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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Like butta

Someone purposely constructed the first paragraph to contain the phrase, "like butta." I appreciate the creativity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.60.87.114 (talk) 19:32, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Definition of IPA /r/ to make it less technical

There is a technical tag at the top of this article. I think that there should be an introduction where it is clarified what /r/ is. Most non-specialists are not aware of this. For example, most English people consider the /ɜː/ vowel in (Queen's English) bird, girl, kerb to be an /r/. Some would suppose the /ɪə/ vowel in air, chair to be an /r/, or the long /ɑː/ in father, tomato. For this article to be less technical, it should be defined what we mean by /r/. Epa101 (talk) 14:25, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree here. Perhaps the insertion of a sidebar which 'translates' these phonemic terms (the IPA /r/ for sure, but I believe there are several others used frequently in the article as well that could be translated), with actual examples, would be incredibly helpful. I'm more educated in this area than many (Masters degree and teacher of English, plus graduate level coursework in linguistics), and even I found this entire article very difficult to comprehend. I read it several times and also read a good portion of the relative linked pages, and still remain unclear and frustrated with my level of comprehension on the topic. If I feel this way, then the average reader would likely just give up. A reader should not have to constantly jump between articles to gain the background knowledge needed for understanding and comprehension. Rathyrye 13:11, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

'Narc' - from Romany ????

This seems like quite an involved and unlikely etymology, given the common (by the end of the 1960s) Americanism, narc, short for "narcotics agent," which became a verb almost immediately (e.g., "to narc on [someone]"). Might the British non-rhotic /r/ and the coincidental phonic association with the Russian word for informer, stukach (derived from the Russian for "knock"), be the source of an involved folk etymology here? Doprendek (talk) 22:17, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I think "nark" meaning "police informer" is much older than "narc" meaning "narcotics agent". I'm pretty sure I've seen "nark" in British detective novels of the 1920s and '30s. I think that term really is from Romany, and was probably never used in the U.S. "Narc", a clipped form of "narcotics agent" is probably much later, from the 1960s as you say. I think it's a linguistic case of convergent evolution. —Angr 06:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

OED dates 'nark' to 1859, but is unsure about the origins. It goes into detail about the possible Romany origins, but finds it dubious. Another possibility is the french 'narquois', meaning cunning or deceitful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mausisim (talk • contribs) 14:19, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

The Etymology Dictionary reports both origins and it makes sense that there would be two independent origins, especially since the OED report the Romany variant as spelled "nark". Less ambiguous examples of rhotic/arhotic slang should be found and used. Hu (talk) 19:19, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

A possible alternative map

http://www3.hi.is/~peturk/KENNSLA/02/TOP/rhoticism.html See in this link! This one has a big advantage in that it covers the English-speaking world rather than just England.

Within England, it no longer shows Lancashire as rhotic. It does draw the rhotic border slightly differently from the English-Scottish border, showing that rhotic accents are still common in the far north of England. I am not sure why Trudgill's map of modern rhoticity shows its having died out in the far north; the rhotic area might have shrunk, but the speech of much of Northumberland is indistinguishable from Scots (and thus rhotic).

In summary, I prefer the map in the link above. Epa101 (talk) 18:35, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the map in the link above has some advantages, but please consider that it is little more than a rough sketch and that there are no sources given.Unoffensive text or character (talk) 08:04, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Not sure how important this is but John Wells has given his approval to the map: see the 2nd September on his blog http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/blog.htm Epa101 (talk) 11:28, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I may seem pedantic, but: Has he? All he says is "why didn't I ever think of drawing a map like this?".
But anyway, how would you go about it? Delete the three maps that are currently in the article?
The disadvantages would be:
  • loss of details
  • loss of historical perspective (British Isles in the 1950s vs urban British speech in the late 90s)
The advantages:
  • the new map gives a good overall idea of the situation worldwide
  • it does not pretend to be accurate in all details, which a map can never be anyway, as language constantly changes and the map does not
I really have not made up my mind yet. Let's see what other users think about it. Unoffensive text or character (talk) 15:05, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. The current map is both confusing in that it lacks enough coherent explanation, and also because of all the overlap the red sections cover. I understand that there may well indeed be actual overlap in the division it is attempting to portray, but this is not made clear at all. I also agree that a map showing more or all of the English speaking world would be more comprehensive and appropriate. The current map is sorely lacking IMO. Rathyrye 13:11, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

This article needs audio samples

I have a hard time following the examples and figuring out what is rhotic vs. non-rhotic. Please add audio. The IPA stuff also confuses me, but that's another story. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slides2008 (talk • contribs) 06:12, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Totally agree. As stated in my note above, I have a Masters in English which included coursework specific to linguistics, and even I became frustrated trying to decipher all this. Rathyrye 13:11, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. More examples of words are needed to illustrate the pronunciations throughout this article. Very few readers will be familiar with phonetic spelling. --P123cat1 (talk) 14:10, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Farmer map

I am sure the map is based on SED (Survey of English Dialects) and I am also sure I have seen it before (though less colourful). But still, it is unsourced, so if a source is not provided, we should consider deleting it.Unoffensive text or character (talk) 10:02, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I asked the creator here to say where the map's info comes from, but he hasn't answered yet. —Angr 10:13, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Finally found the source, but still, I think three maps on rhoticity in England alone is way too much.Unoffensive text or character (talk) 11:26, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Rhotic accents, North England

As far as i'm aware there are no accents along the English border which are rhotic, there is however a fair amount of Scots here, often they were born and raised across the line, not fiarly representing people from the English side of the border. 167.1.176.4 (talk) 06:18, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Wells mentions the "Northumbrian burr" (a voiced uvular fricative realization of R) surviving in rural Northumberland, I think. Grover cleveland (talk) 07:13, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
There are three maps in the article. One is based on the Survey of English Dialects conducted in the fifties and sixties with informants born mainly in the 1870s and 1880s. Rural Northumberland was firmly rhotic at that time. The second map is based on Peter Trudgill who, if I remember correctly, does not go into any detail as to what were his sources. It shows the extent of rhoticity in late twentieth-century urban speech and thus it shows no rhoticity along the Scottish border.
It seems that the Northumbrian burr was already a strongly recessive feature in the seventies, when Christer Pahlson wrote about it., but his work is very technical (mathematical rather than linguistic) and hard to interpret. According to this BBC website], the burr is virtually extinct by now. Unoffensive text or character (talk) 09:01, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, fairly sure the last burr has burred. 167.1.176.4 (talk) 12:19, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

B

I grew up in Northumberland and even in the 1960's the "burr" was restricted to older people. It was virtually identical to the French "r" and was used even in the middle of words - for example "Verrry Strrrange" would be pronounced almost the same as a French speaker. --MichaelGG (talk) 08:26, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

And as far as my linguistics professor and every linguistics book known to man kind are concerned, it`s NOT called an accent if it`s the same language spoken in different varieties! This is what you call a dialect!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.58.238.120 (talk) 20:15, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

chinese characters

I think that, for readability, the Chinese characters (here and elsewhere) should be accompanied by a romanized transliteration (pinyin or IPA).Zwart (talk) 13:39, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

"But in characters pronounced [ɑ̂ɻ], for instance 二 "two", the [ɻ] is an inherent part of the word and is always pronounced, even in areas where that [ɻ] coda would not be pronounced." This is incorrect information. I'll rewrite or delete it.  White Whirlwind  咨  04:50, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Effect on spelling - Korean name "Park"

I'm not at all convinced that "Park" is an accidental rhotization (is that a word?). I've seen Chinese names intentionally spelled with additional letters that don't really belong, just to get English speakers to make a sound that is close to the intended. For instance, take the Chinese family name spelled by "He" in pinyin (the most widely used spelling system for Chinese). It's proper pronunciation is close to the English word "Her" without the final "r" sound. But "He" invariably gets rendered by English speakers with a long "e" sound (no doubt because of that masculine pronoun of the same spelling). So some break with the standard and spell it as "Her" instead - the resulting sound made by most English speakers is closer to the goal. Similarly, I expect most English speakers would render "Pak" as "Pack", while "park" is arguably closer to the goal even in the speach of a rhotic speaker. --Byako (talk) 05:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

That seems to be the implication in the article. Perhaps there's a better way of using this example. Suggestions? — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi] 06:06, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't think it's an "accidental rhotization," I think that Park is spelled the way it is for the same reason that many other Asian terms ("karma," "nirvana," lots and lots of Thai words and names) are: they were likely first transcribed to Roman script by British English speakers in a day and age when the British Empire was at the peak of its power, and so many of these spellings reflect standard BrE pronunciation (also interesting to note that a much larger percentage of American English speakers were non-rhotic at that time too).
And if you really want to get into it, wouldn't Park be better rendered as "Pock" or "Pawk"? I agree that "Park" is perhaps closer to the correct pronunciation than is, say, "Pack," but why not make it completely unambiguous to all speakers? Of course this is all completely academic, as the spelling isn't likely to change any time soon.

Historical reasons for US rhoticity

This article makes no attempt at explaining why at present most British English speech varieties are non-rhotic while American varieties by and large are. The maps comparing rhotic speech in England in the 1950s and the end of the 20th century demonstrate that rhotic speech is on the decline in England. From this I infer that rhoticism was much more prevalent (perhaps nearly universal) in the UK several hundred years ago at the time of the original British colonization of North America, and the earliest immigrants from the British Isles would have brought their mostly rhotic speech with them to the New World. This would explain the modern-day differences between standard British and American "accents." However, this is never explicitly stated in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.121.211.231 (talk) 16:35, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this is broadly correct. R-dropping is described by Wells as a "British prestige innovation", subsequently copied in parts of the world that held that speech in high esteem. Grover cleveland (talk) 02:18, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
There are indications that R-dropping used to be more widespread in the American colonies, though, even in informal and uneducated speech, and was later pushed back again (presumably to emphasise the distinction from the British, and perhaps supported by the influence of dialectal speech and non-English languages common among – especially later – immigrants: R-dropping would conceivably have been naturally absent in the accents of many immigrants not originating from eastern England). See this discussion in Wiktionary. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:46, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. More background info re: the evolution, or rather the 'why' or 'how did this phenomenon occur over time and region' would add both depth and interest to the article. Rathyrye 13:11, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
It must be noted, however, that all mentioned instances share a striking feature: the disappeared r occurs immediately before s. Hence, I suspect what we really observe here is a cluster simplification rs > ss (or phonologically /rs/ > /s/) which is unconnected with rhoticity, and therefore, chance is that non-rhoticity was never widespread in American English (at least there remains no evidence for it apart from the examples in question, apparently), but is instead a recent (ca. 18th-century) development originally limited to Britain, from which it later spread to certain regions in North America that were under the influence of British English, as in New England especially, or possibly AAVE, as in the south. David Crystal's reconstruction of Shakespeare's original pronunciation is solidly rhotic, with rhotic vowels, just like Standard American English, so it seems most of American English simply retained this feature fundamentally unchanged. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:46, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Rhotacity in England diagram

Hi all. This article, though excellent, contains a diagram that is difficult for colour blind people to follow, namely the rhotacity in England one. I'm somewhat colour blind myself and found it impossible to use without outside help. I'll add this page to the relevant category, and people can work out if they agree with me or not. NearlyDrNash (talk) 20:12, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Hail, thou ever blessed morn, Hail redemption's happy dawn

So would I be right to conclude from this article that "morn" doesn't rhyme with "dawn" in standard American English? Thanks. Scil100 (talk) 02:30, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed "morn" and "dawn" wouldn't come close to rhyming, not for the vast majority of American English speakers. I'm reminded of the Pink Floyd song "Arnold Layne" with Syd's couplet "Now he's caught/A nasty sort"--which to Americans might seem a particularly clever instance of intended-rhyme--though for UK or Commonwealth speakers it's simply obvious.drone5 (talk) 06:31, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


no explanation of US rhoticity

(Please also see possible comments on the relevant Wiktionary talk page.)

As stated months ago above, this article still does not explain why at present most British English speech varieties are non-rhotic while American varieties by and large are. In addition, that comment's attempt at an explanation is apparently too simple and even misleading. Neither that comment nor the the article explain how non-rhotic variants like "ass" from "arse" could be adopted and how coinages like "bust" from "burst" could develop in the American colonies. These words show that non-rhotic speech was common in the American colonies and apparently considered too "American" to be adopted by – at the time(?) – apparently more(?) rhotic British English.

Apparently the often-heard claim of the spelling (and pronunciation) "ass" for "arse" being a euphemism due to US prudishness is an urban legend. The spelling (and pronunciation) in fact developed in England before the existence of the American colonies and is part of a linguistic process that can also be observed in many other words with -rs- (e.g. burst/bust, curse/cuss, horse/hoss, barse/bass). The main cause seems to have been the development of non-rhotic pronunciation, which made "arse" sound like "ass". Some of these changes happened as early as in late Middle English, when barse became bass, for example. "Bust" in the sense and pronunciation derived from "burst" was specifically a US invention, which happened in the mid 18th century (New Oxford Dictionary), so it seems that r dropping was pretty normal in US English at the time. I always thought r dropping was a UK specialty and never happened in the American colonies, so I'll have to look for info about when that development stopped and reversed in the US since this article provides no info on this.

It would seem that it's pretty important that the word "arse" was mostly heard and rarely seen. This could perhaps explain why the apparent reversal of r dropping that happened in the US didn't affect a word that sounded like it didn't have an r (anymore). --Espoo (talk) 03:32, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't have the data at hand, but it would seem very likely to me that non-rhotic speech was always strongly strongly in specific areas of the United States (though it was probably never dominant over rhotic speech). The Eastern coastal areas would probably have contained the greatest number of folks using a non-rhotic tongue. New England is still today largely non-rhotic and I don't think it is a leap to postulate that it always was, and I also have a suspicion that the metropolitan New York dialect was also always non-rhotic. Regarding New York, there is also significant population data which I have seen showing that in the first half of the 1800s (before the great Irish influx)showing that earlier NY colonial descendants(the Dutch and others)had become less than half of the population due to a massive number of number of New English relocating to the Hudson area. Both of these regions contain major ports, of course, and so would have likely maintained closer business ties with the Mother Country. Furthermore, English culture remained highly influential upon the upper-class in NYC (and despised by lower-classes), as seen by events like the Astor Place Riot. This probably influenced many of those strange spelling situations and explains why the speech has survived.
I find the existence of non-rhotic speech in the American South far less explicable, but it does exist according to the map on the page. This would explain the arhoticity of AAVE, certainly, but I have never once met a Southerner with such speech. --130.156.46.252 (talk) 12:28, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
Here is a quick explanation.
Stage 1: English is entirely rhotic
Stage 2: Some r-dropping occurs in some dialects before /s/. Hence "cuss"/"curse", etc.
Stage 3: English-speakers colonize North America
Stage 4: R-dropping develops in Southern and Eastern England, gradually affecting the great majority of the English population
Stage 5: In the northeast and southern US, some R-dropping habits develop, as a result of contact with shipping from England
Stage 6: The "General American" (non-northeastern and non-southern) US norm reasserts itself, confining non-rhoticity in the US to small pockets in the northeast, south and African American populpation. Grover cleveland (talk) 21:17, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. As I stated above, more background info re: the evolution, or rather the 'why' or 'how did this phenomenon occur over time and region' would add both depth and interest to the article.Rathyrye 13:11, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Second map

Is [əʴ] identically equal to [ɚ] ?--F. F. Fjodor (talk) 18:40, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know. It might be identical, or it might be specifically claiming that the R-color comes from an alveolar rather than a retroflex tongue position. Grover cleveland (talk) 21:12, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Semi-rhoticity?

There seems to be no mention of semi-rhoticity or whatever it's called. I've observed several US speakers using the R in stressed vowels such as "bird", but omitting it in unstressed syllables, such as "letter". Is that called semi-rhoticity or something? The article seems to indicate two absolutes - rhotic and non-rhotic, but what about these people who only pronounce the R in the stressed "er" sound? 90.214.108.162 (talk) 01:35, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Also potentially part of this might be the (almost?) universal pronunciation of the word "drawer" with the "Intrusive R" in both rhotic and non-rhotic dialects. I could be wrong about the universality of this phenomenon, but here in Canada, we speak a rhotic dialect, and yet pronounce this word very much like the non-rhotic speakers would pronounce "draw(r)ing". --24.222.13.228 (talk) 20:30, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
To 90.214.108.162: This is absolutely a real phenomenon; I'm unsure if experts call it "semi-rhoticity," though I've seen it called that on discussion forums (specifically, Jamaican English was referred to as semi-rhotic). I know that the exact phenomenon you describe also occurs in Boston English. Wonder what the research has to say... Wolfdog (talk) 21:39, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Hong Kong English accent

As Hong Kong had been a British colony for many years before 1997, most of the older generations of Hongkongers tended to learn Received Pronunciation. But in recent years, perhaps under the effect of emigration trend to the North America in the early 90s and re-imigration of those emigrants back to Hong Kong,as well as the effect of American cultures such as American TV programmes, American songs and whatnot, more and more Hong Kong youngsters tended to learn mixed accent between American accent and British accent. A significant evidence of the mixed accent is the rhotic accent of quite a number of students with good academic results in English while many of them do not have a cot-caught merger or Northern Cities Vowel Shift(NCVS). Besides, most non-native English speakers in Hong Kong speak the so-called Chinglish, which is usually considered as a non-standard or even wrong accent. The so-called Chinglish is, in general, the mix of Cantanese(Chinese) and English. As there is no voiced consonant in Cantanese, an obvious feature of Chinglish is to mistake voiced English consonants, such as "d", "z", "v" and "g" , as unvoiced consonants. For example, many Hongkongers wrongly end the word "is" with an unvoiced /s/ instead of a voiced /z/. An other feature of Chinglish is to mistake the dark L sound ,as in "goal" and "bowl", as a clear L sound as in "low" and "let". Moreover, many Hongkongers mistake /æ/ as /e/. For example, many Hongkongers make no difference between the pronunciation of "pet" and "pat". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lkp112358 (talk • contribs) 05:41, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Distribution in India

I believe the part that says that Asian nations speak English with rhotic accents predominantly because of Americanization, but I'm skeptical as to how prevalent this is in India. I'm quite sure India was colonized by the British at a time where everyone was speaking in the upper-classy non-rhotic accents, and, as a result, there is a large Anglo-Indian population that is completely non-rhotic. Even outside the Anglo-Indian community, it is considered a standard formality for many English speaking Indians to use the non-rhotic accent. I know I haven't written any books like Mr. Wells, but this is just what I have observed from living in rhotic speaking North America in a community with many non-rhotic speaking Indians. Fhqwgads (talk) 20:53, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Word lists of "homophonous pairs" - links and inclusion

In the sections about the different phonemic mergers, it seems like there is no rhyme or reason as to why some words in the tables of homophonous pairs have links to other articles, but some words do not. I'm not a Wiki-superstar, so I don't know if there is a policy on "should you link to an article" in this case. However, it's confusing for me as a reader, as it seems some words have been deemed "important" enough to be linked to "their" articles, but other words have not.

Also, it isn't clear where the lists of words come from. Looking at a Google Books preview of Wells's 1982 book, the pages referenced in each specific "merger" section do not include a list of words. If I'm reading the references wrong, it would be great if someone could correct me on this. Otherwise, I am inclined to mark all the lists of words as unreferenced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bowmanjj (talk • contribs) 20:48, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I think deleting these "homophonous pairs" would considerably improve the article. Unoffensive text or character (talk) 14:50, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Article written from rhotic POV and linking 'r'

From the article:

"Non-rhotic speakers pronounce an /r/ in red, and most pronounce it in torrid and watery, where R is followed by a vowel, but not in hard, nor in car or water when those words are said in isolation. However, in most non-rhotic accents, if a word ending in written "r" is followed closely by a word beginning with a vowel, the /r/ is pronounced—as in water ice."

The above is a wrong analysis of 'linking r'. Non-rhotic speakers do not pronounce the 'r' in 'car', 'hard', 'water' etc when they are followed closely by a word beginning with a vowel. Instead the /r/ sound is added to the beginning of the following syllable, regardless of any written letter 'r' in the first word.

For example take the words 'saw' and 'soar', and 'sawing' and 'soaring'. Many non-rhotic speakers pronounce the 2 pairs exactly the same.

The article takes the position that non-rhotic speakers 'drop' Rs or that they do not pronounce written Rs, when in fact it's simply that for non-rhotic speakers /r/ can only occur at the beginning of a syllable, and the letter R indicates a "lengthening" of a preceeding vowel, eg 'had' and 'hard'. 92.21.104.84 (talk) 18:59, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

If I understand your position correctly, you're saying that you object to the notion that the /r/ is "in" the words "car", "water", etc. for non-rhotic speakers. I guess this is a defensible position, but I fail to see how it is "rhotic POV". The claims made in the article about when an [r] is pronounced by non-rhotic speakers are all correct. Grover cleveland (talk) 19:23, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Rhotic consonants?

I thought that they did not pronounce rhotic vowels? And before a vowel, they just add a rhotic consonant rather than the vowel, so hurry is pronounced [hə ri] and not [hɝ ri] like an American. Ticklewickleukulele (talk) 18:47, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Mergers characteristic of non-rhotic accents

This entire section/list makes very little sense to me. Even with my background in English and linguistics, along with all the link-jumping I did to help my comprehension, I still remain largely unclear about what this list means, or what knowledge or clarity on the topic I'm supposed to gain from it. I'm left with too many questions that I don't have time to list out here right now, but the main ones are regarding the lack of relationship between the so-called 'lexical sets' and the examples given of the 'phonemic mergers' used to illustrate the point of each sub-section of the list. Perhaps the main problem is the lack of any clear explanation or definition as to what those 2 terms even mean to begin with. Shouldn't there be at least a brief clarification at the beginning of the section explaining what exactly 'lexical sets' and 'phonemic mergers' are anyway? How can the average reader understand anything in the list that follows without an understanding of these crucial terms? Especially without this knowledge, figuring out a relationship between the sets and the example mergers was nearly impossible in most cases. Rathyrye 13:11, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Rhoticity in Scottish English

I think there should be a map for Rhotic and non-rhotic accents Scottish English. Komitsuki (talk) 07:56, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

To my knowledge non-rhoticity in Scotland is restricted to the urban areas of the Central belt. 195.162.87.201 (talk) 10:33, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 14 April 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: To be moved. Note: move requires admin assistance, which I will request. (non-admin closure)  — Amakuru (talk) 15:22, 23 April 2015 (UTC)


Rhotic and non-rhotic accents → Rhoticity in English – I originally forked this off from Rhoticity as "Rhoticity in English" on 22 June 2014, which title I thought was a fairly accurate and appropriate description of the article's contents. On 31 January 2015, User:Kwamikagami moved it to "Rhotic and non-rhotic accents" without any discussion (it seems he made a number of such moves, as he was later blocked from moving for a brief period by User:BD2412). I feel the title "Rhoticity in English" to be more accurate and appropriate and that we ought to move it back to that title. Input from other editors would be much appreciated.  White Whirlwind  咨  21:18, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

  • Strong support the quick restoration of the clearer title Red Slash 04:14, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment - Not to be pedantic, but I don't see the two titles as synonymous. The original article from which this was forked is actually now a redirect to rhotic consonant. The "rhoticity"/"rhotic consonant" article, as the title implies, describes rhoticity, defines what rhotic consonants are, their characteristics, the physiological way in which the sounds are produced, etc. IMHO, an analogous article titled "Rhoticity in English" would be one that does the same for the specific rhotic sound that exists in English. This article, however, is not much more than a list of which English accents use the rhotic consonant and which don't. There is an, albeit rudimentary, history section which is about "rhoticity" per se, but the bulk of the article exists, in its current form, to tell the reader which dialects are rhotic and which aren't. That being said, I don't have an opinion on the RM at the moment (although the current title should at least contain the word "English"). Ultimately the choice of title should boil down to the intended scope of the article. Is it primarily to describe the phenomenon of rhoticity in the English language, or is it to list which dialects/accents use the rhotic sound?--William Thweatt TalkContribs 06:42, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Support: As mentioned by William Thweatt above, the article would have to be expanded so that it describes more about r in English than just rhotic and non-rhotic accents, but that wouldn't be a bad thing. Wikipedia would benefit from a general article on r in English, explaining what the r sound is (approximant, fricative, trill, tap) in different accents, what phonological environments it occurs in, and what sound changes it was involved in. There's a little on r in the English phonology article, but not as much detail as there should be. This article is a good place for that detail. — Eru·tuon 22:43, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move

Requested move 17 December 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved (non-admin closure). sst✈·discuss· 08:25, 26 December 2015 (UTC)


Rhoticity in English → Pronunciation of English ⟨r⟩ – This way the article can discuss pronunciation of "r" in other ways, such as use of a rolled "r" or a tapped "r" in certain dialects. Similar title to pronunciation of English ⟨th⟩, pronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩ and pronunciation of English ⟨a⟩. Fish567 (talk) 04:09, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

  • Comment - the current title doesn't prohibit describing those pronunciations because those are all included in the term "rhoticity". See Rhotic consonant#Types. So if that is your only rationale, I say Speedy close.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 04:22, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Support and Comment: My impression is that rhoticity usually means "whether syllable-final r is pronounced or not", so it doesn't directly correspond to the term "rhotic consonant". If so, it would be confusing to explain how r is pronounced in this article. I'd support either moving this article as Fish567 proposes, or creating a new article on English r and then linking to this one under a section heading. — Eru·tuon 06:02, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
"Rhoticity" refers generally to any post-vocal "r"-type sound (not just "syllable-final"). In the post-vowel environment, any of the allophones mentioned in the proposal may appear depending on the dialect of English. Listen to a speaker of Scottish English pronounce "girl", for example.
Oops, you're right. "Syllable-final r'" in my definition should be corrected to "coda r".
I'm aware that Scottish English has (or has had) a tapped r, but not sure what your point is. My point is that rhoticity in the context of this article is a binary property (as opposed to rhotic-ness as a property of consonants, which is a nebulous feature involving place and manner of articulation), so mentioning pronunciations of r in this article would be off-topic. If the original poster wants to write about the pronunciation of English r in general, it would have to be under a different article title. But now that I think about it, I want to change my vote:
  • I agree with the latter suggestion (two articles). It seems that rhoticity (as Erutuon defines it) is a big enough topic in discussions of English pronunciation to have an article of its own. W. P. Uzer (talk) 11:26, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose per User:WilliamThweatt  White Whirlwind  咨  18:14, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Support. How the "r" is pronounced in the word "red" whether or not it's a rolled "r" or not, is not a question of rhoticity. If rhoticity included such things, then RP and Australian English would be rhotic accents as they have a /ɹ/ sound in words like "red". Yes, we could have separate articles as well, but the other article would likely be a short stub, so it's better just to change the name of this article and include the information here. 2602:306:3653:8920:1CD:DC0C:4F7:D397 (talk) 00:29, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
Yes, initial "r" isn't included in rhoticity, but this article isn't about initial "r". What's really being proposed here isn't just a simple renaming of the current article, it's also an expansion of the scope. As you say, on its own, it would be a short stub -- in fact it is already covered at English phonology#Sonorants (and throughout other sections of that article) as well as at the individual dialect pages (e.g., General American). I see no real reason to fork off that "short stub" of material just to conflate it with the info on rhoticity, which as W.P. Uzer points out is a "big enough topic" to warrant an article of its own.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 06:55, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

What about the rest of the UK?

The article is called "Rhoticity in English", not "Rhoticity in England". Why then do the maps only show England (and the Isle of Mann in the last image)? Iapetus (talk) 10:17, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

List of title synonyms - reverted

In my opinion, it makes sense to list all the synonyms in bold in the lead: rhotic, r-pronouncing, r-full and non-rhotic, r-dropping, r-vocalized, r-less etc. These are all common names, any one of which a reader might recognize to confirm he/she is at the right page. User:White whirlwind, on the other hand, suggests the synonyms should be embedded elsewhere in the body of the page. Other users' thoughts? Wolfdog (talk) 14:20, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

As long as they really are reasonably common, then they ought to be in the lead. Possibly collected together in a final paragraph of the lead, to avoid cluttering the earlier text. W. P. Uzer (talk) 15:26, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
They should be mentioned somewhere. It would have been more constructive to move the terms to an appropriate place rather than simply deleting them. — Eru·tuon 20:03, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
My primary concern for the lead is to keep its text uncluttered and its prose natural and encyclopedic. Regarding the additions of the other terms to the lead, I would just want to have it demonstrated that these other terms truly are commonly used in the literature and that users really are searching for these terms before we add in all this new bolded text. Thanks for everyone's input.  White Whirlwind  咨  01:59, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
I'm OK with the final paragraph of the lead. Whirlwind, I think it is demonstrated in the major linguistic texts: Labov's writings, Wells' writings, etc. which I cited. Wolfdog (talk) 15:53, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
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