made before the Second World War, of dialect speakers from all over the German-speaking area, and all of them use a trilled ("Zungenspitze") "r".


 
Yes, there are many German dialects where the r is pronounced as a trill. I never meant to deny that. I was referring to the part "...you certainly still could hear rolled 'r' in Films...". In _Standard_ German the trill only occurs in stage pronunciation.


----------



## sound shift

Hello, Bernd,

It used to occur in Standard German too, didn't it? I've read that the biggest change to the pronunciation of Standard German in the 20th century was the replacement of the trilled "r" by the fricative "r".


----------



## berndf

I don't know when it happened (and where; remember, Germany was split into dozens of countries and each had its own "standard" pronunctionation; only spelling was more or less standardized). After 1871, the creation of the "Reich", Standard German changed considerably. Because of the Prussian domination of the Reich the centre of gravity of what is to be considered "standard" moved north. I would assume sounds shifts like this to have occured around that time. I try to remember early 20th century recordings I have heared and how my grand parents spoke (My grand father was born in 1905, my grand mother in 1912). In the early 20th century the sound shift must have had occured already but the r was less weakend than it is today (In modern German the r is often reduced to a sound like the u in English "under" or to a shwa-type of sound). Hitler spoke a "rollendes r" but his pronunciation has certainly from rhetoric school and not native.


----------



## sokol

berndf said:


> This is stage pronunciation. Up to the 1950 most German motion piture actors used stage pronunciation.



Yes, it is - or rather was (the alveolar rolled 'r' being stage pronunciation in German) as I am not so sure that this still goes for all or even most actors in theatres (certainly this is no more valid for motion picture actors).

However there are still regions where the alveolar 'r' is actually spoken, in colloquial speech and in dialects.
And I cannot agree on your statement that rolled alveolar 'r' were not spoken anymore in Standard German, because it certainly *is.*

Most speakers of German use the same 'r' in all the linguistic varieties they use, usually the do *not *use more than one variety of 'r' (exceptions do exist, of course), and usually if their 'r' is alveolar in dialect they'll also use this 'r' in standard language.
Most noticeably this is so for Vorarlberg speakers, the westernmost province of Austria, where the alveolar 'r' still is very much alive and also used in Standard German. But then of course there *are *examples of Vorarlberg speakers (like one TV sport reporter) who probably changed their speech and avoid alveolar 'r' in Standard German (I can't be sure here because I didn't know this reporter before he started his career on TV ;-).

I've also met people from Upper Austria and Styria using an alveolar exclusively, no matter if they spoke dialect or standard. In Vienna all the people I've met so far using an alveolar 'r' were immigrants from countries where alveolar 'r' is the norm. And then some (non-immigrant) Austrians who occasionally switch for comic reasons to alveolar 'r' - not a very nice attitude, but it exists.


(You may have noted that I don't mention the 'r'-sound in Swiss and Germany - I'll leave that to Swiss and German foreros. So only on a sidenote, I think I'm on the brink of remembering some commercial where a Northern German - one who speaks 'st' as /st/ and not /scht/ even in words like 'stark' - used the alveolar 'r' sound. But I can't come up with a source; I'm only saying that there surely is doubt that the 'French' 'r' in German is due to 'Prussian' influence.)


----------



## berndf

sokol said:


> Yes, it is - or rather was (the alveolar rolled 'r' being stage pronunciation in German) as I am not so sure that this still goes for all or even most actors in theatres (certainly this is no more valid for motion picture actors).
> 
> However there are still regions where the alveolar 'r' is actually spoken, in colloquial speech and in dialects.
> And I cannot agree on your statement that rolled alveolar 'r' were not spoken anymore in Standard German, because it certainly *is.*
> 
> Most speakers of German use the same 'r' in all the linguistic varieties they use, usually the do *not *use more than one variety of 'r' (exceptions do exist, of course), and usually if their 'r' is alveolar in dialect they'll also use this 'r' in standard language.
> Most noticeably this is so for Vorarlberg speakers, the westernmost province of Austria, where the alveolar 'r' still is very much alive and also used in Standard German. But then of course there *are *examples of Vorarlberg speakers (like one TV sport reporter) who probably changed their speech and avoid alveolar 'r' in Standard German (I can't be sure here because I didn't know this reporter before he started his career on TV ;-).
> 
> I've also met people from Upper Austria and Styria using an alveolar exclusively, no matter if they spoke dialect or standard. In Vienna all the people I've met so far using an alveolar 'r' were immigrants from countries where alveolar 'r' is the norm. And then some (non-immigrant) Austrians who occasionally switch for comic reasons to alveolar 'r' - not a very nice attitude, but it exists.
> 
> 
> (You may have noted that I don't mention the 'r'-sound in Swiss and Germany - I'll leave that to Swiss and German foreros. So only on a sidenote, I think I'm on the brink of remembering some commercial where a Northern German - one who speaks 'st' as /st/ and not /scht/ even in words like 'stark' - used the alveolar 'r' sound. But I can't come up with a source; I'm only saying that there surely is doubt that the 'French' 'r' in German is due to 'Prussian' influence.)


 
sokol,

I am referring to German German. What may be considered standard and what vernacular is different in Austria and in Germany. The Northern German you are referring to is clearly a vernacular accent and no one speaking like this would deny it (I myself, I am originally from Hamburg, so I think I know what I am saying there).

What I mean with Prussian influence is that what was considered standard in the Prussian led "Norddeutscher Bund" became standard in the newly created Reich in 1871 and southern German (and Austrian) accents lost their normative power on Standard German. General wisdom is that the accent spoken in the area of Hanover is the most neutral German.

In Germany, someone pronouncing a "gerolltes r" is considered to speak some sort of a vernacular. This is not to be confused with dialect. Germans differentiate between standard, "coloured" (standard but with some regional idiosyncrasies) and dialectal speech.

Switzerland is again a different case. Swiss Germans regard Standard German by now as a foreign language which they use in written language only. They would therefore not engage in discussions about which pronunciation is standard and which is not.


----------



## sokol

berndf,

We're not here in the ring to proof who is the strongest one, yes? So please keep it on topic [I won't reply to the points being made off topic], and I would appreciate very much if you wouldn't lecture me. Thank you very much for your cooperation!

As for your reply: you still have not shown any proof as to wether the 'French' uvular 'r' really was the dominant pronunciation of Northern Germany or indeed the Prussian Reich before the German unification.
It might well be that the fricative 'r' in German has spread from somewhere else, probably from the West (the regions bordering on France), probably from North-West, probably from East or even South-East.


----------



## berndf

sokol,

I am sorry if I have offended you. It was certainly not my intention to lecture you.

My only point is that use of the alveolar 'r' is _perceived_ as non-standard in Germany. This is not pejorative as many proudly show their regional identity through deviation from standard pronunciation.



> you still have not shown any proof as to wether the 'French' uvular 'r' really was the dominant pronunciation of Northern Germany...


I don't claim this to be so. That would be a misunderstanding. In fact in much of Northern Germany the alveolar r is dominating. I was asked if I could confirm that the shift from "rolled" to "French" r happened in the 20th century. I said that from my own recollection (how the generation of my grand parents spoke and from having listened to early recordings) the "French" r was standard except in stage pronunciation already in the _early_ 20th century.

_When_ the "French" r became standard in (German) German I don't know. But, I said, it _might_ well have been towards the end of the 19th century because the standard underwent some changes as a consequence of the creation of the Reich.


----------



## Outsider

I don't know anything about Prussian German, but wouldn't they probably have used the aveolar "r", as in Polish?


----------



## berndf

Prussia annexed so many parts of Germany that you couldn't speak of a single Prussian accent. I presume you mean East-Prussian. You are right the East-Prussian accent _had_ (it is all but extinct by now, of course) a very marked aveolar "r". My grand parents came from East-Prussia but they spoke Standard German with a uvular 'r'.


----------



## Spectre scolaire

I wonder what sort of *r* Marion Gräfin Dönhof (1909-2003) had, the famous editor of the newspaper _Die Zeit_. She was a brilliant observer! Perhaps there are some comments on language – even on the quality of [r] – in East Prussia, say, in her book _Kindheit in Ostpreuß__en_ ?

I know she came from a noble family – but would that change anything? Marion Gräfin Dönhof had deep roots in Königsberg; her grandfather[!] was born there in 1798! When it comes to alveolar [r] in Prussia I am inclined to think as _Outsider_ (#40) - confirmed by _berndf]/i]. __





berndf said:



			Hitler spoke a "rollendes r" but his pronunciation has *is* certainly[?] from rhetoric school and not native.
		
Click to expand...

 Are you sure about that? Hitler spent all his youth in various places in Oberösterreich (I include Passau which is situated at the border to Germany), and I have heard many people both from this area and from the Salzburg area [towards the SW] with an alveolar [r] – as confirmed by sokol:



sokol said:



I've also met people from Upper Austria and Styria [Steiermark being towards the SE – just for geographical briefing] using an alveolar exclusively, no matter if they spoke dialect or standard.

Click to expand...

Actually, it is very difficult to find out precisely whether this trait belongs to Austrian dialects or not.  Austrians who consistently use an alveolar [r] can’t even decide on the question when being confronted with it.   Perhaps they have got two rhotic phonemes as in Standard Portuguese?  –and that they merged differently?!... 

Is there no dialect atlas of Austria setting up different kinds of [r] as an isogloss?
 ​_


----------



## berndf

> Are you sure about that? Hitler spent all his youth in various places in _Oberösterreich_ (I include Passau which is situated at the border to Germany), and I have heard many people both from this area and from the Salzburg area [towards the SW] with an alveolar [r] – as confirmed by _sokol_:




Sorry for the typo ("has" instead of "was").

I have two reasons for saying that:
1) Hitler was known to be an absolute maniac concerning his public appearances. He practiced for hours in front of the mirror only how to hold his arm. It may safely be assumed that he left nothing to chance regarding his accent either.
2) As far as I can tell as a non-actor, he spoke (almost) perfect stage pronunciation. In particular, his pronunciation had none of the characteristics which normally reveal the Austrian: voicing of unvoiced plosives at the beginning of a syllable, pronunciation of the diphthong "ei", non-discrimination between closed "e", open "e" and "ä", non-discrimination between the two different pronunciations of the German "ch".


----------



## Spectre scolaire

I agree that Hitler must have left out certain characteristics of Austrian German – the pronunciation of *ei* being among the most obvious, but I doubt whether subtle details in phonetics or phonology wouldn’t still reveal his origin. Which reminds me of this discussion – (see Another example + posting #59 a bit later in the thread). However much Hitler practiced in front of a mirror, he was not a linguist and couldn’t possibly be aware of such details you mention. Hitler often spoke with a sort of creaky voice - perhaps in order to hide his origin, cf. Henry Kissinger (_mutatis mutandis_!).

On the other hand, Austrian German is, linguistically speaking, a _Bavarian dialect_ – except for the dialect in Vorarlberg (which is _allemannisch_). Since we are discussing [r] in this thread, this phoneme – as realized by Hitler – could hardly be distinguished from the [r] phoneme in, say, Munich, I imagine. 

I have lived several months in both Munich and Salzburg – compared to longer time in [West] Berlin, but I was too young to be concerned about the subtlety of /r/ phonemes in Munich.  On the other hand, a great grandmother of mine who was third generation of Austrians in St. Petersburg, was completely integrated in the German-speaking community of the city. I wonder how _she_ spoke. 
 ​


----------



## berndf

You are quite right is saying that the pronunciation of the r in itself cannot be used identify the region the speaker comes from. If you wanted to draw a map where which r is spoken the result would be a very colourful patchwork. E.g. in Frankfurt and most of the neighbouring districts the French r is used, except for the district of Wetterau, north-east of Fankfurt where a rolled r is used. You will find cases like this all over the German language area.

(It is a bit beside the point but is is actually the voicing of unvoiced plosives which is the most sticky characteristic of Austrian accent(s), the "ei" is only number two.)


----------



## sokol

Spectre scolaire said:


> Are you sure about that? Hitler spent all his youth in various places in _Ober__österreich_ (I include Passau which is situated at the border to Germany), and I have heard many people both from this area and from the Salzburg area [towards the SW] with an alveolar [r] – as confirmed by _sokol_:



The thing is, as already mentioned by berndf, that Hitler did not show a particularly 'Austrian' accent even though his parents and acquaintances were all from regions where the alveolar 'r' is not rare (Innviertel/Braunau on the one hand and then the Waldviertel).
[This however has changed in the last decades, in Austria velar 'r' - mostly fricative velar, but uvular trill too - seems to be spreading and alveolar 'r' is already rare in many regions, e. g. in Mühlviertel, Upper Austria.]

Then you shouldn't forget that Hitler spent many years in Munich: and Bavarians still oftentimes consider the alveolar 'r' as the 'correct' pronunciation in dialect speech (even though I personally have the impression that alveolar 'r' is on the retreat in Bavaria too).

There are some regions, however, where alveolar 'r' still persists, for example Vorarlberg (as already mentioned).

The most popular theory about *spreading of velar (fricative) 'r' in the German language *is the 'French theory' i. e. spreading through the use of French as (first) foreign language in the 18th and 19th century, in which case the velar (uvular) 'r' could very well have spread from various centres simultanuously - but as far as I know there's no proof offered at all (anywhere) if this were accurate.

Anyway, theoretically the oldest forms of German (Old High German or even Western Germanic, for that matter) should have had alveolar 'r' only. But that's only theory.


----------



## Spectre scolaire

sokol said:


> Then you shouldn't forget that Hitler spent many years in Munich


 But he had spent all his formative years – linguistically speaking – in _Ober__österreich_. My own experience with people possessing one [r] or the other in their phonemic inventory is that they find it extremely difficult to learn _in a natural way_ a language in which the one they are _not_ accustomed to is _de rigueuer_. I really don’t know which of the two [r]s we are talking about is the more awkward to learn. Judging from research in child language acquisition, both seem objectively difficult. I’d personally bet on the alveolar [r], though... 

My guess is that Hitler had a “gerolltes r” in his dialect. 

We would have to discuss other possible phoneme substitutions more or less successfully carried out by the dictator in front of a mirror or in another thread. 
 ​


----------



## sokol

Spectre scolaire said:


> But he had spent all his formative years – linguistically speaking – in _Ober__österreich_. My own experience with people possessing one [r] or the other in their phonemic inventory is that they find it extremely difficult to learn _in a natural way_ a language in which the one they are _not_ accustomed to is _de rigueuer_. (...)



This is my experience too, and I think that your guess:



Spectre scolaire said:


> My guess is that Hitler had a “gerolltes r” in his dialect.



is a rather good one - but nevertheless, however this may have been, I think that Hitler anyway would have _changed _his pronunciation of 'r' if his immediate surroundings in Munich, where he grew politically speaking, hadn't appreciated of his 'natural' pronunciation.

 But whatever: where Hitler grew up he could have learned _any _of the varieties of 'r' used in Austria (that is, velar fricative, alveolar trill and uvular trill) as all three of them are used there (still, though with a shift towards velar/uvular varieties).
I haven't ever studied the speeches of Hitler, so I don't know if there ever has been a change (there won't be any records of the very early years, I'd guess); there may have been, I've no idea. (And to be honest, I don't intend to do so. )


----------



## slado22

J.F. de TROYES said:


> *Split from **this thread**.*
> *Frank (mod)*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The nowadays usual “R” (dorsal ) appeared during the 18th century in Paris and around ( the reason why is controversial, maybe due to English influence) and widely expanded into most of the cities  .



I'm currently researching on late spoken Middle French and, according to John Palsgrave's testimonial (1531), in Paris the populace had troubles with the "r" roulé  and pronounced it as an intervocalic "z"  (e.g."Pazis"), showing that the "r" was already moving to a more dorsal position.


----------



## Outsider

I would be careful about using the word "already". That may have been a transient phenomenon that did not last. After all, as far as I know the uvular "r" did not become generalized in French until the 18th or the 19th centuries -- 300 years later.


----------



## slado22

Yes, ok, the assibilation was fought by the humanists, but nevertheless there are still words in modern French testifying that R has been a problematic sound since at least the 16th century, e.g. "Chaise" (Old French "chaiere" < lat. CATHEDRA(M), cf. port."cadeira"). AND, of course, at least in Northern dialects, not to generalise . It is also interesting to have a look at dauphin Louis XIII´s utterances collected by Héroard, since there is almost no R transcripted as R, but probably the poor child had a speech defect (fraenum too short?).


----------



## Tararam

I came across this thread and I have to ask.
In French, the r roulé and r grasseyé - which one is the common one we often hear? (in music, movies etc...)
Or to sharpen the question even more... which r did Edith Piaf use? (I always found her r's different so I guess she used the uncommon kind of r)


----------



## Outsider

Tararam said:


> I came across this thread and I have to ask.
> In French, the r roulé and r grasseyé - which one is the common one we often hear? (in music, movies etc...)


The most common sound in contemporary French, and the one which is stereotypically associated with French (in TV shows like _Allo, Allo_, for example), is the _r grasseyé_.



Tararam said:


> Or to sharpen the question even more... which r did Edith Piaf use? (I always found her r's different so I guess she used the uncommon kind of r)


Édith Piaf used a kind of _r grasseyé_, but I think you are right that hers was a special kind of _r_. If I'm not mistaken, she used an uvular trill, while most French speakers nowadays use a uvular fricative. The difference between the two is quite subtle; most people will miss it altogether.


----------



## Sionees

I know I am late in coming in on this, but perhaps I can provide further info. about the Welsh <r>. Traditionally, this letter (and its voiceless equivalent, written <rh>) is considered to be an aveolar tap (two taps, being the most common), or trill, /r/. However, the pronunciation [¨] is used consistently instead of [r] in east Powys. Further possibilities are [å] which indeed does approach what a previous correspondent says in relation to the speech patterns of some from the North East of England, being something approaching an uvular fricative. (The true fricative in this bucal area in Welsh is written <ch>, and is similar to the Spanish _jota, _German <ch> of _nacht _and Breton<c'h>).

This Welsh [å] is in fact a common feature amongst some speakers of Welsh in the Bala, Gwynedd area in North West Wales. It also 'afflicts' those of us (myself included) who have the handicap of possessing what we call a 'thick tongue' (Welsh: _tafod_ _tew_) and cannot enunciate [r] correctly. Consequently / r9/ i.e. <rh> is a nightmare for this native speaker to pronounce.

However, and interestingly, the French assume I am Dutch when I speak_ fran__çais_ - my [r] invariably Parisian but other consonants decidely un-French!

_Hwyl am y tro_


----------



## Sionees

PS For some reason I cannot download the alleged Welsh speaker on the wiki site so I have no comments with regard to his authenticity of 'Welsh accent' (a term we linguists despise BTW)


----------



## Outsider

Something seems to have gone wrong with your phonetic transcription, too. If your browser has problems with IPA, I wonder if you could edit your post and replace it with SAMPA.

Thank you very much for your replies. _Hwyl fawr_.


----------



## Sionees

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr (with the appropriate thick tongue, lol). I have IPA installed on my computer as a font listed as True Type IPA Kiel. This works OK on Word documents and when I type it here it certainly looks fine too. Apologies if you're not getting the same message, I'll try and remedy this as soon as I can.


----------



## Outsider

In that case, the problem may be my browser. I have a Macintosh, and for a long time I couldn't even read special characters properly. But it's been O.K. lately...

Don't sweat it, in any case. I think I got the gist of your message: apparently, in some parts of Wales the "r" _can_ be a little guttural.


----------



## Nanon

Outsider said:


> Édith Piaf used a kind of _r grasseyé_, but I think you are right that hers was a special kind of _r_. If I'm not mistaken, she used an uvular trill, while most French speakers nowadays use a uvular fricative. The difference between the two is quite subtle; most people will miss it altogether.



I think she used that kind of _r_ only in singing. As far as I can remember by the few interviews I heard of her, she pronounced a standard _r_ in speech.
From the point of view of vocal technique, it makes some sense, although it sounds dated (or appropriate for classical music only).


----------



## Outsider

It's interesting how in several languages it's considered more euphonic to replace the _"r" grasseyé_ with the trill (either uvular or alveolar) in stage performance. There's Édith Piaff and, I presume, other French-speaking singers from her time, there's the German stage pronunciation, and in also Portuguese I've noticed that some singers will switch to the alveolar trill when they're singing.


----------



## Ajura

Some people here do pronounce /h/ as French R intervocally.


----------



## sennacherib

*Moderator note:*
*This post originally started a separate thread about the same topic. Theads have been merged.*


Since French is a Roman language, why it has a uvular pronunciation which is distinct from other Roman languages?

Is it a historical issue or influenced by Germanic languages such as German?

Merci beaucoup!


----------



## Amstellodamois

According to wikipedia, we don't have a uvular pronunciation:


> Le français standard ne prononce pas habituellement ce son, mais certains locuteurs peuvent le faire. Ce _R_ était standard précédemment, tout comme le [r], lui aussi roulé mais avec la langue. Depuis la fin du XVIIe siècle le [ʁ], non roulé uvulaire voisé, prit le dessus.[1] Ces allophones sont encore utilisés dans certains variations de la langue française dans le monde dont celle de Belgique[2].


(http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonne_roulée_uvulaire_voisée#En_fran.C3.A7ais)


----------



## Outsider

If you were referring to the guttural pronunciation of the "r", Sennacherib, it's not used by all French speakers (the trill is common in southern France and Quebec), nor is it an exclusive of French, because it exists in Portuguese too. See this Wikipedia article.


----------



## dinji

sennacherib said:


> Since French is a Roman language, why it has a uvular pronunciation which is distinct from other Roman languages?
> 
> Is it a historical issue or influenced by Germanic languages such as German?
> 
> Merci beaucoup!


To the best of my knowledge 18th century French is the original source for this pronounciation. It is from French that this sound has spread into German, Portuguese, Danish etc.

I have heard that the birth of this new sound would have been traced back to the court of Louis the 14th, but I am unable to point to any source for this hypothesis.

*Moderator note:*
*End of second thread at time of merger.*


----------



## Beachxhair

Spectre scolaire said:


> The French phoneme /r/ is _drifting_ – there is no doubt about that. The question as to _why_ this is happening is controversial. In fact, phenomena like _drift_ and _merging phonemes_ are controversial matters in any language. In French (and in some other languages with a heavy literary tradition), it also touches upon a taboo.
> ​



I've only quoted the part of your post that is relevant to my comment, as it was quite a long post.  
I know the theory behind the 'drifting' of the French _r _is controversial, but nonetheless, what are some of the theories as to why this is happening? 
Thanks


----------



## merquiades

Beachxhair said:


> I've only quoted the part of your post that is relevant to my comment, as it was quite a long post.
> I know the theory behind the 'drifting' of the French _r _is controversial, but nonetheless, what are some of the theories as to why this is happening?
> Thanks



I know the uvular trill you all are talking about.  It was supposed to be typical of Paris and maybe other areas of northern France.  It's the sound you hear in Edith Piaf and Marie Matthieu songs.  Not a lot of people use it anymore, but I would not say it is gone.  Once in a while I hear it, and have been told it is pretty much universal in Belgium.  I believe it is true that the r has become fricative for most people, not only that, but it is also weaker (how should I say, less breathy) than the variety taught foreigners.  Ask someone to say "Paris", or "regarde" and the r is often soft, almost glossed over, like a slight vibration in the throat.  The pronunciation varies among people too.  The actress Fanny Ardent has a more "breathy" r and I quite like it

Oh, as for why?  Don't they say languages change from strong sounds to weaker sounds naturally?  The law of making less effort...


----------



## ottacon

vince said:


> Are there any languages that use the English pronunciation of "r"?
> 
> Someone on this thread mentioned certain accents of Malay. I've heard that some Brazilians also use the English "r", can anyone confirm?



Indeed there is a dialect in Brazilian Portuguese which makes this sound, we call it "Sotaque Caipira", that is, "Caipira Accent". Caipira is a person from rural places of some regions in Brazil, such as in the state of São Paulo, south of Minas Gerais, who has this accent. In some other places in Brazil there is such an accent or some other accents influenced by Caipira (especially those in urban places), such as West-central region states (Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Goiás), some parts of Paraná.
Then, words like "força" may resemble its equivalent in English, i. e.,  "force", sometimes before an "r", the "cedilha" (Ç, ç) is pronounced as "sh" as in "wish", but the standard is to be pronounced as "s" as in "sound".
So in Brazil there is at least 3 or 4 ways of pronouncing the "r", but many of them depend on the position of this letter in a word.


----------



## berndf

merquiades said:


> It's the sound you hear in Edith Piaf and Marie Matthieu songs.


I think that is just stage pronunciation. Like in other European languages, over-articulate stage pronunciation is virtually gone (thanks to high fidelity amplifiers, I suppose). Anyway, I agree with you that the /r/ you near in normal French is a non-trilled [ʁ].


----------



## Beachxhair

merquiades said:


> Oh, as for why?  Don't they say languages change from strong sounds to weaker sounds naturally?  The law of making less effort...


 Principle of least effort? That sounds like a logical possibility. Have there been any other theories proposed for the 'drifting' French r sound?


----------



## berndf

Beachxhair said:


> Principle of least effort? That sounds like a logical possibility. Have there been any other theories proposed for the 'drifting' French r sound?


Could we maybe first establish, that such a "drift" exists? I am far from convinced.


----------



## merquiades

We have to define what drift means and how it could be applied to the R.  I think the R for a lot of young people is weaker than that of older people.  Berndf, you've never met older people who make some kind of uvular trill instead of a fricative?  You can find someone rather elderly who says "on a beaucoup rrri" but a teenager, not really.  I think it makes the r easier to pronounce, and takes less energy.  Was Piaf's R a stage R?  Perhaps. We need to try to find an interview with her speaking naturally.

If drifting means becoming something completely different like what has occurred in Portuguese in recent times where an alveolar rolled r has become an uvular fricative or even h... no.  In French it's just weaker but the point of articulation is still the same.


----------



## berndf

I by now agree that there is a drift concerning /r/ in the syllable coda. A few days ago I hears _faire _= [feɐ] rather than [fɛʁ], like in German. You wouldn't hear that from older speakers.


----------



## myšlenka

merquiades said:


> Oh, as for why?  Don't they say languages change from strong sounds to weaker sounds naturally?  The law of making less effort...


But then, why would the French R arise in the first place?


----------



## merquiades

myšlenka said:


> But then, why would the French R arise in the first place?



Well, don't you think transferring a "rolled alveolar trill" to an "uvular trill" and then gradually stopping that vibration so it turns into "a guttural fricative" is not a process of weakening?  Try saying Rue de Rivoli all three ways.

I don't know if it ever happens in Norwegian but I've had the experience of knowing Spanish people who for some personal reason can't do the "rolled alveolar trill".  People make fun of them.  They told me they just couldn't do it.  The sound they made sounded more French as the tongue rises in the back a bit to compensate for the lack of trill in the front.  There is something natural about the "French" process since it has repeated recently in Portuguese and is also found in the Spanish of Puerto Rico.


----------



## berndf

merquiades said:


> Well, don't you think transferring a "rolled alveolar trill" to an "uvular trill" and then gradually stopping that vibration so it turns into "a guttural fricative" is not a process of weakening?  Try saying Rue de Rivoli all three ways.


You seem to assume that all alveolar French /r/s were once trilled. That is not necessarily the case. Also Spanish distinguishes between trilled and non-trilled /r/s (_pero-perro_). Since r-rr distinction has long been gone in French, there is also no reason to distinguish fricative, approximant, tapped and/or trilled /r/s, irrespective of whether it is uvular or alveolar. Since your post #72 I have compared pronunciations between older and younger speakers and I agree that there is a drift, but not from trilled to fricative but from fricative to approximant. I would still argue that the consistent trilled [R] as the realization of /r/ rather than just a possible variant is and was during the 20th century essentially stage pronunciation.


----------



## myšlenka

merquiades said:


> Well, don't you think transferring a "rolled alveolar trill" to an "uvular trill" and then gradually stopping that vibration so it turns into "a guttural fricative" is not a process of weakening?  Try saying Rue de Rivoli all three ways.


 I didn't question whether this was weakening or not. My question rephrased: if languages naturally change from strong sounds to weaker sounds naturally, then why don't they start out with weak sounds instead?


----------



## Nanon

merquiades said:


> It's the sound you hear in Edith Piaf and Marie Matthieu songs <...> I  have been told it is pretty much universal in Belgium.


It was a stage pronunciation indeed. Some opera singers still find it easier for singing than the r they use in speech (I mean native French speakers).
In Piaf, it may be a mixture of stage pronunciation + popular Parisian pronunciation (already old-fashioned at her time). I remember having heard interviews with her from radio archives: she spoke "normally". Mireille Mathieu (bleh, IMHO ) tries to imitate her. She is from Avignon, a part of Southern France where people usually do not trill their r's. The trill is present in some regions, mostly in elderly speakers but I know some people aged 50+ who speak like that. Regions are mostly Brittany, South-West (maybe due to exposure to the regional language), Burgundy (why? no clue). About Belgium, I do not think the sound you describe is quite standard. Exposure to Dutch or having Dutch as L1 may be an explanation for the higher frequency of that sound.



merquiades said:


> Try saying Rue de Rivoli all three ways.


Try _trilling _rue de Rivoli all three ways, too. Do you find it easier than with a standard French r? 

A French insight.
Another one: r is among the most difficult phonemes to learn for French-speaking children.


----------



## Outsider

It's intriguing that, by many accounts, _both_ the alveolar trill (Spanish "rr") and the various forms of "guttural r" (modern French/German "r") are notoriously difficult to learn for people whose native language do not have these sounds. So I don't see how a law of least effort could explain the change in pronunciation. Both kinds of sound seem to be difficult!


----------



## sotos

I red only the 1st page and I was surprised to learn that in some countries (France, Germany etc) people even consider changing the pronounciation of r.  It seems that there is a cultural dimension in this phenomenon. In Greece the r is strictly trilled, and if someone even tries to alter it, if a man, will be regarded as a "sissy boy".


----------



## berndf

sotos said:


> I red only the 1st page and I was surprised to learn that in some countries (France, Germany etc) people even consider changing the pronounciation of r.  It seems that there is a cultural dimension in this phenomenon. In Greece the r is strictly trilled, and if someone even tries to alter it, if a man, will be regarded as a "sissy boy".


The uvular /r/ is unlikely to occur in languages that already have a similar sound, like the γ in γάλα. In some German dialects, [γ] occurs as realization of /g/ but not in standard German and not in French.


----------



## Forero

berndf said:


> The uvular /r/ is unlikely to occur in languages that already have a similar sound, like the γ in γάλα. In some German dialects, [γ] occurs as realization of /g/ but not in standard German and not in French.


Yes, unlikely-- but not impossible. 

And what is "similar" to some folks is "very different" to others.

[γ] of course is not uvular, and I read somewhere that some varieties of Arabic have a uvular /r/ along with several similar sounds, including [γ]. In fact my German teacher taught that [γ] was standard German, for example in the word _Tage_.


----------



## berndf

Forero said:


> Yes, unlikely-- but not impossible.
> 
> And what is "similar" to some folks is "very different" to others.
> 
> [γ] of course is not uvular, and I read somewhere that some varieties of Arabic have a uvular /r/ along with several similar sounds, including [γ]. In fact my German teacher taught that [γ] was standard German, for example in the word _Tage_.


Both, the German <r> and the Arabic <غ> range between [ɣ] and [ʁ]* and the modern French <r> too. I don't know any language with phonemic separation between [ɣ] and [ʁ]. By the way, your teacher was misinformed concerning contemporary German. A fricative <g> in _Tage _is considered dialectal, colloquial at best, today and even in many dialects it is on the retreat, e.g. Berlin dialect where in the early 20th century the minimal pair _Augen_ /o:ɣn/ and _Ohren_ [o:ʁn] was merged while _Augen _is today pronounced [o:gn] and the distinction is restored.
_______________________
_*A Syrian friend of mine who came to Germany as a small child and who is perfectly bilingual Arabic-German even perceives the Arabic <غ> as "further back" than the German <r> although it should theoretically be the other way round._


----------



## merquiades

Isn't there a dialect of Dutch Flemish that has [ɣ] for g, [ʁ] for r, and [x] for ch plus  for h?  
That is too close for comfort.

I've noticed the [ɣ] of Spanish g in pago, pego is close to the young weak fricative sound variant of the French uvular [ɣ] in Paris, pourrit

Outsider.  I would say uvular r is weaker than rolled r.   I suppose if a language has neither either one would be hard to learn.

Nanon, thanks for the wonderful link.  It's very helpful.  I heard an older lady say on TV today:  C'était un rrrrèglement de compte with the r grasseyé.   I don't think a teenager would say that, but then an old man wouldn't say Pa'is with a swallowed r either, I guess.

Berndf, I had a German teacher who also said it was better to weaken the German intervocalic /g/.  She also said to try not to pronounce the ending /en/ either.  So she preferred saying something like /fraɣ'n/.

Myslenka, I don't know why languages simplify over time, or why classical Latin was so complicated to begin with.  I bet there are theories too.


----------



## berndf

merquiades said:


> Isn't there a dialect of Dutch Flemish that has [ɣ] for g, [ʁ] for r, and [x] for ch plus  for h?


You are right. Forgot about that one.


merquiades said:


> That is too close for comfort.


Definitely. 



merquiades said:


> So she preferred saying something like /fraɣ'n/*.


I suppose you mean [fʁa:ŋn] (btw: be careful with the vowel lengths. _Fragen_ with a short a wouldn't even be recognized).

_______________________________
*PS: Trying to find a way to pronounce _fragen _without a plosive in a  way it still sounds non-dialectal to a modern speaker, [fʁa:ŋn] was the only  thing I could think of -- or maybe [fʁa:ŋ:]. I don't know what Teacher actually recommend to students as I never learned German as a second language.


----------



## Omidic

0stsee said:


> In Indonesian there are always people who use "French" R.
> Their occurrence is quite random, comparable to lefthandedness.



Check out Tinto Brass accent (the Erotic filmmaker Maestro). He has born in Milan and has a distinct French R accent, though not sure it is his stage accent or normal one. 

Another evidence for the OP's hypothesis about correlation between industrialization of Europe and the spread of  the _grasseyé R  _is that you find it to spread in modern industrial urban parts of Europe where the ruling class where more prepared to imitate Parisian new trends, which at the time, perhaps sounded more 'modern', 'rigorous', or one might say, 'intimidating'.


----------



## hadronic

There are actually four types of French R :
- the uvular trill, like Mireille Matthieu and Piaf : old fashioned
- the uvular fricative, like Arabic ghayn, in some word positions and especially in Belgium French, sometimes unvoiced like Arabic khaa'
- the uvular *approximant*, used by most, especially between vowels, sometimes barely noticeable (cf noix vs. noir)
- and the pharyngeal fricative, like Arabic 'ayn, found in northern and parigot accents, that sounds (personally) very low class and prolétaire. May be what one of the forumer previously described as a German [(reversed) a], like [féa] for "faire", but it's not just an "a", it's a full fledged ع.


----------



## berndf

hadronic said:


> May be what one of the forumer previously described as a German [(reversed) a], like [féa] for "faire"...


No, that is what you called "uvular approximant" only that the vocalization is complete in German whereas it is only almost complete in French, i.e. the consonantal quality is very faint in French but still recognizable. In German, it is completely lost. A remarkable thing about the vocalized German r is that it occurs most systematically in a dialect that doesn't use the uvular r, viz. Bavarian. It must therefore be the outcome of a different phonological process than the weakening of [ʁ].

The de-voicing of French /ʁ/ is actually quite systematic in front of unvoiced consonants and in pausa (_po*r*te noi*r*_). In German (except in a few dialects), this is inhibited by the phonemic contrast /ʁ/ - /x/ which doesn't exist in French.


----------



## hadronic

French uvular approximant is nothing close to becoming a vowel, the way it is in German. It is still fully consonantal. It is subtle, but not a vowel (inasmuch as the pharyngeal fricative 'ayn while very open is not a vowel) 
Moreover, in "la porte noir", R is barely devoiced. It is a voiced approximant in both places for me. Would be kind of ok in "porte", but certainly not in "noire".


----------



## berndf

hadronic said:


> Moreover, in "la porte noir", R is barely devoiced. It is a voiced approximant in both places for me. Would be kind of ok in "porte", but certainly not in "noire".


I have never heard you talk so I can't judge. But as a description of an average French speaker I couldn't disagree more strongly. As a speaker of a language where the difference between the voiced and the unvoiced variants of that sound is phonemic, this devoicing sticks out like a sore thumb for me every time a Frenchman opens his mouth.


----------



## hadronic

Devoicing does occur. But not in this  context. It occurs more easily *after* voiceless stops (train, proie,..). 
In words like "tartre", devoicing occurs for the second r, but not the first (while possible, would sound as gross as the matter itself).


----------



## berndf

hadronic said:


> But not in this  context.


It does, but it is not always complete. Here the pronunciation is [pɔɣxtʰ] and I would say this is quite a normal pronunciation.


----------



## hadronic

What happens in those single word recordings, is that people consciously spell out of all phonemes properly, use a fricative instead of the approximant, and the fricative is more encline to devoicing. If you take longer phrases, like the "porte jarretelle" one, you'll achieve a better mitigation of the "recitation pronunciation" risk, and you'll hear both r's in a more natural setting. 

Granted, R is very unstable. 
My coworker from Eastern France devoices in a lot more context that I would allow, and I usually cringe at it.


----------



## ahvalj

I haven't found it mentioned in this thread, so I'd like to add that in languages with a plain _r_, both the "French" and "English" _r_'s may occur as individual pronunciation defects. In Russian, there is a small but noticeable percent of people with the "French" _r_, and I have occasionally heard several people with the "English" variant as well. People with the "French" _r_ sometimes also tend to pronounce the velar _l_ as a kind of _w _​(with various degrees of advancement towards _w_).


----------



## hadronic

Ah, and I forgot to mention the r used in the "islands" (like la Reunion), where postvocalic r is fully vocalized just like in German. My mother is from there  and she typically says "jouanée", "canoa" (canard). Funny accent.


----------



## CitizenEmpty

Quebecois French changed its "alveolar trill" r into "uvular trill" after WWII. I guess trilled consonants change rather quickly.


----------



## apmoy70

sotos said:


> I red only the 1st page and I was surprised to learn that in some countries (France, Germany etc) people even consider changing the pronounciation of r.  It seems that there is a cultural dimension in this phenomenon. In Greece the r is strictly trilled, and if someone even tries to alter it, if a man, will be regarded as a "sissy boy".


Actually Greek does not always trill r, between vowels, or as an initial consonant, r is more of a somewhat retracted /ɾ/, eg:
*«Άρτος»* [ˈa*r*tos] (masc.) --> _bread_
but
*«Ρώμη»* [ˈ*ɾ*omi] (fem.) --> _Rome (the city), or physical strength_
and
*«χορός»* [xoˈ*ɾ*os] (masc.) --> _dance_


----------

