Rhotacism [1] or rhotacization is a sound change that converts one consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant: pronounced as //z//, pronounced as //d//, pronounced as //l//, or pronounced as //n//) to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of pronounced as //z// to pronounced as //r//. When a dialect or member of a language family resists the change and keeps a pronounced as //z// sound, this is sometimes known as zetacism.
The term comes from the Greek letter rho, denoting pronounced as //r//.
The southern (Tosk) dialects, the base of Standard Albanian, changed pronounced as //n// to pronounced as //r//, but the northern (Gheg) dialects did not:
In Aramaic, Proto-Semitic n changed to r in a few words:
Aquitanian *l changed to the tapped r between vowels in Basque. It can be observed in words borrowed from Latin; for example, Latin caelum (meaning "sky, heaven") became zeru in Basque (caelum > celu > zeru; compare cielo in Spanish). The original l is preserved in the Souletin dialect: caelum > celu > zelü.
Western dialects of Finnish are characterised by the pronunciation pronounced as //r// or pronounced as //ɾ// of the consonant written d in Standard Finnish kahden kesken- kahren kesken (two together = one on one). The reconstructed older pronunciation is pronounced as /
In Manx, Scottish Gaelic and some dialects of Irish, /n/ becomes /r/ in a variety of consonant clusters, often with nasalization of the following vowel. For example, the pronounced as //kn// cluster developed into pronounced as //kr//, as in Scottish Gaelic Gaelic; Scottish Gaelic: cnoc pronounced as /[krɔ̃xk]/ ‘hill’. Within Ireland, this phenomenon is most prevalent in northern dialects and absent from the most southern dialects. Some examples of rhotacized clusters include /kn/ (cnó), /mn/ (mná), /gn/ (gnó), and /tn/ (tnáith), while /sn/ (snámh) is never rhotacized even in the most innovative dialects. This can lead to interesting pairs such as nominative an sneachta /ə ˈʃnʲæːxt̪ˠə/ versus genitive an tsneachta /ə ˈt̪ɾʲæːxt̪ˠə/.
See also: Grammatischer Wechsel. All surviving Germanic languages, which are members of the North and West Germanic families, changed pronounced as //z// to pronounced as //r//, implying a more approximant-like rhotic consonant in Proto-Germanic. Some languages later changed all forms to r, but Gothic, an extinct East Germanic language, did not undergo rhotacism.
| Old Frisian[2] | (Old High German) Modern German | ||||||
| was, wēsum | var, várum | (wæs, wǣron) was, were | was, wēren | was, waren | (was, wārum) , waren | |
| fraliusan, fralusans | — | (forlēosan, forloren) forlese, forlorn | urliāsa, urlāren | verliezen, verloren | (farliosan, farloren) ver, verloren |
Note that the Modern German forms have levelled the rhotic consonant to forms that did not originally have it. However, the original sound can still be seen in some nouns such as Wesen, "being" (from the same root as war/waren) as well as Verlust, "loss" and Verlies, "dungeon" (both from the same root as verlieren/verloren).
Because of the presence of words that did not undergo rhotacisation from the same root as those that did, the result of the process remains visible in a few modern English word pairs:
See also: Rhoticity in English. Intervocalic pronounced as //t// and pronounced as //d// are commonly lenited to pronounced as /[ɾ]/ in most accents of North American and Australian English and some accents of Irish English and English English,[3] a process known as tapping or less accurately as flapping:[4] got a lot of pronounced as //ˈɡɒtə ˈlɒtə// becomes pronounced as /[ˈɡɒɾə ˈlɒɾə]/. Contrast is usually maintained with pronounced as //r//, and the pronounced as /[ɾ]/ sound is rarely perceived as pronounced as //r//.
In Central German dialects, especially Rhine Franconian and Hessian, pronounced as //d// is frequently realised as pronounced as /[ɾ]/ in intervocalic position. The change also occurs in Mecklenburg dialects. Compare Borrem (Central Hessian) and Boden (Standard German).
Reflecting a highly-regular change in pre-Classical Latin, intervocalic pronounced as /link/ in Old Latin, which is assumed to have been pronounced pronounced as /link/, invariably became r, resulting in pairs such as these:
Intervocalic s in Classical Latin suggests either borrowing (rosa) or reduction of an earlier ss after a long vowel or a diphthong (pausa < paussa, vīsum < *vīssum < *weid-tom). The s was preserved initially (septum) and finally and in consonant clusters.
Old Latin honos became honor in Late Latin by analogy with the rhotacised forms in other cases such as genitive, dative and accusative honoris, honori, honorem.[5]
Another form of rhotacism in Latin was dissimilation of d to r before another d and dissimilation of l to r before another l, resulting in pairs such as these:
The phenomenon was noted by the Romans themselves:
In Neapolitan, rhotacism affects words that etymologically contained intervocalic or initial pronounced as //d//, when this is followed by a vowel; and when pronounced as //l// is followed by another consonant. This last characteristic, however, is not very common in modern speech.
In Galician-Portuguese, rhotacism occurred from pronounced as //l// to pronounced as //r//, mainly in consonant clusters ending in pronounced as //l// such as in the words obrigado, "thank you" (originally from "obliged [in honourably serving my Sir]"); praia, "beach"; prato, "plate" or "dish"; branco, "white"; prazer/pracer, "pleasure"; praça/praza, "square". Compare Spanish obligado (obliged), playa, plato, blanco, placer, plaza from Latin obligatus, plagia, platus, blancus (Germanic origin), placere (verb), platea.
In contemporary Brazilian Portuguese, rhotacism of pronounced as //l// in the syllable coda is characteristic of the Caipira dialect. Further rhotacism in the nationwide vernacular includes planta, "plant", as pronounced as /[ˈpɾɐ̃tɐ]/, lava, "lava", as pronounced as //ˈlarvɐ// (then homophonous with larva, worm/maggot), lagarto, "lizard", as pronounced as /[laʁˈɡaʁtu]/ (in dialects with guttural coda r instead of a tap) and advogado, "lawyer", as pronounced as /[ɐ̞de̞vo̞ʁˈɡadu]/. The nonstandard patterns are largely marginalised, and rhotacism is regarded as a sign of speech-language pathology or illiteracy.
Rhotacism, in Romanesco, shifts l to r before a consonant, like certain Andalusian dialects of Spanish. Thus, Latin altus (tall) is alto in Italian but becomes arto in Romanesco. Rhotacism used to happen when l was preceded by a consonant, as in the word ingrese (English), but modern speech has lost that characteristic.
Another change related to r was the shortening of the geminated rr, which is not rhotacism. Italian errore, guerra and marrone "error", "war", "brown" become erore, guera and marone.
In Romanian, rhotacism shifted intervocalic l to r and n to r.
Thus, Latin caelum ‘sky; heaven’ became Romanian cer, Latin fenestra ‘window’ Romanian fereastră and Latin felicitas ‘happiness’ Romanian fericire.
Some northern Romanian dialects and Istro-Romanian also changed all intervocalic pronounced as /[n]/ to pronounced as /[ɾ]/ in words of Latin origin. For example, Latin bonus became Istro-Romanian bur: compare to standard Daco-Romanian bun.
Rhotacism is particularly widespread in the island of Sicily, but it is almost completely absent in the Sicilian varieties of the mainland (Calabrese and Salentino). It affects intervocalic and initial pronounced as //d//: cura from Latin caudam, peri from Latin pedem,
In Andalusian Spanish, particularly in Seville, at the end of a syllable before another consonant, l is replaced with r: Huerva for Huelva. The reverse occurs in Caribbean Spanish: Puelto Rico for Puerto Rico (lambdacism).
Rhotacism (mola > mora, filum > fir, sal > sare) exists in some Gallo-Italic languages as well: Lombard (Western and) and Ligurian.
In Umbrian but not Oscan, rhotacism of intervocalic s occurred as in Latin.[6]
Among the Turkic languages, the Oghur branch exhibits /r/, opposing to the rest of Turkic, which exhibits /z/. In this case, rhotacism refers to the development of *-/r/, *-/z/, and *-/d/ to /r/,*-/k/,*-/kh/ in this branch.[7]
(This section relies on the treatment in Greenberg 1999.)
In some South Slavic languages, rhotacism occasionally changes a voiced palatal fricative pronounced as /[ʒ]/ to a dental or alveolar tap or trill pronounced as /[r]/ between vowels:
The beginning of the change is attested in the Freising manuscripts from the 10th century AD, which show both the archaism (ise 'which' < *jь-že) and the innovation (tere 'also' < *te-že). The shift is also found in individual lexical items in Bulgarian dialects, дорде 'until' (< *do-že-dĕ) and Macedonian, сеѓере (archaic: 'always' <*vьsegъda-že). However, the results of the sound change have largely been reversed by lexical replacement in dialects in Serbia and Bosnia from the 14th century.
Dialects in Croatia and Slovenia have preserved more of the lexical items with the change and have even extended grammatical markers in -r from many sources that formally merged with the rhotic forms that arose from the sound change: Slovene dialect nocor 'tonight' (< *not'ь-sь-ǫ- + -r-) on the model of večer 'evening' (< *večerъ). The reversal of the change is evident in dialects in Serbia in which the -r- formant is systematically removed: Serbian veče 'evening'.