# Articulation disorders in speakers of your native language



## Kelly B

In American English, even among adults without physical impairments, it is not terribly uncommon to hear a lisp (the letter s is pronounced as th or another fricative) or a dropped r (the letter r sounds like w or oo). I'm not referring to regional variants, nor to idiosyncracies.

Do the same kinds of issues exist among adult native speakers of your own language?


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## whatchama

bonsoir KellyB, voulez-vous parler des gens "qui ont un cheveu sur la langue" pour la prononciation des  s  ou  ch ?  

pour les  dropped r, pourriez svp vous donner un exemple de mot, je ne fais pas pour l'instant de relation avec un mot en français.

to be continued ?


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## sokol

In Austria most minor speech deficiencies haven't been treated at all till approx. the 1980ies, and yes they're not that uncommon here either: lisps ("s" pronounced similar to English "th"), postalveolar instead of palatoalveolar "sh", etc.

Since the 1990ies and especially the naughties (2000+) however speech therapists have begun testing children at an early age (already in kindergarten, and then of course in primary school) and those with even minor deficiencies get special treatment. (It's for free, paid for by national health care.)

I'm not sure if this already has lead to a significant decline of minor speech deficiencies but it eventually will, I suppose.


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## Paulfromitaly

Some Italian native speakers cannot pronounce the "GL" sound correctly, distorting it into a long "I".
Ma*gl*ione --> maiione
Coni*gl*io --> coniio.

While this is a common and acceptable mistake foreigners make, native speakers should be able to pronounce the GL correctly.


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## Vanda

We have some of these around here. Some people can't pronounce the lh (=gl in Italian) correctly. An example: /mulher/, they pronounce as /muler/
Some people can't say the /l/ inside a word. One of my nephews till now have problems saying it correctly: /tio Paulinho/ goes like /tio Pauinho/ (yes, he is an adult).
Some people drop the final r of some words (mainly verbs): estudá, falá...
I know we have more examples but I have to think about it...


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## mirx

In Mexico, in people from rural backgrounds, usually with poor academic formation, but most importantly, old. One can hear them dropping their "c" before a "t", so that Vi*c*tor comes out as "Vitor"or the opposite; putting letters where there should be none: Pizza is sometimes enunciated as "pi*c*sa", pepsi as "pe*c*si", and _o sea_ may become an "o sea*s*". In the same fashion these same people may pronounce S instead of "X"; thus, se*x*to becomes "sesto".

As for a lisp as such, I have never heard it in adults unless as a medical condition.


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## Stéphane89

I don't know if this relates to your question, but in French some people make what we call "barbarismes". They slightly modify a word and create a form that doesn't exist. The most famous one is **aréo*port instead of *aéro*port (= airport).


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## Frank06

Hi,

Reading some of the answers, I wonder what is meant by articulation disorders.



Vanda said:


> Some people drop the final r of some words (mainly verbs): estudá, falá...


I'm a bit surprised here. I thought it wasn't uncommon among people from e.g. Nordeste? Is it an articulation disorder or a dialectical variant?
If so, do people from e.g. Fortaleza have a reason to consider fala*r* as an articulation disorder? :-D?
(Just wondering because some of my Brazilian friends come from Fortaleza and I am learning (willy nilly) their variant of "Portuguese with vowels", i.e. Brazialian Portuguese.)



mirx said:


> In Mexico, in people from rural backgrounds, usually with poor academic formation, but most importantly, old.


As far as I understand, articulation disorders aren't to be linked to social class, education, age or region. Aren't you describing dialectical differences? 
Again, just wondering.


As for speakers of Dutch (in Flanders): the lisp is commonly regarded as a speech disorder. 

Some adults have problems with (tongue-tip) /r/ and produce a sound which sounds like a /j/. The /r/ - /j/ mix up is also common among little kids. If I am not wrong, the /r/ is one of the last sounds they learn how to produce. 

Tongue-tip /r/, however, is not the only accepted (or acceptable) way to produce an /r/.

In the *past*, the Belgian/Flemish national broadcast organisation didn't hire speakers with an /R/ (so-called French r) because it was considered as an articulation disorder. These days, French r's and other r's which differ from the 'classic' tongue-tip /r/ are accepted, though not all of them are (fully) recommended in pronunciation guidelines.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## mirx

Frank06 said:


> As far as I understand, articulation disorders aren't to be linked to social class, education, age or region. Aren't you describing dialectical differences?
> Again, just wondering.


 
As I understood the question, these people have affected speech but without any physical impediment that explains it. What I described could not be classed as a dialect, as they are isolated cases rather than the norm. I meant some people living in rural settings who also tend to be old, if it were a dialect all the people in rural settings would speak like that and is not the case.


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## curly

I know a 4 year old French child that pronounces his cousin's name (Marion) as if it was Maillon.


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## ewie

Kelly B said:


> In American English, even among adults without physical impairments, it is not terribly uncommon to hear a lisp (the letter s is pronounced as th or another fricative) or a dropped r (the letter r sounds like w or oo). I'm not referring to regional variants, nor to idiosyncracies.
> 
> Do the same kinds of issues exist among adult native speakers of your own language?


I hate to say it, Kelly, but I'm really not sure what you're asking about.
Surely if a person (for example) lisps, and it's not a result of physical impairment or regional variation, it can _only_ be idiosyncrasy
(or 'affectation', or 'something else' ...)
Can you elaborate your question a bit?


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## Vanda

> Quote:
> Originally Posted by *Vanda*
> 
> 
> Some people drop the final r of some words (mainly verbs): estudá, falá...
> 
> I'm a bit surprised here. I thought it wasn't uncommon among people from e.g. Nordeste? Is it an articulation disorder or a dialectical variant?
> If so, do people from e.g. Fortaleza have a reason to consider fala*r* as an articulation disorder? :-D?
> (Just wondering because some of my Brazilian friends come from Fortaleza and I am learning (willy nilly) their variant of "Portuguese with vowels", i.e. Brazialian Portuguese.)


 
You are right, Frank. My bad. This is not an articulation problem. I've mixed it with the other cases.


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## sokol

ewie said:


> Surely if a person (for example) lisps, and it's not a result of physical impairment or regional variation, it can _only_ be idiosyncrasy
> (or 'affectation', or 'something else' ...)


Sorry for not waiting for Kelly to give an answer - and I'm anyway not sure if what Kelly meant were speech disorders; but if this were so then the answer is: yes, in a way it is idiosyncrasy what we're talking about (because speech disorders too are idiosyncratic), but there's a difference:

- If somebody is affected on purpose (probably with pronouncing high-pitched vowels, or palatalised consonants when they shouldn't be palatalised, neither in standard language nor any social or regional dialect) then this is idiosyncrasy, and nothing but.

- If however somebody is using some unusual sounds (which are _*not*_ typical for a specific accent, dialect or sociolect) because he or she is incapable of pronouncing a more standard sound in the language (dialect) given then this is a speech disorder.
In German, lisping is a speech disorder - it is not a feature of any German dialect or accent. People lisping on purpose are rare (and do so only to imitate somebody, or probably tell a joke, etc).
It is safe to say that probably 95% of the lisping you hear in public (from German native speakers) is a speech disorder.

They're common with children while they're acquiring their native tongue, and most people loose them when growing up; however, some speech disorders remain.
Among my relatives and friends I know plenty which have some idiosyncrasy of speech (like an alveolar "r" which is not too common in Austria), and a few who have some minor speech disorder (for example, one pronounces "s" almost dental, without however lisping, while alveolar "s"  would be standard in both dialect and standard language; or another has a slightly postalveolar "sh") which are hardly noticed by anybody - but they're still, technically speaking, minor speech disorders, and not just idiosyncratic sounds they're cultivating on purpose.

That's the difference as I see it - purpose of doing so, or not knowing how to pronounce any other way. And when I wrote my post above this is what I wrote about - speech disorders.


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## ernest_

In Catalan, the most striking is people who can't pronounce ars properly. Some use an uvular ar, as in French or German, and some others and approximant that resembles that of British English. Very few people suffer from this affliction. I would say 1 in a million, at the very most.


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## Kelly B

I'm sorry, I didn't choose my words properly.  Sokol expressed it very well. 
By articulation disorders I mean the failure to accurately reproduce phonemes (as opposed to reversing letters, stuttering, other categories of speech disorders).

With "not idiosyncratic", I meant to avoid affectations and highly individual errors, the anecdotal sort of thing. Instead, I'm wondering about the speech disorders/errors that are fairly common in your language, yet are not learned from one's family or neighbors. As Sokol mentioned, they're often observed in children, but usually outgrown.

Thanks to all who have replied! 

[I remain very curious whether this exists among speakers of languages with fewer consonants, or tonal languages.]


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## ampurdan

In Spanish, yes, some people speak with a lisp as a language disorder. Most of Spain Spanish has both phonemes /s/ and /θ/, but these people pronounce both like /θ/.

As Ernest has explained, in Catalan some people do cannot pronounce their "Rs" very well. Most strikingly, a rather famous radio host who has been on the air for decades suffers from this "problem".

Also in Catalan, some people cannot pronounce "ll" (/ʎ/) properly. I had this problem since my teens, but then I learned to pronounce it.


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## Pedro y La Torre

curly said:


> I know a 4 year old French child that pronounces his cousin's name (Marion) as if it was Maillon.



This is pretty common. From what I've seen, French children normally take a few years to get used to the peculiar French R.
Hence children will often come out with "muno" instead of Bruno etc.


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## sokol

Kelly B said:


> [I remain very curious whether this exists among speakers of languages with fewer consonants, or tonal languages.]


Well, Austrian dialects are pretty rich in vowels and diphtongs (but still do allow for complicated consonant clusters), and such speech disorders also exist in those dialects.

However, languages with predominantly CVCV structure (*C*onsonant-*V*owel-structure, without any or at least not many consonant clusters) would be more interesting here: languages like Italian and Japanese.

(I would be surprised if there weren't similar speech disorders in, say, Italian - which has a tendency towards CVCV, especially its southern dialects -, but of course I can only guess here.)


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## cherine

Hi,

Lisp is considered a speech disorder in Arabic too. Although the "th" sound exists in Standard Arabic (fusHa), it's different from the "s", and it's non-existent in the Egyptian dialect. So, whenever you hear an "th", it's most certainly a speech disorder.

Another common speech disorder is the inability to pronounce the "r", which is not as strong as the Spanish "r", but not like the English "r" either. Some people pronounce it like a French "r" or an Arabic ghayn غ , others pronounce it like a "y" or yaa2 ي , with different degrees of perceptibility (for both the gh and the y). 
For example, my name would be pronounced as sheghin and/or sheyin by those persons. Some people consider this "disorder" (I don't know if there's a name for it in English) cute.
I never met anyone who sees lisp as cute.

Speech therapy is a rather new thing in Egypt (less than 20 years maybe) and not many persons know about it (yet). So such speech disorders are rather common between adults.

As for children having difficulty pronouncing some sounds, I think it's rather normal. They learn the right pronunciation as they grow. "K" is one of the letters than represent difficulty to some children; they pronounce it as "t", lisp is also common between children. Other phonemes too, but these are what I could remember for now.


Frank06 said:


> In the *past*, the Belgian/Flemish national broadcast organisation didn't hire speakers with an /R/ (so-called French r) because it was considered as an articulation disorder.


Same here. I don't think there's an Arab speaker, in any broadcasting organization, with this "disorder" or who lisp. If there are any, I can assure you that they would be a very small minority.
The funny thing is that one of Egypt's most famous composers, who also happened to be an excellent singer, Mohamed Abdel-Wahab, had a very slight lisp. I don't think any other singer could get away with that. 

This reminds me of something that I used to find strange. Some people don't keep the same disorder in all words. For example, I had a professor in the university who spelled some of the "r" like the regular Arabic "r", and sometimes as the French "r". I thought it was maybe related to the position of the "r" in the words, but I didn't pay enough attention to that at the time. 



sokol said:


> In German, lisping is a speech disorder - it is not a feature of any German dialect or accent. People lisping on purpose are rare (and do so only to imitate somebody, or probably tell a joke, etc).
> It is safe to say that probably 95% of the lisping you hear in public (from German native speakers) is a speech disorder.
> 
> They're common with children while they're acquiring their native tongue, and most people loose them when growing up; however, some speech disorders remain.


Same here (in Egypt).


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## WadiH

cherine said:


> The funny thing is that one of Egypt's most famous composers, who also happened to be an excellent singer, Mohamed Abdel-Wahab, had a very slight lisp. I don't think any other singer could get away with that.



Talal Maddah, the second most famous singer in Saudi Arabia (and a good friend of Abdel-Wahhab's by the way) had a trademark speech impediment: he could only barely pronounce any form of [r].  It was much stronger and more obvious than Abdel-Wahhab's lisp.  People often made fun of it, but it didn't stop him from becoming one of the most successful artists in the region.


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## Frank06

Vanda said:


> I've mixed it with the other cases.


If I understood well from previous threads, the /r/ - /l/ mix up is a feature of some regional dialects in Brazil. 
(The /r/ - /l/ mix up seems to be a 'problem' which runs through the history of Portuguese, but that's another issue). 
If I understood the literature well (e.g. Mauricio de Sousa, _Cebolinha _), it also seems to be a problem among kids ("Então, é veldade?").

But is it a common speech disorder, let's say in São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro?

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Vanda

> If I understood the literature well (e.g. Mauricio de Sousa, _Cebolinha _), it also seems to be a problem among kids ("Então, é veldade?").
> 
> But is it a common speech disorder, let's say in São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro?


 
I wouldn't say it is a speech disorder in SP or Rio but _everywhere _in the country with some children, mainly in a particular age - I can't precise it right now but I can ask some teachers.

I've found this article:
*



criança não pronuncia a letra 'R'.
Se ela tem mais de 4 anos, é preciso procurar um fonoaudiólogo para avaliar isso. Antes dessa idade,é normal que a criança não consiga pronunciar todas as letras da maneira certa.
(...)
Seu filho não consegue falar as palavras corretamente: em vez de colo, diz 'tolo', em vez de água, fala 'oda'.
Até os 2 anos, algumas crianças ainda fazem a troca do 'quê' por 'tê' e do 'guê' por 'dê'. (...)
		
Click to expand...

 
And this  one:



			a autora cita outros processos como não típicos, sendo eles:
bato” para pato
 vaca” para faca
panco” para “banco”
panco” para “banco”
		
Click to expand...

*


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## Frank06

Hi,


			
				frank06 said:
			
		

> If I understood the literature well (e.g. Mauricio de Sousa, _Cebolinha _), it also seems to be a problem among kids ("Então, é veldade?").
> But is it a common speech disorder *[edit]among adults[/edit]*, let's say in São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro? (the part in blue was _not_ in my original post)





Vanda said:


> I wouldn't say it is a speech disorder in SP or Rio but _everywhere _in the country with some children, mainly in a particular age.


Thanks for the reply, Vanda. 
But I made a mistake: I first described the r/l thing among kids (seems r-sounds are really difficult in many (most?) languages for kids).
But I actually wanted to ask whether it is a common articulation disorder *among adults* in regions where there are no r/l deviations in the local dialect/variant. I forgot to add 'among adults' .

Like, /r/ poses a problem for a lot of kids here (often produced as /j/), but considered as quite normal in the process at a certain age (I guess 2.5-3.5 years, probably until a bit later). Nobody cares too much, it's considered to be cute, and most kids learn how to produce an 'acceptable' r-sound eventually.
There are some adults, however, who say /j/ in stead of /r/, and then it's considered to be an articulation disorder.

Take good care,

Frank


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## pickarooney

Is an affected lisp common among gay men in other languages?


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## ampurdan

pickarooney said:


> Is an affected lisp common among gay men in other languages?



Not that I know in Catalan or Spanish from Spain. Is that really a lisp, anyway?


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## gurseal

I, an English-speaking native, have trouble with the "...s th..." combination:
This *is the *book that I...
He *has the* chops to...
It'*s the *next best thing since...

I have to slow down to avoid revealing the "disability," and it embarrasses me when I fail to anticipate having to say it.


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## wildan1

An AE-native speaker colleague experienced an interesting cross-linguistic speech particularity (I won't call it a disorder; some would). She uses the so-called velar L in the initial position in her native speech (an allophone of the L sound in English that is articulated as a velar stop rather than a lateral in the alveolar area. (Famous US media personalities like Tom Brokaw and Ira Glass use this allophone regularly.)

When my colleague went to live in Brazil and used this allophone of L in spoken Portuguese, Brazilians thought she was making an initial velar R (as in Rio) rather than an L. This caused a lot of confusion about what she was trying to say!

My colleague told me she didn't know she pronounced Ls in English unlike most people until this happened to her--at age 40!


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## sokol

Pedro y La Torre said:


> I don't think it's a disorder per se but many Irish people (myself included) have a tendency to not pronounce certain _th_ sounds as in standard English, especially if speaking informally.
> 
> Hence three sounds like _tree_, thought sounds like _taught_ etc.


But that's a dialect (or accent) feature surely, isn't it? This then of course would not be an articulation disorder.


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## Vanda

Our president, among other famous people around here like a famous soccer player, has this lisp problem in speech. 
And I have just had an experience with a friend who visited me half an hour ago. She said: /paiaçada/ instead of /palhaçada/ so I ask her if she was kidding - she had told me about some problems with pronounciation before - and she said that this is the way she would pronounce the word anywhere anytime. So I tried to help her with the /lh/, made her repeat it many times, she could never repeat the sound.


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## wildan1

I have a Mexican friend who claims he has never been able to pronounce the trilled _RR_, but instead uses the single flap _R_ (_pero_ and _perro _sound the same when he says them)

He said his parents told him "your tongue is too short" and that's what he tells others who notice it.


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## wildan1

And then there is this delightful practice...


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## Encolpius

Hi, Hungarian children and some Hungarian adults have problems to pronounce the Hungarian *-s-* and *-r-*. Those are the most common disorders.


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## Muwahid

cherine said:


> Another common speech disorder is the inability to pronounce the "r", which is not as strong as the Spanish "r", but not like the English "r" either.



This one my father has, and since he speaks English so well I assumed the R was the only thing he couldn't pronounce right (he would roll it on everything, i.e., Wate_rrr_), but no it's a speech disorder even in Arabic. I think it's not as bad as the lisp in English because most attribute that to homosexuality due to popular culture.


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## mirx

pickarooney said:


> Is an affected lisp common among gay men in other languages?


 
My boss was gay, and other gay people that I have met don't any lisps. However, lisps are definitely portrayed as gay. Like the famous "_pe*zzz*da_" (perra-bitch).


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## Nanon

ampurdan said:


> In Spanish, yes, some people speak with a lisp as a language disorder. Most of Spain Spanish has both phonemes /s/ and /θ/, but these people pronounce both like /θ/.



The same happens in French: some people pronounce [θ] instead of [s] and sometimes also instead of [ʃ], and [ð] instead of [z] and sometimes [ʒ].
The radio producer Jean-Christophe Averty was famous for that lisp (colloquially known as "cheveu sur la langue" - "hair on the tongue"). He used to make jokes about it: "Mon θθθeveu et moi vous diðons à bientôt", etc... 

Some people with severe lisps even pronounce something close to [ɮ] (the actress Isabelle Mergault!)
 


cherine said:


> Another common speech disorder is the inability to pronounce the "r", which is not as strong as the Spanish "r", but not like the English "r" either. Some people pronounce it like a French "r" or an Arabic ghayn غ


The same disorder is not uncommon in native Russian speakers. I had a Russian teacher who had it. He used to say that he was naturally gifted for French ... I know several other people who have it. And Lenin had that lisp, too.

I heard that it is also common among Greek speakers, though I don't speak Greek.


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## sokol

Nanon said:


> cherine said:
> 
> 
> 
> Another common speech disorder is the inability to pronounce the "r", which is not as strong as the Spanish "r", but not like the English "r" either. Some people pronounce it like a French "r" or an Arabic ghayn غ
> 
> 
> 
> The same disorder is not uncommon in native Russian speakers. I had a Russian teacher who had it. He used to say that he was naturally gifted for French ... I know several other people who have it. And Lenin had that lisp, too.
Click to expand...

This reminds me: the "French r" is used by Carinthian Slovene dialect speakers (both when speaking dialect and standard language): this is a dialect feature and should be due to influence of the "French r" preferred by mononlingual German speaking Austrians.

But in Slovenia this "French r" would be considered as an articulation disorder; Slovenes from the Republic of Slovenia thus always find it very strange indeed when they learn that for Carinthian Slovene speakers this "French r" is native.


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## sakvaka

The most typical Finnish articulation disorders are _l-vika_,_ s-vika _and _r-vika_. You can guess what sounds are difficult to pronounce for people suffering them. I myself am unable to pronounce "s" correctly. My "l" is also bit strange and not as bright as it should be.

Speaking disorders are not considered very common since you rarely encounter people suffering from them in public. Tv announcers and hosts always have a perfect articulation. On the other hand, the president of my country suffers from them.


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## effeundici

The most typical pronunciation defects in Italian are the *lisp* and the so called "_limp r" _which consists in using the French* r* in the place of the Italian trilling sound.

If you want to hear some examples search for videos where Gianni Agnelli (_"limp r") _and Niki Vendola (_lisp_) speak.


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## itka

Ho ascoltato Agnelli quì ma non sento la [R] francese... Parliamo della stessa personna ?


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## effeundici

itka said:


> Ho ascoltato Agnelli quì ma non sento la [R] francese... Parliamo della stessa personna ?


 
Qui dove?


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## itka

Sorry ! Ho dimenticato il link . Quì.


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## Montesacro

itka said:


> Sorry ! Ho dimenticato il link . Quì.



Itka, hai ascoltato bene quando dice "in cinquant'anni si fanno tanti *errori*..."?

Ecco, quello è un classico esempio di "erre moscia"...

P.S.: la _i_ di _qui_ non è accentata


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## effeundici

Montesacro said:


> Itka, hai ascoltato bene quando dice "in cinquant'anni si fanno tanti *errori*..."?
> 
> Ecco, quello è un classico esempio di "erre moscia"...
> 
> P.S.: la _i_ di _qui_ non è accentata


 
*e*_rr_*o*_r_*i  ==> *This is what I hear; the tongue is definitely floating in the mouth instead of being pressed against the palate (and simultaneously _vibrating_)


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## itka

Nella parola "errori" si sente che non è la propria [r] italiana... ma non è nemmeno quella francese... Non so esattamente com'è la "r moscia". Ho sempre creduto fosse la "r" francese, ma qu*i* () ... no.
Nelle altre parole, sento soltanto una vera [r] italiana, non la sentite così ?

Si sente una vera [r] francese (moscia ?) quando si ascolta Piemontesi o mi pare anche certi Valdotani.


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## effeundici

itka said:


> Nella parola "errori" si sente che non è la propria [r] italiana... ma non è nemmeno quella francese... Non so esattamente com'è la "r moscia". Ho sempre creduto fosse la "r" francese, ma qu*i* () ... no.
> Nelle altre parole, sento soltanto una vera [r] italiana, non la sentite così ?
> 
> Si sente una vera [r] francese (moscia ?) quando si ascolta Piemontesi o mi pare anche certi Valdotani.


 
*errori *in this case is a perfect example of_ r moscia_.

Probably our ear is not refined enough to differentiate between r moscia and French r.


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## ampurdan

For what it's worth, it does not sound like a French r to Catalan/Spanish-speakers. At least not to me. Actually, I'm not sure I find anything weird in that r.


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## jmnjmn

Euskaraz ikasten dutenei asko kostatzen zaie euskal txistukarien bereizketa egitea. Nekez bereizten dituzte sistema osatzen duten sei soinuak: "ts", "tz" eta "tx" afrikariak eta "s", "z" eta "x" frikariak. Hala ere, ama-hizkuntza euskara dugun askok ere (mendebaldeko euskalkiaz mintzatzen garenok) ez ditugu bereizten "s" (txistukaria, frikaria, bizkarkari-hobikaria eta gorra) eta "z" (txistukaria, frikaria, apikari-hobikaria, ozena), eta lehenbiziko soinua ahoskatzen dugu (/s/). Gainerakoak, ordea, ondo bereizten ditugu.

A los que aprenden a hablar vasco sin que sea su lengua materna les cuesta mucho diferenciar las sibilantes. Suelen tener muchas dificultades a la hora de distinguir los seis sonidos que forman el sistema de sibilantes: las africadas "ts", "tz" y "tx" y las fricativas "s", "z" y "x". Pero somos muchos (los que hablamos el dialecto occidental) quienes, teniendo como lengua materna el vasco, no diferenciamos el sonido  /s/ (sibilante, fricativa, apical, alveolar, sorda) del sonido /z/ (sibilante, fricativa, dorsal, alveolar, sonora) y los neutralizamos pronunciando el primero (/s/). El resto de sibilantes las diferenciamos bien.


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## Welshie

There are people in Britain who cannot pronounce the 'th' sound and consistently pronounce it as 'f'. I have a friend who does this, it's normally not a problem but sometimes can lead to confusion (three/free for example).


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## Rallino

Turkish is a CVCV (consonnant-vowel-cons..) language. And I know that a great deal of Turks are struggling with the loan words that start with two consonants, and they squeeze a subtle vowel in the middle to solve it.

Tren (Train) --> _T*i*ren
_Kral (King) --> _K*ı*ral_

etc.

And sometimes they add a vowel in the beginning so that the word doesn't start with two consonants.

_"*Stop* etmek_" is an expression meaning that the Engine of a car has stopped.

Most people would say: "* istop *etmek ".


Secondly, I don't know if it's because they find it difficult, but most turks pronounce the *R *at the end of the words so lightly, that it comes out like a "sh" sound.

I was in a tourist tour, the guide was saying humourously:

The guide: - All right guys, here'sh is our Burger'sh King, it's one of a kind.
My American friend: - Why is he saying: here'sh, burger'sh etc?
Me: - He's a Turk.  

This is not about any incapability, but merely laziness. And of course there are lisps who can't pronunce the "s", and some people who just can't say "R"s.


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## Hakro

Kelly B said:


> In American English, even among adults without physical impairments, it is not terribly uncommon to hear a lisp (the letter s is pronounced as th or another fricative) or a dropped r (the letter r sounds like w or oo).


This reminds me of a cartoon from the late fifties or early sixties: There's a girl in a recording studio for a singing test. The recording company man says to her: "I'm sorry, young lady, but you can't become a pop singer. You don't lisp your s."

(In fact, the lisping esses of the singers on those days were more due to the rudimentary recording and audio techniques than articulation disorders of the singers.)


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## Serafín33

mirx said:


> As I understood the question, these people have  affected speech but without any physical impediment that explains it.  What I described could not be classed as a dialect, as they are isolated  cases rather than the norm. I meant some people living in rural  settings who also tend to be old, if it were a dialect all the people in  rural settings would speak like that and is not the  case.


Dialects are not only defined by region, but also by age,  ethnic group, gender, and whether it belongs to an urban or rural  setting (just think of African-American Vernacular English). What you  mentioned is a dialect, not an articulation disorder as per the request  of the OP.

Now, the mispronunciation of the /r/ sound (as some other sound) and the /s/ sound (as a lisp) are actual articulations disorders.


wildan1 said:


> I have a Mexican friend who claims he has never been able to pronounce the trilled _RR_, but instead uses the single flap _R_ (_pero_ and _perro _sound the same when he says them)
> 
> He said his parents told him "your tongue is too short" and that's what he tells others who notice it.


My younger brother is one of such, for the same reason: the length of some particular ligaments under his tongue. However, he doesn't use the [ɾ] (the r in pero) to replace it, but rather a whole new phone. To my ears it sounds like a [ɹ] (the American/British/Australian English r), but with some level of frication. (So far he hasn't allowed me to get real close to his mouth to see how he pronounces it.)


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## kidika

Welshie said:


> There are people in Britain who cannot pronounce the 'th' sound and consistently pronounce it as 'f'. I have a friend who does this, it's normally not a problem but sometimes can lead to confusion (three/free for example).


I thought it was a feature of some accents, especially those that black people from London speak.
And I think it´s also a colloquial way of pronouncing some words, like _bothered _which becomes _bovvered_ or something similar. (I know in this case the sound is a bit different from the one in three, but I thought I should point it out all the same)

In Spanish, there is a very subtle mispronunciation of the word "n" that some people do. I guess it could qualify as a speech impediment. Some people instead of saying "mano", make that /n/ interdental, thus the word sounds a wee bit like "mando". Again, this is a very sublte problem and not everybody can hear it. But some of us, are dog-eared cats...
I´m really late here, but this has been a really interesting thread. And it´s quite clear that /s/ and /r/ are the most tricky sounds in almost any language. There must be an explanation for that which I haven´t got I´m afraid.


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## Serafín33

Outlandish wrote in this thread, about Arabic:


Outlandish said:


> Some impediments are: pronouncing the r as w, or y or as the French r. Pronouncing the k  as t (usually done by kids).  Pronouncing the sh sound like a certain sh I hear in the German language. And of course,  the lisp produced when pronouncing the s, z.


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## Einstein

Welshie said:


> There are people in Britain who cannot pronounce the 'th' sound and consistently pronounce it as 'f'. I have a friend who does this, it's normally not a problem but sometimes can lead to confusion (three/free for example).





kidika said:


> I thought it was a feature of some accents, especially those that black people from London speak. Not only black people, it's typical Cockney pronunciation.
> And I think it´s also a colloquial way of pronouncing some words, like _bothered _which becomes _bovvered_ or something similar. Yes, if we want to imitate Londoners.


In Liverpool there is a tendency to pronounce a "t" as an "r" in some positions, so "What about that?" becomes "Worrabout that?"

These are not articulation disorders but regional "lazinesses". I think an articulation disorder is when an individual is unable to speak like those round him.


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## kidika

Einstein said:


> In Liverpool there is a tendency to pronounce a "t" as an "r" in some positions, so "What about that?" becomes "Worrabout that?"
> 
> These are not articulation disorders but regional "lazinesses". I think an articulation disorder is when an individual is unable to speak like those round him.


Ta Einstein! I thought that "f" thing was not a disorder at all.

But that "t" becoming "r" when it is between vowel sounds is one of the main features that differenciate AmE from BrE, isn´t it? Are all Americans lazy?


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## Einstein

kidika said:


> Ta Einstein! I thought that "f" thing was not a disorder at all.
> 
> But that "t" becoming "r" when it is between vowel sounds is one of the main features that differentiate AmE from BrE, isn´t it? Are all Americans lazy?


Well, I did put "laziness" in quotes. I'd say that in American speech the "t" becomes more of a "d" than an "r" ... and not only American; it happens in some British regional accents too.


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## kidika

Einstein said:


> Well, I did put "laziness" in quotes. I'd say that in American speech the "t" becomes more of a "d" than an "r" ... and not only American; it happens in some British regional accents too.



I know, I was just kidding.
Anyway, to me that American "d" sounds more like an "r". According to _antimoon.com_ I am quite right:

 In American English, t  is often pronounced as a "flap t", which sounds  like d or (more accurately) like the  quick, hard _r_ heard e.g. in the Spanish word _pero_. For example: _letter_.


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## Einstein

Then this might be a good way to teach Americans (and British too) how to pronounce the Spanish or Italian "r"!


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## kidika

Einstein said:


> Then this might be a good way to teach Americans (and British too) how to pronounce the Spanish or Italian "r"!



Good idea!


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## Alxmrphi

> In Liverpool there is a tendency to pronounce a "t" as an "r" in some  positions, so "What about that?" becomes "Worrabout that?"
> 
> These are not articulation disorders but regional "lazinesses".


It's not regional laziness!
It's a fairly rare colloquial aspect of some speakers' dialect (i.e. Cilla Black and 2 other people) which you do hear infrequently. The list of diversions from RP for all other accents around the UK result in pages and pages of fairly detailed differences. These shouldn't be called 'laziness' because they don't match up with the prestige dialect. All dialects of a language have their own quirks and idiosyncratic features, more common that is the use of a somewhat AE-sounding alveolar flap in quick speech.

As someone who studies dialects of English, I have to point out that variations from a standard are not to be considered "an articulation disorder", or be labelled with unhelpful adjectives that give a false impression of the speakers that use it. (Can you tell I'm from Liverpool? )



			
				effeundici said:
			
		

> The most typical pronunciation defects in Italian are the *lisp*  and the so called "_limp r" _which consists in using the French* r*  in the place of the Italian trilling sound.



Ciao F11, is this what _*Giulio Tremonti *_has?


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## Einstein

Alex, don't be offended, I put the word "laziness" in quotes because I know perfectly well that it's something else. But it does "ease" the passage from one letter to another. Different regions have their own ways of doing this.
I mentioned that the "d" is used instead of the "t" also in England. I used to hear old people in Kent say "fourdeen" and I think this is a case where the Americans don't use a "d".
And Alex, not all people from South of the Wash are defenders of RP. Look for other interpretations of what I say!

I'm not sure that Tremonti's *r *is really like the French *r*. It sounds more like the sound made by English speakers who can't pronounce their *r*'s. A better example is Fausto Bertinotti, if you've heard him, but there are plenty of other examples.


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## Alxmrphi

> It sounds more like the sound made by English speakers who can't  pronounce their *r*'s



Exactly! I have been looking to define that typical speech characteristic in Italian (i.e. Tremonti's) but I never knew what to search for, so thought that F11 had just mentioned what it was called.

Also, I didn't realise it was you who posted when I originally replied (I just read the message) when I realised (just now) it was you, I knew exactly what you meant and how you meant it, I should read who the poster is as well! (Sorry!)


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## Δημήτρης

In Cyprus articulation disorders are treated in primary schools. 

I remember endless hours of practicing the /s/ sound (and therefore /ks/ and /ps/ which are regarded phonemes on their own in Greek) which I pronounced as /θ/, and the dreaded /r/ (trilled r) sound, which I still can not pronounce (I say something close to /ɻ/, an approximant, which is slightly more acceptable than the /ʁ/ I used to pronounce).
My mother also says I used to pronounce /ʎ/ as /j/, but I don't remember such a thing :S


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## Keith Bradford

As a six-year-old, I consistently mispronounced sibilants.  I would pronounce _judge_ as _zhuzh_ and _chief_ as _sheaf_.  A speech therapist quickly taught me that if I placed an imaginary 'd' before the 'g' sounds and an imaginary 't' before the 'sh' sounds, that would correct it, and within a week or two the matter was solved.

But five years later, when I came to learn French, I had a head start on my classmates in pronouncing the French j and ch sounds!


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## Wertis

Kelly B said:


> In American English, even among adults without physical impairments, it is not terribly uncommon to hear a lisp (the letter s is pronounced as th or another fricative) or a dropped r (the letter r sounds like w or oo). I'm not referring to regional variants, nor to idiosyncracies.
> 
> Do the same kinds of issues exist among adult native speakers of your own language?



Well, I've never noticed anything like this in my country. Maybe because I've got used to hearing Russian speech and I don't take into account any speech distortion even when I ecounter it. People with physical impairment can sometimes omit sounds in words, but the reason for this is clear and doesn't need explaining. There are sometimes children unable to say some sounds or sound combinations. That's clear as well. However able-bodied adults usually proniunce everything correctly and their phrases are comprehensible to me.


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## Keith Bradford

Welshie said:


> There are people in Britain who cannot pronounce the 'th' sound and consistently pronounce it as 'f'. I have a friend who does this, it's normally not a problem but sometimes can lead to confusion (three/free for example).


 
This mispronunciation is common in parts of London.  In fact, this can help French and other non-English speakers who have problems pronouncing "th-".

Usually those who don't have the /q/ sound in their native language (i.e. most people except Greek and Spanish speakers) try to approximate with /s/ or /z/.  This makes them sound foreign.  But if they replace the sound with /f/ or /v/, they'll sound English ...but with a London accent!


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## Moro12

Wertis said:


> Well, I've never noticed anything like this in my country. Maybe because I've got used to hearing Russian speech and I don't take into account any speech distortion even when I ecounter it. People with physical impairment can sometimes omit sounds in words, but the reason for this is clear and doesn't need explaining. There are sometimes children unable to say some sounds or sound combinations. That's clear as well. However able-bodied adults usually proniunce everything correctly and their phrases are comprehensible to me.



I agree that the articulation disorders are rare among Russian adults. I do not know exactly what is the reason for that, but I suppose it might be because such things are usually treated in early childhood.
However, the most common example of an articulation disorder in Russian speech is mispronouncing R. I would not say it is very common, but there are some adults who fail to pronounce this sound correctly. And the most typical substituation for the Russian R is the uvular R like in French. A well-known historical fact is that Lenin was one of such persons.
Other types of articulation mistakes (as substitution of S for SH, or of SH for S etc) can be heard from young children in their 5 or somewhat alike, but are extremely rare for grown-ups.


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## Serafín33

Moro12 said:


> I agree that the articulation disorders are rare among Russian adults. I do not know exactly what is the reason for that, but I suppose it might be because such things are usually treated in early childhood.


What we're discussing here is supposed to be articulation disorder, and hence they're also supposed to be rare (as opposed to dialectal differences or innovative pronunciations, which affect a significant number of people in a group).


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## NewtonCircus

Keith Bradford said:


> As a six-year-old, I consistently mispronounced sibilants. I would pronounce _judge_ as _zhuzh_ and _chief_ as _sheaf_. A speech therapist quickly taught me that if I placed an imaginary 'd' before the 'g' sounds and an imaginary 't' before the 'sh' sounds, that would correct it, and within a week or two the matter was solved.



This even seems to be contagious . I have a few cousins (brothers and sisters) who all pronounced the word _chocolade_ (chocolate in Dutch) as _sokolade_ when they were in their early teens. They eventually got rid of it through therapy.


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## Destruida

I used to have hundreds of Manouche (Romany) friends in France. A significant number had cleft palates or harelips or else were deaf-mute, but apart from those physical defects, all of them, without exception, consistently mispronounced both certain words and certain sounds and had great difficulty in pronouncing others. It was about twenty years ago and my memory's failing, but one example was_ l'oie_ (the goose) which was pronounced _lasoie_, and I'll add some better ones if me brian starts working again. Of course, many also spoke at least Romany (a language) and amongst themselves, when they weren't making any effort for a gadje, they spoke what might be called a dialect, which was an adapted French, spoken in a musical gabble, pronounced with their own accent, their own special mispronounciations and ways of conugating verbs (j'ai peindu, rather than _j'ai peint_) but certainly they had particular, habitual or almost universal disorders (I'm choosing the word from the opening post) that weren't caused by any physical defect, but were orally acquired and shared by the group and by all the Romany travelers I met elsewhere in France. Only those who had pursued education or work outside the group gradually altered their speech.


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## Youngfun

Keith Bradford said:


> As a six-year-old, I consistently mispronounced sibilants.  I would pronounce _judge_ as _zhuzh_ and _chief_ as _sheaf_.  A speech therapist quickly taught me that if I placed an imaginary 'd' before the 'g' sounds and an imaginary 't' before the 'sh' sounds, that would correct it, and within a week or two the matter was solved.



Then if you learn Italian, you can learn the Tuscan accent 



Keith Bradford said:


> This mispronunciation is common in parts of London.  In fact, this can help French and other non-English speakers who have problems pronouncing "th-".
> 
> Usually those who don't have the /q/ sound in their native language (i.e. most people except Greek and Spanish speakers) try to approximate with /s/ or /z/.  This makes them sound foreign.  But if they replace the sound with /f/ or /v/, they'll sound English ...but with a London accent!



This also common in Hong Kong and Singapore pronunciations of English. Did the Londoners bring their pronunciation there?


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## bellatrix27

Moro12 said:


> I agree that the articulation disorders are rare among Russian adults. I do not know exactly what is the reason for that, but I suppose it might be because such things are usually treated in early childhood.
> However, the most common example of an articulation disorder in Russian speech is mispronouncing R. I would not say it is very common, but there are some adults who fail to pronounce this sound correctly. And the most typical substituation for the Russian R is the uvular R like in French. A well-known historical fact is that Lenin was one of such persons.
> Other types of articulation mistakes (as substitution of S for SH, or of SH for S etc) can be heard from young children in their 5 or somewhat alike, but are extremely rare for grown-ups.



My first two languages were hebrew and russian, hebrew having the uvular R, I was not able to roll my R's in russian until I practised A WHOLE LOT (place finger under tongue and move it side-to-side while continuously making a DDD sound), and at 13 picked it up. I also couldn't pronounce SH and used S instead.

Also, I used TH instead of a soft L which I was unaware of for a long time.


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