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Rhotacism
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Rhotacism
Rhotacism (/ˈroʊtəsɪzəm/ ROH-tə-siz-əm) or rhotacization is a sound change that converts one consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant: /z/, /d/, /l/, or /n/) to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of /z/ to /r/. When a dialect or member of a language family resists the change and keeps a /z/ sound, this is sometimes known as zetacism.
The term comes from the Greek letter rho, denoting /r/.
The southern (Tosk) dialects, the base of Standard Albanian, changed /n/ to /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 /r/ or /ɾ/ of the consonant written d in Standard Finnish kahden kesken- kahren kesken (two together = one on one).[example needed] The reconstructed older pronunciation is *ð.
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 /kn/ cluster developed into /kr/, as in Scottish Gaelic cnoc [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), /ɡn/ (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/.
All surviving Germanic languages, which are members of the North and West Germanic families, changed /z/ to /r/, implying a more approximant-like rhotic consonant in Proto-Germanic. As attested by runes, the shift affected Old Norse later than the Continental Germanic languages. Some languages later changed all forms to r, but Gothic, an extinct East Germanic language, did not undergo rhotacism.
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Rhotacism
Rhotacism (/ˈroʊtəsɪzəm/ ROH-tə-siz-əm) or rhotacization is a sound change that converts one consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant: /z/, /d/, /l/, or /n/) to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of /z/ to /r/. When a dialect or member of a language family resists the change and keeps a /z/ sound, this is sometimes known as zetacism.
The term comes from the Greek letter rho, denoting /r/.
The southern (Tosk) dialects, the base of Standard Albanian, changed /n/ to /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 /r/ or /ɾ/ of the consonant written d in Standard Finnish kahden kesken- kahren kesken (two together = one on one).[example needed] The reconstructed older pronunciation is *ð.
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 /kn/ cluster developed into /kr/, as in Scottish Gaelic cnoc [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), /ɡn/ (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/.
All surviving Germanic languages, which are members of the North and West Germanic families, changed /z/ to /r/, implying a more approximant-like rhotic consonant in Proto-Germanic. As attested by runes, the shift affected Old Norse later than the Continental Germanic languages. Some languages later changed all forms to r, but Gothic, an extinct East Germanic language, did not undergo rhotacism.