the r/w distinction in English

[Torco]

I mean, I've been noticing lately, there's MANY people who merge r and w into something weird, like a rhotic labialized approximant or something.

[Bob Johnson]

Do you mean the lower-class British /r/>[ʋ] thing? They can distinguish it just fine

Or do you mean Travis...

[sirred]

I'm hunting wabbit?

[Rui]

Or people who actually have a speech impediment?

edit: Obviously I know the actor doesn't actually have this feature in speech, but is just exaggerating a feature that actually happens in some real cases (I knew a girl in high school who had this r/w[/l] merger)

[Soap]

Do you mean the lower-class British /r/>[ʋ] thing? They can distinguish it just fine

Or do you mean Travis...

That's lower-class? lol. I've heard that accent before but around here (northeast USA) the few people who talk like that are either upper upper class or wish that they were.

edit: Though, is it possible that there are two separate British accents with this feature? The accent I'm thinking of turns r into [ʋ] even before vowels, and it is very distinctive to the ear. I've been told it's "the Manchester r" and that everyone there talks like that.

[linguoboy]

Do you mean the lower-class British /r/>[ʋ] thing? They can distinguish it just fine

Can you name some "lower-class Britons" who have this feature? The first person I think of when this is mentioned is Jonathan "Wossy" Ross, who isn't exactly a prole.

[Salmoneus]

Er.... actually Wossy IS a prole. During his rise to power, the was some outcry about his prolishness from more conservative corners. More accurately, he may not be a prole, but he's certainly a pleb - he's from a reasonably well-off family, I think, but still a lower-class family, and still living in East London somewhere between hackney and essex. His mother was a long-term extra in Eastenders. He's a standard-bearer for Estuary English.


More broadly, labiodental r is a widespread phenomenon in Britain, with many causes. It's found in Estuary (lower-class), but may also be a development of the old 'Oxford R' (upper-class - it used to be a uvular approximant, iirc), which is probably why the r/w lisp used to be thought of as upper class (eg pilate saying that biggus dickus 'wanks as highly as any in wome'). It's common in SSBE, either from Estuary or Oxford influence, but apparently in SSBE it's sporadic, rather than a dialectic feature (ie lots of people have it but seemingly randomly). It's also apparently a growing phenomenon in Geordie - don't know if that's an indigenous feature or Estuary influence. I hadn't heard that it was manc as well, but I wouldn't be surprised.

I read a paper about it in SSBE, which suggests that in SSBE at least it's causally a random production error, but because spectrographically it's very similar to 'normal' r in SSBE, it's not noticed, and hence becomes the normal means of production in some individuals, without being distinctive enough to spread as a dialect feature. Although I suspect the influence of estuary certainly helps.

Disclaimer: I have it. SSBE.

However, it's important to note that in most of these dialects, barring a speech impediment, it's not actually a merger. It's just a labiodental approximant, which some people may not be able to distinguish from a labiovelar approximant.

[Also, for me at least, it's not universal - after alveolars it's usualy alveolar, or sometimes coarticulated.

[Astraios]

I hadn't heard that it was manc as well, but I wouldn't be surprised.

I've definitely heard it here, and also in Liverpool.

[Travis B.]

Or do you mean Travis...

I would say my /l/ is commonly closer to my /w/ than my /r/ is...

[Jashan]

Well, I don't know about British English, and I'm not sure what kind of "merger" you're referring to without a sound sample, but in American English it seems standard that the our /r/ is labialized. That is, if you say "red", you actually purse/round your lips at the beginning when you say "r". I even do it on consonant clusters like <str> (round my lips at the beginning and keep them rounded through the /s/ and /t/ and /r/)

But it doesn't sound like a /w/, like the Elmer Fudd accent type thing.

Is that what you're referring to?

[Davoush]

I hadn't heard that it was manc as well, but I wouldn't be surprised.

I've definitely heard it here, and also in Liverpool.

It's definitely not in Liverpool (although perhaps surrounding areas)...you should know the r is usually a tap! I think a tap is quite common in strong Manc accents too?

[Astraios]

It was probably just a Scouser with a speech problem. xD And yeah, taps are in strong Manchester accents and they're vile.

[finlay]

Some things I learnt about labiodental R on my linguistics course: apparently Peter Trudgill did a diachronic study of Norwich English, and essentially discovered that it had suddenly appeared in 20 years between 1970 and 1990-ish. Like it had been a sporadic feature already in 1970 but in 1990 was quite a widespread feature. And I think it was one of my lecturers who had been studying the English of border towns between Scotland and England; apparently he had been warned by one subject's Scottish girlfriend that he had a speech impediment because he had this labiodental R – the lesson here being that labiodental R doesn't occur in Scottish accents almost at all.

That said, I will teach labialized R to my Japanese students, mainly because I believe it's easier for them to separate R and L mentally that way.

I also heard it really strongly on I think the Harry Potter film by a young actor playing the young Voldemort with a creepy posh accent, so I'm fairly sure it's either not related to class or it's associated with the higher classes.

[Whimemsz]

As far as I know it was historically associated with the upper classes (but I could be wrong). It's present in some old recordings of RP-speakers (the only example I can think of though is George VI, who is obviously a less-than-perfect example). It's also caricatured in a Punch cartoon from the 1850s: "I say, Old Fellah!--Do you think it pwobable the Infantwy will accompany us to Sebastopol?" so it seems to have been around for a while among some people at least.

[Terra]

I mean, I've been noticing lately, there's MANY people who merge r and w into something weird, like a rhotic labialized approximant or something.

It's a common speech problem. Children are usually broken out of it, some time in grade school. I myself couldn't master English's /r/ until I was in the 3rd grade.

Thinking about my time in speech class, there was another boy who couldn't say /r/, a girl would couldn't say /S/, and another girl who couldn't say /T/. The first girl never was able to learn to say /S/.

Or people who actually have a speech impediment?

edit: Obviously I know the actor doesn't actually have this feature in speech, but is just exaggerating a feature that actually happens in some real cases (I knew a girl in high school who had this r/w[/l] merger)

Yet another reason to hate voice-recognition. (I was able to say /l/ fine though.)

[Salmoneus]

As far as I know it was historically associated with the upper classes (but I could be wrong). It's present in some old recordings of RP-speakers (the only example I can think of though is George VI, who is obviously a less-than-perfect example). It's also caricatured in a Punch cartoon from the 1850s: "I say, Old Fellah!--Do you think it pwobable the Infantwy will accompany us to Sebastopol?" so it seems to have been around for a while among some people at least.

But this assumes you're talking about "it", as a single thing.

Instead, I think the r/w confusion being mocked in Punch is the uvular approximant that used to be found in upper-class speech.
This is distinct from the labiodental approximant that has always been found occasionally but that became a widespread feature of Estuary sometime after 1950.

My understanding is that the Estuary feature (as seen in, for example, Wossy) has encouraged the legitimation of the sporadic feature in other dialects - in particular, it has become widespread (but still sporadic) in SSBE, including upper-middle forms of SSBE. Estuary and SSBE are of course adjacent. Finlay's study suggests that the same thing occured NORTH of Estuary, with the feature spreading into East Anglia.

I don't know what happened to the uvular approximant, except that it's died out. I suspect, however, that either it, or the rememberence of it, have eased the spread of the labiodental approximant into higher-class forms of SSBE.

Meanwhile, the labiodental also arose in Geordie - I think independently, but you never know - but didn't have as much influence as the Estuary version.

And now, apparently, the influence of Estuary and/or Geordie is encouraging the spread of the feature in other urban dialects.

---

So as to class, it depends. Uvular approximant = definitely upper class. Labiodental approximant = probably lower class when associated with Estuary features, but can also be upper class when associated with upper-SSBE features (I suspect you don't find it much in middle-SSBE). And can always be found randomly wherever you go as a speech impediment.



[To clarify: SSBE is a sociological and geographical continuum between evolved forms of RP (and Oxford English at the top end) and forms influenced by Estuary, with occasional influence from Southern Rural]

[Astraios]

Instead, I think the r/w confusion being mocked in Punch is the uvular approximant that used to be found in upper-class speech.

Not used to, it's still there. There's a woman who used to come to my high school occasionally and she has that.

[Salmoneus]

Instead, I think the r/w confusion being mocked in Punch is the uvular approximant that used to be found in upper-class speech.

Not used to, it's still there. There's a woman who used to come to my high school occasionally and she has that.

Interesting! It's very rare, though, surely. [And not to be confused with the entirely different uvular rhotics that occur(ed) Oop Narth]

On the punch cartoon: it may be worth noting that at least for me, words like "infantry" DON'T have labiodental R, because it becomes alveolar after alveolars, whereas the uvular R doesn't. Of course, it could just be an exaggeration.

[Arzena]

My friend Jared doesn't have this distinction (influence of both a speech impediment and growing up New England English), most notably in his pronunciation of his name: [dʒɛːʔɪd].

[Bob Johnson]

My friend Jared doesn't have this distinction (influence of both a speech impediment and growing up New England English), most notably in his pronunciation of his name: [dʒɛːʔɪd].

"Oh, a Londoner named Jetted"

[Whimemsz]

As far as I know it was historically associated with the upper classes (but I could be wrong). It's present in some old recordings of RP-speakers (the only example I can think of though is George VI, who is obviously a less-than-perfect example). It's also caricatured in a Punch cartoon from the 1850s: "I say, Old Fellah!--Do you think it pwobable the Infantwy will accompany us to Sebastopol?" so it seems to have been around for a while among some people at least.

But this assumes you're talking about "it", as a single thing.

Interesting! Thanks.

Man, I didn't even know about the uvular "r" thing. But that could actually be what I was thinking of from old recordings. Is/was the uvular pronunciation generally labialized as well?

Actually now that I think of it, for those English speakers who have an approximant realization of /r/, is labialization universal? Certainly I (and most Americans that I know of when I'm paying attention) have an /r/ that's labialized (and pharyngealized for me as well although I dunno maybe it's better to call it RTR and have that cover both pharyngealization and the bunching/retraction of the tongue body).

[Salmoneus]

As far as I know it was historically associated with the upper classes (but I could be wrong). It's present in some old recordings of RP-speakers (the only example I can think of though is George VI, who is obviously a less-than-perfect example). It's also caricatured in a Punch cartoon from the 1850s: "I say, Old Fellah!--Do you think it pwobable the Infantwy will accompany us to Sebastopol?" so it seems to have been around for a while among some people at least.

But this assumes you're talking about "it", as a single thing.

Interesting! Thanks.

Man, I didn't even know about the uvular "r" thing. But that could actually be what I was thinking of from old recordings. Is/was the uvular pronunciation generally labialized as well?

I don't know. I suspect not, but I also suspect that in that dialect /w/ wasn't very labialised either - because many English dialects tend not to be keen on labialisation. [Eg fronting/delabialisation of /oU/ to /@U/, fronting/delabialisation of /V/; and IMIAL the labialisation between /Q/ or /O/and /A/, or even /u/ and /i/ is minimal (no, I don't know how I DO distinguish them, because to me these vowels SOUND rounded - I just don't round my lips). I think I only REALLY round the second part of the /{U/ diphthong, and /U/ itself, and sometimes /u/.]
[/quote]
Actually now that I think of it, for those English speakers who have an approximant realization of /r/, is labialization universal? Certainly I (and most Americans that I know of when I'm paying attention) have an /r/ that's labialized (and pharyngealized for me as well although I dunno maybe it's better to call it RTR and have that cover both pharyngealization and the bunching/retraction of the tongue body).[/quote]
[/quote]
So far as I know, no, my /r/ isn't labialised. I mean, it's hard to tell exactly, because it's labiodental - the bottom lip tenses, and the top lip has to tense as well to get out of the way (and I think technically it might be bilabiodental - I think the top lip still plays some role in the sound production, though I'm not sure), so I don't know, may this produces enough 'rounding' to count. But I don't think so.

I've heard some people talk about labiodental R being pharyngealised for some people, but I can't comment. I can't ever really detect any dorsal movement in my phonology short of a stop or fricative.

[Torco]

Well the guy who's reading the audiobook I'm listening to certainly sounds british, and, on second thought, he merges the two mostly in initial position, so it makes sense I never know if he's saying "rest" or "wrest" or "waste" xD

british people's accent is weird: the glottal stop also confuses me sometimes. sounds epic, tho.

[finlay]

Well the guy who's reading the audiobook I'm listening to certainly sounds british, and, on second thought, he merges the two mostly in initial position, so it makes sense I never know if he's saying "rest" or "wrest" or "waste" xD

The first two are homophones (and the second is a ridiculously uncommon word), while the second one has a completely different vowel, so you shouldn't be mixing them up.

[Torco]

Well the guy who's reading the audiobook I'm listening to certainly sounds british, and, on second thought, he merges the two mostly in initial position, so it makes sense I never know if he's saying "rest" or "wrest" or "waste" xD

The first two are homophones (and the second is a ridiculously uncommon word), while the second one has a completely different vowel, so you shouldn't be mixing them up.

hey, I'm lucky if I can hear the O/o distinction. let alone the five or something different a-like vowels you guys have. Also, just this morning I had to pause and rewind to see if the guy had said weed or reed... it didn't make much narrative difference, but steed.