The History of the 'R' Sound in English

Part two of the conversation with Dr Geoff Lindsey, on his channel: • A conversation with Si...
His video which goes into more detail about 'linking R': • Why these English phon...
Alex Foreman's blog post which includes a lot of detail about /r/: blogicarian.blogspot.com/2018/...
His KZbin channel: / @a.z.foreman74
1979 New York street interviews: • 1979 Wall Street Worke...
The Orton Dialect Survey on the British Library website: sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dial...
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This channel's Patreon (thank you to anybody kind enough to donate): / simonroper

[@esterhammerfic]

Me, watching with headphones on a train: 🗣️🤳 "R...r... rr... rr...."

[@bixylim]

I'm a Mandarin speaker. I found an interesting feature of the English "r" sound a couple of years after I started learning English. Both Mandarin and major English dialects have a similar pronunciation of "r". However, the English "r" seems to always come with a rounded-lip feature, or pronounce like "wr", but textbooks and dictionaries of English never show the /w/ sound in the IPA of words, and some even tell us the letter "w" in the combination "wr" is silent. Being a beginner, I stuck to IPA very much, believing it represented the real pronunciation, until I incidentally got to compare the pronunciation of Mandarin "rou" (meaning "meat") and English "roe" (or "row"). I found that my lips didn't have much movement for "rou" but had an expanding movement for "roe". Then I suddenly realized why some American-born Chinese singers sounded so unnatural when they said Mandarin words beginning with "r". They just simply took the English way of pronouncing it. They said "rou", "ren" (meaning "human"), and "ranhou" (meaning "then") like "rwou", "rwen", and "rwanhou". So the truth is, it's not that the "w" preceding "r" is silent, but all "r"s except those following "w" omit the letter "w" that represents a lip-rounding feature. The English "roe" is actually the Mandarin word "rou" superposed with the English word "woe" if ignoring the slight difference between Mandarin's /ɻ/ and English's /ɹ/ and between the vowels. I know there was probably a sharp distinction between "r" and "wr" when "r" was still a flap or a thrill, but today it's apparently "r" that gets assimilated to "wr" rather than the opposite. I hope teachers and textbooks of English can stop telling English learners that the "w" in "wr" is silent but instead that the English "r" has an invisible lip-rounding feature, if they would like their students to have a pronunciation that sounds natural to native English speakers.

[@Prismaticist]

The Mandarin "r" is also quite idiosyncratic in that in more Northern areas, it's often pronounced much more akin to the French soft "j" as in "Jacques".

[@a_diamond]

I love how people are comparing the pronunciations with that of their native languages!! I find it amazing to see not just the differences but also very much the similarities in languages that are otherwise so very different.. Thank you for sharing 😊❤️

[@DaReconquistador]

@@Prismaticist I would say it is similar to Czech voiced ř

[@pannekook2000]

@@DaReconquistador I have heard that r-háček type pronunciation in taiwanese mandarin, that’s how I learned to say it

[@DaReconquistador]

@@pannekook2000 are you Czech native speaker?

[@neilog747]

Seriously, you should narrate bedtimes stories to children. I can't believe listening to KZbinrs about linguistics can be this calming.

[@pabloalvez915]

Simon Roper is our Linguist Hobbit, a true treasure. Even the rural environment is top notch. Keep them coming. Congratulations for the great job you are doing. Cheers 👍💐🙏🌹

[@diogofelss]

Fun fact: this change from tap R to approximant alveolar R is happening right now in some brazilian portuguese dialects, specially when R is in coda position.

[@modalmixture]

As I understand it, this is typical of the paulistano and caipira dialects, yes? Wouldn’t the r in coda position be more of a [h] or [x] rather than a tap in most dialects?

[@hadhamalnam]

I've heard that the alveolar R occurs in Paraguayan Spanish as well, is it possible that this is a vestige of indigenous languages in the region?

[@robertgooding6925]

This is happening in Costa Rican Spanish as well. It's fascinating

[@UnshavenStatue]

could it be english influence or not?

[@davissae]

I’m assuming in São Paulo? Not in Rio or Minas. What about Parana or SC?

[@charlesvanderhoog7056]

This morning I was extremely down and under immense stress. The wonderfully relaxing sound of Simon Roper's voice brought me relief. There is something magical about his videos, metaphysical qualities, for certain. I love it and am a big fan. Apart from that I find a lot of his videos interesting as a Dutch student of real English.

[@fumpings]

I'd listen to audiobooks read by him

[@melissamybubbles6139]

I was laying down after an asthma event. I saw that Simon's video was up and immediately clicked. Like you, I'm glad for his calming voice.

[@TheSoulBlossom]

Real English? Here we go again!

[@MissMentats]

I’m sorry you felt that way, I am happy that you found relief. I hope you find long term solutions to preventing such dire situations

[@Markle2k]

@@TheSoulBlossom As an American, I took that to mean that spoken by native English speakers rather than school ESL English.

[@jackdubz4247]

As a Scot, I must admit that I love the sound of letter "R".

[@ralphmanders3699]

Knowing Frisian, it's always fun to see these evolutions, as many of the things you state here for Old English still are true for modern Frisian (outside of the cities that were more heavily influenced by Dutch). Also the northeastern part of Frisia has had an influx of Prussian workers 150 years ago, so there they are somewhere in between Germanic and Frisian for pronunciation of some words, which make the nuances in sounds even more recognisable (including the R).

[@tomrogue13]

Wear Frisian is on my list to learn

[@Ggdivhjkjl]

Would you be able to translate a short story into Frisian at all please?

[@MrEnaric]

@@Ggdivhjkjl 'Kinsto ek in koart ferhaaltsje oersette yn it Frysk asjeblieft?'

[@a_diamond]

HEY! Another Friesian!! Hoi!! Yeah, all that is true.. There also seems to be a Danish influence in Friesian as well though.. A lot of regular Dutch folks won't understand much from people living in the provinces roughly above the Rhine when they speak the local languages (Groningen, Friesland, Drenthe).. Some of that goes back to the Romans.. the Rhine was one of the borders of the Roman Empire for a long time.. 😊❤️

[@a_diamond]

@@MrEnaric lmao, I don't think *that* was what they meant for you to translate but well done 😊❤️

[@Rachel-rs7jn]

Fun fact: some northeastern American accents include the linking "r" and even add it to the ends of words when there isn't even a link. For example "vaniller ice cream" and "idear" (for "idea").

[@pacificatoris9307]

Had a friend from poland, who would say "idear" Thought that this was something from Europe, but later on, heard lots of the academic types in NE say it like that.

[@Ma1nspr1ng]

drawring

[@MaoRatto]

@@Ma1nspr1ng Weirdly, if I do accidentally shove dark l's, but l's often switch into tapped r's. TR hasn't merged with CHR at all, SH gets shoved further in the mouth in certain positions. TCH/CH often. Drawling and drawing get confused due to that. Probably due to all vowels are getting deeper in the mouth, so vowel distinction is used more to compensate. T's often drop like flies. Hiatus can easily lose the t without much difference, knowing it was there to begin with.

[@edmilner]

Totally unrelated to linguistics but the plant outside your kitchen window is called Green Alkanet(Pentaglottis sempervirens).

[@phonaesthem]

Rhotics are so fascinating, there's something so distinctive about them in most languages and yet looking at their cross-linguistic variability, one really struggles to identify one unifying feature. Thanks for the deep dive into this topic, and all the beautiful footage you interspersed it with.

[@skyworm8006]

I don't think so. Probably just transcription. The letters. Writing system has a huge influence. I'm not convinced the idea of 'phonemes' is all that distinct from the alphabet. A common 'rhotic' consonant, [ɾ], is also taken as /d/ for all the native Englishspeakers who produce it as an allophone of /t, d/ intervocalically (which is most of them). /d/ is the phoneme and letter they would hear and write it as.

[@mistyminnie5922]

@@skyworm8006 "I'm not convinced the idea of 'phonemes' is all that distinct from the alphabet." What do you mean by this? The way you worded it I'd disagree heavily, but I could have misunderstood.

[@francisdec1615]

This is a bit exaggerated, as Brita Borg was from Stockholm, but in my part of Sweden (the northern part of the west coast) this pronunciation is natural to many people: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eHjCmZuVm550hMk

[@siarhian10]

Wales has this funny thing where we have southern-english style non-rhotic accents, scottish-style rhotic accents (particularly by Welsh speakers) and non-rhotic accents with a flapped pronunciation at the same time. In my experience, these are completely random in distribution, as I've heard all three just in my county, which is overwhelmingly English-Speaking, and I've heard all three up in a majority Welsh-speaking area in Gwynedd too

[@davidbeddoe6670]

The Welsh sound like Swiss-Italians who are trying to sound Scottish.

[@a_diamond]

Can we take a moment to appreciate the wholesome comment section of this man's videos? Awesome to see 😊❤️

[@DSteinman]

I'm a choral singer in the US and very early on we're taught to avoid American rhotic R's when singing classical tradition English music. They sound incorrect for the tradition and cause difficulties with classical singing technique which tries to keep clean transitions between consonants and vowels

[@nostalgiatrip7331]

Same here. American choir singer, its funny because americans sound british when they sing in choirs, but most British artists who do solo songs choose to sound American

[@DSteinman]

@@nostalgiatrip7331 the only times we were allowed American R's was for music in the American musical theater tradition - which certainly would have sounded weird sung without them!

[@jared_bowden]

In country music the singers like to put a lot of emphasis on that rhotic r, once you notice it it really stands out. Irish folk music also does it a lot, too. I've always wanted to hear a choir that sings a classic piece with full weight on the r, just cause.

[@DSteinman]

@@jared_bowden love the Ray Charles example in the video too. Never noticed Georgians dropped Rs but now that I think of "Geo'gia on my mind," of course they do!

[@neilog747]

@@nostalgiatrip7331 Thats cool. I've noticed how much more relaxed American English sounds than British English. Its just great for singing in, as it gives a smoother flow. On the other hand, when listening to angsty, English Punk and New Wave recently, the harder consonants of British English increased the sense of jarring emotions that the song was expressing.

[@91msJill]

As someone with a rhotic dialect, I think intrusive R is a super interesting feature. Before having any education in linguistics, I found it pretty odd that in that Billy Joel song, he says "Brenda(r) and Eddie". It really stood out as an odd pronunciation to me. I love the in depth explanations from this channel for the little things we don't think about all that often.

[@benw9949]

@@AAA-fh5kd I've heard "warsh" for standard "wash" /ah/ from (mostly rural) American speakers. Adding the -R at the end of words with a vowel (tomater and tobacker) and things like "schoolmarm" with the R intruding, seem to be a form of hypercorrecting from older generations from pioneer-era speech, where people who were not so literate might read or write with that R added to try to mimic the R-dropping Northern / Eastern American speech (educated) or British speech (also seen as educated, except that those American pioneer settlers tended to keep the R in their own dialect, so they pronounced it or added it in between, even when it didn't belong, or when an AH or prolonged AA would be done (R-colored) in a British R.P. or American New Englander / Yankee pronunciation. -- However, that "linking" R (liaison) added between vowels between words, like "Brenda-R-and-Eric" seems to be a feature mostly for some New England accents (dialects), possibly more old-fashioned now. I've heard Norrtheasterners do it without knowing they do it, while Southerners and Southwesterneres hear it and think it's laughable and non-standard. (For example, a substitute teacher when I was in school got laughed at by half the class because she habitually added the R between words with vowels., and our part of the country doesn't do that. She didn't even know she was doing it, completely unaware. Finally, some other students pointed it out; they had been from New England.)

[@Rachel-rs7jn]

Yes, my first job was at an ice cream shop and there were some people that would ask for "vaniller ice cream". At that time I didn't realize some British accents did it too.

[@Rachel-rs7jn]

@@AAA-fh5kd My high school English teacher said "idear". That was over 20 years ago though.

[@KathrynBowden]

@@AAA-fh5kd interesting... my grandmother had intrusive r (warsh) and her great-grands were Scots-Irish who migrated to Canada

[@aimee-made]

@@benw9949 It's a known thing that Mainers often pronounce our state capital as Auguster (it's Augusta), but drop the R's at the end of most every word that actually ends in R.

[@hvermout4248]

Interesting to see how the Scottish dialect has preserved more of the pronounciation of old "Anglo-Saxon". Including the "thrilling R". In my youth (the '60s) in the Netherlands the thrilling R was considered the "proper pronounciation". Children that pronounced the R in a different way were sent to the logopedist. But we don't do that anymore nowadays ...

[@flyingduck91]

kinda like how some english dialects have a labiodetal approximant for a rhotic while in other areas this iz considered wrong

[@teamcrumb]

hello Simon, thank you again for your amazing work. I hope you are being supported in some way to free up your time to make these videos. What a thing to be so knowledgable and so generous with your knowledge. I find it so exciting you aren't just following the trail of so many other intellectuals, you are cutting your own groove and my god is it appreciated! Keep up the amazing work, best wishes, B

[@ravenlord4]

I remember the first joke that I learned as a child: Question- What's a pirate's favorite letter? Answer- Aaarrrrrrr!

[@josephatthecoop]

Nay! A pirate’s first love will always be the C [sea].

[@maiaallman4635]

That's so cute!

[@anders630]

Was about to post that pirate speech is clearly proper english :D

[@grievousangelic]

Fascinating! As a Southern American, I speak a rhotic dialect, with occasional non-rhotic drop-ins. (The non-rhotic Southern dialect is more common in older people and those living about 200 miles south of me.) The really interesting part about that is the rhotic comes back in when you get to the Gulf Coast. My accent is similar to singer Jimmy Buffet, who grew up in Mobile and Fairhope, AL, both coastal cities. Dialects and the history of English fascinate me, and you always have something interesting to discuss in your videos. I always learn something new. Thank you!

[@maiaallman4635]

I met some elderly ladies in the far western tip of Austria, who used the trilled r exactly the same as we do in Afrikaans, and not at all like r taught in schools when learning Hochdeutsch.

[@thurianwanderer]

Nowadays the High German (= 1. High German dialect continuum / 2. Standard German) uvular approximant ​[⁠ʁ⁠]​ is usually regarded to be the common German standard, the dialectal landscape on the other hand tells another story. The elderly ladies might have been from Vorarlberg, speaking a Low Alemannic variety, or western Tyrole (Lechtaler Alpen, Ausserfern) bordering the Swabian Allgäu. Covering the whole German area (incl. Low German) would go too far now, but the alveolar [r] phonemes were pretty much more common a century ago, throughout the High and Low German areas. Take the Upper German group, for example: For Bavarian (Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Upper Palantine and the majority of Austrian regions), the alveolar [r] is the common type (ignoring urban areas like Munich and Vienna). An interesting historical exception is found in the South Bavarian area (Southern and Eastern Tyrole, Carinthia and the isolated and still heavily archaic sounding settlements in Trentino [Valle del Fersina, even the Cimbrians of Luserna]), there the approximant has been dominant since the first linguistic observation in the 19th century. As for the alveolar, it is widely featured within the Alemannic group as well, like High Alemannic (Switzerland) and once the major eastern half of the Swabian area (to the east Bavarian Swabia, to the west the Upper Swabian region and part. West-Allgäu in Baden-Württemberg), today the use of the tongue's tip decreased rapidly in Baden-Württemberg. The westernmost Swabian parts along with the Low Alemannic cousin (the Upper Rhine: Baden, Alsace, Switzerland: Basel) might have been already characterized by an uvular type earlier in time. It's important to point out, besides the juxtaposition of both r types, in some areas and especially among people living in bigger cities, grown up with a kind of intermediate local variety (regiolect), less dialectal in lexical terms, phonetically still - by some more, by some less - strongly influenced by the respective local dialect. Occasionally, you can hear the use of both r sounds altogether with vocalized r's before consonants and in final positions. Although - sadly - I didn't grow up with a strong dialect, I speak the alveolar tap also intervocalic and before consonants, sometimes fully at the words final. I already had it from the start, yet, intentionally I increased it since my youth, I just prefer it, because the alveolar r creates a beautiful melody, especially when I read Standard German aloud (poetic language) and never ever would I dare to read Old High German samples with the uvular r for example. I have to admit, though. that the way I produce my r's in casual speech is inconsistent, I also tend to vocalize r's before consonants or at word finals, and even exchange the alveolar with the approximant automatically, not often, but it happens sometimes.

[@kathleenking47]

What is the difference between afrikaans and dutch

[@DeHeld8]

Fun fact: in Dutch, the trilled "R" is considered the common everyday variant, while the fricative version is considered the posh variant.

[@Thomas.c4647]

I feel like the fricatives are more common nowadays, especially on TV also. I also feel like the trilled R is usually a tongue tap R for younger people. I only ever hear a really hear a real rolling R when to speaking to very old people or foreigners.

[@DeHeld8]

@@Thomas.c4647 Dude, your profile pic is cringe AF. Nationalisme is kanker.

[@Thomas.c4647]

@@DeHeld8 niks mis mee. Jij mag van mij best een communist zijn hoor.

[@DeHeld8]

​@@Thomas.c4647 Nationalisme is een ideologie gebaseerd op de mythe van de natie-staat. Ze dient enkel om de kapitalistische status-quo te bestendigen door de arbeidersklasse langs arbitraire lijnen te verdelen. Of erger, ze is de basis voor reactionaire ideologiën die de maatschappelijke verhoudingen wil terugwerpen naar sterk hierarchische en feodale verhoudingen. Ze leid tot niets anders dan de exclusie en discriminatie van minderheden en inter-imperialistische conflicten. Enkel de elites gedijen bij nationalisme. En een ieder die denkt de "globalistische elites" te kunnen bestrijden middels nationalisme heeft zich laten bedonderen door de locale bourgeoisie en kleinburgerij. Kortom, alles is mis met nationalisme. Er rest ons dus niets dan de ideën van het nationalisme met vastberaden felheid te bestrijden als we een wereld willen creëren vrij van uitbuiting, discriminatie en onderdrukking.

[@Thomas.c4647]

@@DeHeld8 ik was hier niet gekomen voor een politieke discussie, maar nu je toch bezig bent... Het is niet vaak dat ik een communist tegenkom, zie je. Je spreekt van een globalistische elite in je betoog. Bestaat deze globalistische elite volgens jou en zo ja wat vind jij van deze ontwikkeling? Hierna stel ik voor dat wij verder gaan met onze gang van zaken.

[@johnweiner]

A very interesting discussion about the sound of "r" in the multitudinous variants of English. I'm an American English speaker, born in New York City, raised in Philadelphia, with parents that came from Boston; so I grew up with these different accents. A Bostonian would never be mistaken for a New Yorker and the Philadelphia accent is different from both Boston and New York. There are those that claim a Long Island accent is different and distinguishable from that of Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx, but I doubt it. I never could really make those distinctions. However, there is a kind of "r" and "a" and their combination in words like "barn" and "farm" from the "down East" regions of Maine and northern New Hampshire which to my ear is quite distinct from the Boston accents of my parents. This northern, rural New England accent (some would call it a "Yankee" accent) might be related to early variants of English from England, but I would like to know your thoughts about it.

[@jangelbrich7056]

German here. Finally someone who manages to explain all these details. Obviously it takes a linguist to do this. The "English/American R" has always been the most difficult sound for me to make. Eventually I of course learnt that as well but I never met a language teacher who could explain this at all. He/She would give examples and we try to imitate ... the hard way.

[@MaoRatto]

It's a little above your R in German, but not trilled as it's an approximate. Try rounding your lips like making a W, as it's a combination almost like RW, with more of the R in the back, but not deepened like Höchdeutsch

[@user-td4do3op2d]

I haven’t watched the video yet but I’m looking forward to hearing about the Northumbrian Burr

[@jtsiomb]

I've been fascinated by the various 'r' sounds of british english ever since I came to the UK for post-graduate studies some time ago (unrelated, computer science). I'm a non-native english speaker (greek) and my main exposure to english pronunciation before I visited the island, was from predominantly american films and video games. What I found most fascinating, was the very pronounced linking-r one of my professors there used, which I had never encountered before, and sounded very strange to me initially. Very interesting to see this thorough analysis of how 'r' sounds evolved.

[@j.b.4340]

I find it fascinating that you’ve put so much thought into the letter “R”. This was very interesting, Simon.

[@purplealice]

When I was in college, I took a course in the American Phonetic Alphabet. The teacher had us listen to a recorded spoken passage and transcripe it in IPA. This was in New YOrk, and everybody transcribed all the R sounds wrong (we're part of the r-lesss community, dropping Rs all over the place). At the end of the semester, I took a box of alphabet macaroni for soup and picked out all the Rs and put them in a baggie - "just cleaning up all the Rs that got dropped here"

[@midtskogen]

Simon, there's yet another pronunciation of "R", I think. I spent a couple of summers in Dublin and noticed that some speakers pronounced R as a retroflex tap [ɽ] before vowels. I'm pretty sure it's a retroflex tap, since I have that sound in my native dialect of Norwegian (where it's a realisation of L in some positions and Old Norse RÐ).

[@eliasbragin746]

Would you please write us an example?

[@midtskogen]

​@@eliasbragin746 Well, I remember street salespeople shouting "sigarettes", and I definitely heard that "R" as a retroflex tap.

[@Tommat194]

I would be fascinated if you could find some sort of example, maybe a recording, of what you're talking about. As an Irishman (albeit not from Dublin) I can't say that I have ever heard this realisation of the R phoneme to my knowledge, and I'm having trouble even imagining it. Though I would hesitate to tell you that your ears lied to you!

[@eliasbragin746]

@@Tommat194 , it is also possible that he happened to hear a person with pronunciation defects or from another locality. No one is protected from a strange case after all.

[@g0bletcell]

I don't know what a retroflex tap is but do you mean for example in the word 'rabbit' the tongue is curled back on itself, combined with the jaw being pulled back towards the throat? If so, I know what ya mean, lad.

[@berntlie6799]

I've read that the "throat R" arrived to Copenhagen ca 1780, and to Southern Norway ca 1800. One of my ancestors, born ca 1805 some 40 km into the land was the last person in that municipality sticking to the traditional "rolling R" [some people appear to manage to roll the "throat R", e.g., Edith Piaf in "No, je ne regret rien", and Roy Orbison in some of his "growls"]. Norway also has a "thick L" which kind of overlaps with R, e.g., the word "gård" is pronounced almost like "gå:L". ["gård" = farm, or (back) yard. I assume this word ("gård") is related to "gjerde" (= fence), and to guard, garden, yard, as well as to Slavic city names with the word "gorod"; the vikings referred to Constantinopel as "Miklagard", the big "city".]

[@hanifleylabi8071]

You're right the Northumbrian burr is rare now. When I was at school about 22 years ago our caretaker used it and he was about 50. When I worked at Northumberland County Council about a decade later, you'd generally hear it I'm a few people all over 60. When Raoul Moat was hiding out in the town of Rothbury I remember the news interviews a local and he said the word Rothbury using the burr which was nice to hear. Though I do think in another 20 years it will disappear altogether.

[@JimmyChappie1]

Thanks for another super interesting video, Simon. I always remember my (late) elderly neighbour who was from Alnwick and who had the wonderful Northumbrian burr as part of his speech. It was so distinctive. I’d never heard it before and have never heard it again, and I live in the north east.

[@chuck1804]

Not only is this a fascinating subject, compellingly explained, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the aesthetic of these videos. The (de)colouring, the period appropriate b-roll, the ambient bird song, the gentle vocal delivery - all complement the historical context and the subject matter perfectly. This is an exquisitely packaged art piece, as well as an interesting lecture. Bravo!

[@mwflanagan1]

You ‘splain things really well. Always enjoy your content, and look forward to the next. Thank you, Simon.

[@alisonjane7068]

you're not the only one who's into the "r" phoneme. this made my day, truly.

[@jctmanu]

Why would I skip forward and miss that fascinating information? 😄Your videos are always educational and usually make me amazed at all I have left to learn.

[@CourtneySchwartz]

Everything I’ve wondered about “R” sounds, plus some. Fantastic! Thank you!

[@pigeonhouse8261]

This is absolutely fascinating! Thanks for researching it all and making the video. I sometimes wonder how all the variants of the /r/ sound can possibly be allophones, but this video explains how they are actually closer to one another than I realised.

[@g0bletcell]

I feckin love this channel. Was anticipating some comment on Irish dialects, more to explore there, i reckon. Thanks for another brilliant video!

[@joshhoward3347]

Always finds these videos so interesting thanks for taking the time to do this stuff 👍

[@keithklassen5320]

I never ever in a thousand years expected to hear Limmy's voice in these hallowed halls. My surprise is only exceeded by my approval.

[@thunderwazp7653]

14:45 I just thought I’d chime in and add that this is roughly how the r-sound behaves in my native dialect of a Swedish. It’s generally a trill /r/ or tap /ɾ/ in a syllable oneset and an approximant /ɹ/ or voiced fricative /ӡ/ in a syllable coda. Coda-r is often elided completely at the ends of words but trigger r-sandhi if the following word starts with an alveolar consonant turning said consonant into its correspond retroflex equivalent.

[@Krystaliine]

Loved this! I’m fascinated by R, too, so this video was a pleasant surprise. Thank you, Simon!

[@zooblestyx]

11:10 No idea if this is related, but I was keenly reminded of a similar peculiarity in Swedish pronunciation. In a lot of Swedish dialects, whenever "r" is followed by "s", the "r" does disappear, but also sort of melds with the "s" into a (Eng sp) "sh" sound. Even in cases where one word ends in "r" and the next begins with "s", which can be really confusing to learners. Similarly, when "r" is followed by "d" or "t", it modifies their pronunciation by folding the tip of the tongue back. Seems a lot of languages, not only Germanic ones, have a restless and indecisive relationship to the letter "r". ^_^ Hope that was interesting to someone.

[@Julia-br5tq]

Thank you for making this wonderful video and for also delving into the evolution of the R sound in German! 😊 Learnt so much today. I live in Bavaria and everybody around here trills their Rs, including myself.

[@riley02192012]

I have two different variations of Violets that grow in my yard. I'm very careful not to mow it down, so it's spreading in my yard. I just love it. I also have some Bugleweed growing. It's considered an invasive plant by some because it's not native to this region (I live in Connecticut), but it attracts hummingbirds, song birds, bees, and butterflies, so I am leaving it. I think it's so pretty. St. John's Wort also grows in my yard. There's also some Japanese Quince and Chinese Boxthorn. I love walking around my yard, looking at all the plants and trees. I'm currently clearing an area in my backyard where I am going to have a Butterfly Garden. It's so nice to have warmer, sunnier days. I hope you're seeing warmer sunnier days too. I love hearing different dialects. I find it so interesting. I pronounce "sawing" differently than you. The second way you pronounced it was similar to how I pronounce it. You did a great job with this video. It was well researched and well presented. 😊❤

[@mishkobozhinoski6465]

Absolutely wonderful video. There is no end to how much we can learn from just looking at this one sound. The original uvular R hypothesis is certainly interesting, but it still fails to describe certain other historical changes and modern synchronic shifts. One important one is the shift from PG /z/ to /r/ in most modern Germanic languages (albeit many of those subsequently lost it) and the alternations that also arise from that: see: is vs are, was vs were, also Dutch vriezen vs vroor. The Proto-Germanic r having been uvularized or otherwise dorsalized is certainly possible, however, and seems like a very attractive hypothesis. After all, we observe the pattern you mention in Old English that suggests strongly that at least some r sounds were laryngealized in some way. Modern American English seems to also have the propensity to laryngealize their r's. We also observe similar r sounds in modern Dutch, particularly in alveolar-r users of Brabantian who from my experience (thus purely anecdotally) use some kind of dorsalized alveolar trill in all positions. An original dorsalized r would further explain its propensity to turn uvular or approximate in so many Germanic languages (as opposed to Slavic or Romance languages, whose r's are consistently alveolar with the exception of languages who have been in prolonged and close contact with Germanic languages, such as French and Sorbian).

[@garmr214]

Then why did old Germanic texts exclusively use if they used an uvular pronunciation?

[@mishkobozhinoski6465]

I claim exactly the opposite: that it was not uvular but laryngealized (for example some kind of uvularized or velarized alveolar r)

[@ksbrook1430]

Fascinating! I appreciate your ability to articulate the various sounds in addition to describing their formation. Even more, your ability to utilize the linguistic tools while explaining the sound changes to a layman is commendable and effective.

[@iswhat1]

Fascinating, as always. Love your videos

[@_volder]

Being a native user of the alveolar approximant version from the middle of the USA, I struggled for a long time with why it would be called that. I could easily tell that there was a significant difference between the tongue positions of R and other "alveolar" sounds (N, T, D, S, Z), but couldn't define what that difference was. If I kept my tongue the same way it is for the other alveolars and pronounced an approximant, the sound I got seemed more like a Y than an R. I thought for a while that it's retroflex, but that ran me into trouble when I discovered a complete distinct set of IPA symbols for retroflexes, including an approximant, and started listening to languages that use them; their R is close to mine but still different. I finally ended up having to do it with my mouth open in front of a mirror to figure it out: the tongue is indeed curved/curled upward, but not at the tip; it's done at the sides! And other people around me sound like me, so I can only presume, without going around asking people to demonstrate for me with their mouths open, that this is also how others produce an alveolar R. That would also explain why Rs and laterals (the "L" family of sounds) can often seem so close to each other.

[@cathjj840]

R/L - tell it to the Japanese!

[@ivans.1501]

This video is truly amazing! I'm not an English speaker, but I adore the English language. And the languages in general. I come from a Slavic language background. More specifically Russian & Ukrainian as my first languages. I developed a love for the English language and Germanic languages in general. So watching your video was very educational and inspiring to me. Even though, quite a bit of what was said probably flew over my head, because I, as a person who got educated in different fields, obviously lack the knowledge of linguistic terms and vocabulary.

[@artugert]

What do you mean, “I’m not an English speaker”? You are speaking English! Lol

[@TheBlimpFruit]

I find myself talking about "r" with people all the time. I think it's one of the easiest ways of telling roughly where people are from. Also, very please about the Limmy references and sneaking in Jackson's iconic intro. Thanks for this video Simon! Such an interesting subject

[@misterjib]

when i started working in Bristol a colleague asked to borrow a carrcalayer. after asking them to repeat their request and several moments of bewilderment, i eventually realised they were looking to perform mathematics with my electronic counting device

[@RonFer1945]

I recall that in the 1950s a schoolfriend of mine introduced me to his grandmother who was from Northumberland. I found her speech quite difficult to understand and her pronunciation of my name, Ron Ferris, was really distinctive with uvular Rs. I am from southeast England. Very interesting video.

[@gtc239]

Oh that's some cool Northumbrian burr right there!

[@cheyennepetersen3417]

this is a very helpful video on something i've been trying to answer for a while now, thank you!

[@lad7534]

Hey Simon is very early, but I remember a video that you made about the oldest stories in the world. That was very interesting it would be nice if you make a new version or re-upload that one, telling us the oldest stories that you know

[@junihanna371]

i find it interesting, the area where i live speaks pretty standard american english. some people, like you do, add the r to words like sawing, drawing, washing. (i live in WaRshington state, if you ask my grandmother.) it is common in older people i know, and sometimes in kids, but kids are often corrected and told to drop the r

[@kategleason6481]

Best review of our loverly R ever. Thank you Simon.

[@rollinwithunclepete824]

Great Video, Simon! Not too long at all. Please keep up the good work, thank you.

[@specialforces4947]

Clear, comprehensive and convincing. Great work.

[@mattwillis3219]

Amazing subject, super interesting and incredibly well communicated. Beautiful work

[@fukpoeslaw3613]

Oh, the histo'y of the letta ah.

[@stnhndg]

Frankly I also find 'R' sond very interesting, though in my case it's about its realization in different languages rather than just in English. It's like everytime I learn about new language I find another way of pronouncing it. From Japanese R (or L since it's the same for natives) to throaty German, from liquid English to 'zh'-like Chinese.

[@lordvaderdarthsith]

When I was studying English literature at Uni, most of my friends based their accents on modern variations of the English language, yet, as a back-then great Star Wars fan, I was drawn towards Peter Cushing and his amazing tapping Rs. That elegance on the speech couldn't be resisted by an impressionable youngster, and many teachers were quite offended by the election of such a peculiar way to sound.

[@smuecke]

The pharyngealization of vowels preceding r that Limmy does is also a prominent feature of the Saxonian dialect of German!

[@oceantree5000]

Delighted for this one on one of my favorite sounds.

[@PaulWiele]

Here in New England, some speakers even attach intrusive Rs to words ending in the "ah" and "uh" sounds when they're *not* followed by another vowel.

[@b43xoit]

John Kennedy: "Cuber".

[@estellesilver8299]

Absolutely fascinating and very comprehensive, thank you 🙂

[@perrykealoha2511]

Mate. Wonderful. Very well done. Well researched, and well presented.

[@torrawel]

Finally someone who is taking the time to debunk the French influence theory! And then all the extras! Great work! Thanks! 😊

[@stevenmontoya9950]

Recently I have been binge watching the BBC's coverage of the general elections during the late fifties into 1979, and I'd like to point out that the prominent psephologist (his term for an elections analyst) Sir David Butler had a very prominent use of the labiodental approximant.

[@ajs41]

I'll have to look up what you mean because I don't know, but watching old election shows is one of my hobbies and I always noticed that David Butler exhibited unusual pronunciations of certain words and place names that even other people at the same time didn't use. For example he pronounced the place Southall in west London as "Suth-ell", in the same way that the racecourse in the Nottinghamshire town Southwell is still pronounced today, (although the other pronunciation is usually used when referring to the town by itself). Anyway, sorry to go off topic. That probably doesn't have anything to do with what you were talking about.

[@georgina3358]

@@ajs41 I pronounce Southwell in London as Suth-ell. I thought that was the right way to pronounce it. I'll have to ask a true Londoner how they pronounce it

[@flannerypedley840]

Doesn't "psephologist" just mean an election analyist? I don't know if other countries have famous psephologists but her in Australia Antony Green, is a national hero in some circles.

[@juanmsantiago]

When I listen to Simon, I think I can understand english because his accent is so clear, and It´s interesting how the "r" pronunciation defines as well the different ways of a dyalect, because the american and canadian "r" pronunciation is far known and very different of brittish or australian "r". As a permanent student of english, my preferences are always going to the UK accents.

[@Yashael341]

I've not reached the level as a linguist to have a favorite phoneme. But hearing you talk about yours was fascinating.

[@petrof62]

I really enjoy these! Thank you!

[@alextremodelnorte1905]

Very interesting video. I enjoyed watching it from beginning to end.

[@whatshappening708]

Im trying to make a conlang based on my particular dialect of English which is a blend of Appalachian and midland english, which occurs in a small group of counties in ohio. This video has been very helpful. Thank you

[@KathleenStidham]

I learn so much from your videos - still working on figuring out just what terms like "alveolar" mean, but I love how you present the various sounds, and hearing how they are mutated across time and space. :-)

[@529ski]

Really enjoyed this. Thanks for the video!

[@over7532]

Okay, my initial comment was a bit trite (though accurate). Having now watched about half of this video, I must say that this is an exceptionally good analysis of the subject matter. Well done! Damn well done.

[@kharris3352]

I BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE

[@bomaracev]

Wonderful video! Thanks for putting it together :)

[@shesmoonlight514]

I’m excited to watch this later! (P.S. I love that you’re growing your hair.)

[@PegEOisme]

Fascinating. I have always been interested in the 'r' and how it is pronounced around the English speaking countries. Thank you

[@lynthepenguin8400]

I'm Bristolian, so I REALLY like the "R" sound!

[@kernowforester811]

I am still in a rhotic speaking part of the country! We use a retroflex 'r', which was taken to the Americas. Cornwall.

[@louislorenzi-prince3842]

Thanks, Simon for this interesting video.

[@aliciagrau6430]

Very Interesting video.And very useful and educative.I am a native Spanish speaker and the “r” sound in english, is the most challenging sound for me.It surprises me , though, why native english speakers didn’t understand me when I was rolling my “r” when I first move to england if this is also a feature in many english dialects.

[@frugalhousewife9878]

I've always found it interesting when people add that R in where there is none. I had a British employer who would call me "Jessic-euhr" even when my name was not followed by any word. On the other hand, here in New England you do sometimes hear that R between two words, I suppose because it sounds less choppy than two vowels together. If you have heard of the writer/lecturer Ralph Waldo Emerson, when he married his second wife, Lydia Jackson, he asked her to change her first name to Lidian because otherwise people would have said "Lydier Emerson."

[@LordJazzly]

The 'Jessicker' thing can be because in at least some non-rhotic dialects of English, 'aa', 'ah' and 'ar' have all merged together into a single articulation. Which means that if you are taking a word from those dialects and trying to pronounce it with the 'r' sound articulated, it's - very dicey as to which articulation from the target dialect will end up being picked. I know people who have settled on not only 'Jessicker', but also 'Tabither', 'Dianner' and 'Rebeccker', because - they've been attempting to speak with a rhotic accent, but come from a non-rhotic background, and so they carry the merged sound with them into the target dialect and glue a whole lot of 'r' phonemes onto words that don't actually have them. So that employer might have been genuinely trying to pronounce your name properly - they just were failing to listen to the way you _actually_ pronounced it, and were instead relying on the way they _intuited_ it would be pronounced, based on their understanding of your dialect. Language is weird, sometimes.

[@fuckdefed]

Was this employer from the West Country? I don’t see how they could be from anywhere else in Britain with that pronunciation.

[@AkiraUema]

This is amazing! Great work!

[@LittleHorseVoice]

Please keep your editing style. It reduces stress. As if im sitting across a knowledgable relative, who is humoring me with their observations for the day.

[@raginbaby]

This is absolutely fascinating

[@danhanqvist4237]

I really like the final bits, without speech (though the talking is the main attraction, of course).

[@flannerypedley840]

I was just thinking about what I considered to be a syllable break in words like "soar" and "soaring" and why it seems to become "soa-ring". thanks Simon for the" linking r" discussion

[@a_diamond]

Also, you made a perfect Dutch "g" sound at 8:24 which people usually have a very hard time learning to make.. Edit: I will try to stop adding 101 comments, but you definitely have a new subscriber 😊

[@stevethomas5849]

Fascinating description of the "r" and how it's pronounced.

[@MichaelAndersxq28guy]

Honestly, there's never been a Simon Roper video that hasn't fascinated me.

[@paulguise698]

Hiya Simon, another great vlog, my niece Charlotte cant understand the woman on the pronunciation off Cumbrian 1400-2020, she thinks its another language, it had me in stitches, this is Choppy in Whitehaven, Cumbria, England

[@grahameaglesham2910]

Absolutely fascinating!

[@alpenjon]

Yes!!! Finally found out why the intrusive R exists! It was irritating the hell out of me! Love your content!

[@7MPhonemicEnglish]

I consider /ɹ/ to be a vowel. The Trilled R is actually a Trilled D which would be a rapid repitition of a consonant. 'word', 'dirt', 'hurt', & 'nerd' can all be phonetically spelled 'wrd', 'drt', 'hrt', & 'nrd'. The vowel can be modified by adding approximates but it's fundamentally just a vowel. We use the 'w' approximate to make the 'o' perform as a consonant in the word 'coordinate', but we aren't confused into believing that 'o' is a consonant. I use a simplified definition of a vowel. 1. Produced by vocal chords 2. Exits the mouth 3. Not combined with sounds produced by other mouth parts such as pops, clicks, hisses & whistles. 4. Can be sustained until you run out of breath. 5. Remains the same sound from beginning to end while sustained. The /ɹ/ meets all that criteria.

[@joeedh]

I found this video fascinating, I watched it all the way to the end. R was one of the sounds I had to fix in speech therapy when I was a teenager, and I've always struggled with it more than the others. For some reason when I make the. . . aveola?. . .pronunciation it *sounds* more similar to American speech than the more correct. . .the name escapes me, where the tongue is a bit further back.

[@otherperson]

You have successfully presented the case for it as an interesting phoneme 👍