As a New Orleans native I appreciate that he said ‘Noo-awlins’ rather than ‘Nawlins’ which i didn’t really here there. My parents have the accent more than me. They laugh when I make fun of them saying ‘cardboard’ like ‘cawdbawd’
2 southern accents are different. There is a plantation and hillbilly. In Alabama plantation is "ova thea" and hill Billy is "overr therre". Usually only the older people speak with the plantation accent.
@@AccentHelp Most regional accents appear to be dying out. It's probably due to a combination mass migration to different parts of the country and the push to be more nationalistic or globalistic as opposed to localistic. Most major cites have far more transplants than natives, this is great for the economy, but terrible for local dialects and cultures!
The " plantation " accent isn't exclusive to the elderly, I'm one of the younger ones who has it. Also, a few non-rhotic southern accents can be found in south Louisiana, even among younger people.
@@AccentHelp Basically rhotic and non-rhotic. There's multiple southern accents which fit into each category, and the majority of southern accents where the rhoticity is variable.
In Brazil, we have three kids of R, depending on your dialect: 1) one that sounds like the northern USA dialects; 2) one that sounds like the French; 3) one that sounds like the rolled R from the italians and Spanish. It´s pretty funny when all of the 03 meet and talk to each other.
I've been to England & love English history. I'm a first-generation American by way of Eritrea, Africa. I've been in the state since I was 18 months old and am closer to 40 now than I am 30. I've always found the rhotic and non-rhotic explanations very interesting. Understanding this has helped me with my ability to get other languages. Most languages seem to be non-rhotic languages and I see that a lot of foreigners in America struggle with English because of that. It always weirded me out how well and sharp the east Asians spoke English. As I got older, I paid attention to the sound in a lot of Chinese-based languages. They pronounce their R the same way Americans do. After I realized that. Their ability to speak English as crisp and clean as they do makes total sense to me. To be clear. What I mean about the East Asians and their way of speaking English is the first generation Asians that I went to school with. They spoke their native tongue at home with their parents like me and then spoke English everywhere else. The way in which they spoke English and the crisp sound of their English compared to mine and the other first-generation American kids is what always floured me. This was a great video. Thank you for making it.
Jim Johnson, thank you for this fascinating information. My BA was a composite major of linguistics-English-teaching ESL. Listening to you speak on rhotic vs. non-rhotic makes me wish I had included more linguistics in my subsequent career.
No such thing as a British accent, our accents can change dramatically in just a few miles. And in Lancashire, where I'm from, we use rhotic pronunciation.
Thank you - I had never heard the expression 'rhotic' - and I had a good British education in England and have strong interest in languages and pronunciation. That was SO interesting, thanks again.
I was watching Buffy the Vampire slayer and she was playing as a woman from 1775 and I fell into the rabbit hole of rhotic and non-rhotic and how people actually used to speak, thanks for the great explanation :)
Most ' non-rhotic ' American accents are not completely non rhotic as the R's get pronounced in words like work girl and curb, Even If all other postvocalic R's get dropped. My own accent is largely non rhotic. American non-rhoticity is found in New England English, the Tidewater accent, New Orleans and Cajun accents ( basically my accent ) , New York City English ( somewhat ) and AAVE. There's also a Savannah Georgia accent and a Charleston SC accent that are non rhotic, But for some reason, only the elderly natives of these two cities have Savannah or Charleston accents these days.
It can be in some other parts of the south as well, but it's not as common outside of the regions you mentioned. (Heard a gent in Texas who was largely non-rhotic, though born and raised there - that was an oddity.) The accent throughout the south especially seems to be dying out. A mother and daughter from Atlanta that I interviewed: The mother was largely non-rhotic and the daughter was rhotic. That seems to be the direction it's going. Some blame it on film and TV, others say it's about people traveling and transplanting more, watering down the accent. I don't think it's one cause, but it certainly is moving in that direction...
Accent Help, I don't think there's a such thing as a completely non-rhotic North American accent, at least not anymore. Pretty much every North American accent has at least a bit of rhoticity, mainly in the NURSE set of words ( such as ' work ' ' world ' ' quirky ' ' burn ' etc. ) Even if a particular North American accent is otherwise non rhotic. The only exception I know of are North Americans who can't pronounce R's due to a speech impediment. I've heard several movies and radio broadcast samples from the 1920s to the 1940s where there was a person or people with a totally R-less American accents, mainly New Yorkers from that era, what with their " toidy toid " streets buying ' moichandise ' etc. There was a time when such an accent would have been considered prestigious and patriotic, but that's not so much the case anymore!
Accent Help my late grandmother from southern Virginia had that old school southern accent you describe. She was quite a well spoken woman. Gentle and tender in her mannerisms and an incredible teacher. She will be greatly missed.
@@AccentHelp Alot of Louisiana's accents are nonrhotic, even among 20 something's like myself! I bet there's even children native to Louisiana with non-rhoticity! I've got a largely non rhotic southern accent and I'm under 30. Check out some of my videos!
@@theutopianoutopioan464 I agree, most of the "non-rhotic" American accents are actually "soft-rhotic", similar to the strong African American accent. But, there is definitely still some non-rhotic accents left, just very rare... There are plenty of little towns with few people in the middle of nowhere who still kept their accents, remember that America is gigantic.
Singers tend to be taught to sing the first half of a diphthong rather than the second half, largely because it's more open, and it tends to sound more pleasant to most listeners. Similarly, leaving off the R sound is often considered more pleasant to hear, and it's commonly taught that way - people tend to sing on the vowel and not so much on consonants, and I think even the "vowel form of R" falls into that category for a lot of people.
@@AccentHelp That is quite interesting. I can never understand lyrics because I feel like people don't enunciate the words. This explanation helps me to grasp a bit about *why* singers seem to hate me. :-)
Thanks. I enjoyed hearing your discussion. New Orleans native here. Lawd-a-moicy! Yeah you rite. NOLA is the capital of non-rhoticity. AAVE and Yat are the official languages.
Let me know if you might be willing to do a dialect recording for my work! I've been to NOLA a number of times, picking up recordings... and a couple of drinks...
Then you have the accents that are kind-of in the middle between rhotic and non-rhotic, where some post vocalic Rs get dropped and others don't. I'm not talking about accents that are non-rhotic except for the " nurse " set of words, but those where the level of rhoticity is inconsistent, as is the case of most southern accents, NYC English and some others.
For alot of my childhood people use to think I was British or one of my parents were so I was picking up on their accent, i couldn't figure out why because of lived in Canada my whole life, a few months ago I figred out its because I have a speech impediment, I can't say my Rs correctly. People Really thought I was a Brit around 4th grade when I went in to speech therapy because the impediment was only sorta there lol
Same here, when I got older I had some people ask about my "accent" and the reality is that it's a speech impediment. I went to speech classes all through elementary but it's never fully gone away lol.
I studied Linguistics in college as well as Black English. Having been an Honors student in high school I had some challenges with Linguistics. Most of our work involved dissecting the Hungarian language which most schools use. I had never heard of rhotic sounds until this video. As old as I am I'm surprised I still learn new things. Very informative.
Keep learning, TJ! I'm learning new stuff about this all the time, and I've spent most of my life doing it. Let's not even get into what I'm learning in areas of my life that I haven't spent most of my time on...
In America the Southern non-rhotic accents, like the Northern non-rhotic accents, tend to be on the east coast. Interesting that you picked up on the cajun accent (gulf coast). Almost forgot about that one.
And most of those non-rhotic southern accents are only spoken by an older generation these days, outside of African-Americans, Cajuns, and people from New Orleans. The non-rhotic southern accent, in general, is dying out.
Like in House of cards the accent of Kevin Spacey as president Underwood the R's disappears completely! At the time I when I was watching the show for the first time I was surprised that he was speaking with a non-rhotic accent but his character was from South Carolina that's explained the way he was talking! As a European I'm more used to speak with a rhotic accent for me it's easier to speak like this and to understand but I can also speak with a non-rhotic accent like the British or the Australians depending on the person in front of me!
Thanks, I have just blundered into the world of linguistics, so far I have just been reading and finding it difficult to know exactly what sounds are being described and wished I had a teacher who could demonstrate out loud.
You can watch my series on vowels and lexical set words and that may help you to hear one perspective. There are also some apps or websites that do a demonstration of their take on each sound as well. (There was a CD I got from the International Phonetic Association that does it, but I don't know that it's available anymore.)
I've heard Tidewater English recordings on youtoob, from the likes of Tangier/Smith Islands. It most deffo is rhotic, as is its ancester, Cornish-English. I am interested as I come from Cornwall, the home of where many of the ancesters of Tangier/Smith Islands came from in the 17th C
I am from Devon England- most people speak with a non-rhotic accent, but a lot of people who live near the farms speak more rhotic like hagrid. There are a few people in the city that use the rhotic R though and it is very common in the city of Bristol. The accents in Britain are incredibly diverse and they can sometimes become difficult to understand when you go further up north. Liverpool for example make a very aggressive R sound that fits into none of these 2 categories, similar to the French scratchy-sounding R, but much more prominent.
The North West of England is rhotic, mostly across Lancashire, Cumberland and Westmoreland. The south West is also classed as being rhotic, although you seem to suggest this has changed within the urbanised population.
@anonanon7497 That's right. The rhotic R in the West Country isn't very common now, especially in cities other than Bristol. I think a lot of this has something to do with a lot of people migrating here from other parts of the country. I think many areas of Somerset still use rhotic R though. But in Exeter & Torbay in Devon, the rhotic R is rare and a lot of the locals have an accent similar to a less posh version of 'Queen's English' or 'Oxford' English; typical of what many northerners consider a "typical southern accent".
British 50 year old. As I get older, the rhotic r in American accents gets louder and louder to my ears. 'How are they doing that?' 'It hurts my throat to copy it!'
Then we have non-rhotic accents where the " nurse " set of words retains the r, even though the speech is otherwise non-rhotic. This phenomenon is most common in the greater Boston area and in the southern half of Louisiana.
My grandmother did that, and we would always tease her! We live in Washington state, and she would always say Warrshington. I don't know where that originated.
If you tend to have an R (of any kind) after a vowel, such as in the word HARD, you would be a rhotic speaker, but if that kind of R is missing, you're non-rhotic. Make sense?
It wouldn't have sounded anything like a modern day American accent, because there were a ton of other differences. Even in Shakespeare's day, it's likely that 'love' rhymed with 'move' and 'prove', or else he was really bad at writing poetry.
@MrStig691 It would have been more like modern american than modern RP english, that is true. However, there are more accurate british accents, like south western english.
No, logically it would sound more phonetic, probably harder to understand, maybe have some irish characteristics like the rhoticity and maybe sound more german, but i wouldnt say it would be close to anything american lol.
Old English would have sounded nothing like American English. Also, as pointed out by another comment, RP isn't a major accent in England (mostly the product of a few upper circles and TV) and there are lot of regional accents which retain many Old English pronunciations (mostly in the North but also South West).
Useful explanation! Are accents either rhotic or non-rhotic, or are there degrees of rhoticity? For example, is Spanish very rhotic because of that strong "r"?
Spanish is rhotic, indeed. There are many non-rhotic accents in the US that have some rhoticity that creeps in, like how many New Yorkers with a strong non-rhotic accent will still say the R on a word like FIRST. Similarly, even though most American accents are rhotic, Rs on very unstressed words will often be dropped: "I stopped by for tickets" may drop the R in FOR. I don't know of anyone who has laid them out by degrees... Maybe we need a Rhotic Scale, much like the Richter Scale? Not too many lives are saved by this one though...
@@AccentHelp Thank you for the lucid and funny reply! The Rhotic Scale: I love it. That must explain the rarity of earthquakes here in Massachusetts where I live.
What do you call it, in linguistic terms, when someone adds an intervocalic R where there shouldn't be one? I worked for a headmaster, from Maine who always did this! My favorite was "Monicker rand Vanesser" for Monica and Vanessa. (Hmm, he's also put it on the end of a "voweled" word!)
Rhoticity can be variable, for example, most southern American accents are variably rhotic. This means the r-dropping and r-pronouncing patterns are not consistent.
Interestingly, many midwestern blacks are non-rhotic, especially in cities like Toledo, Detroit, Cincinnati and Chicago. This is despite the midwestern part of the country having no history of native r-lessness. It's strange.
The various "Great Migrations" involved a lot of African-Americans moving north in the early 20th century, and many of them retain roots with family in the South. It's not uncommon for their children to spend summers down South with the grandparents, which certainly increases the likelihood that the accent remains strongly connected to its Southern roots.
@@AccentHelp it may also have been that once African Americans migrated to the midwest, they tend to stay separated in their own communities rather than integrating linguistically into the dominant accents of the region.
@@suthinscientist9801 That's absolutely true - plus a lot of African-Americans code switch, speaking differently to whites than they do to other blacks.
I live in Kernow, and lived in Devon for many years. It has not become non rhotic in the rural areas at all, however it has more so in the tourist areas. Where i am in Kernow there is a strong rhotic, we don't consider ourselves English here so i don't see that dying out any time soon :)
Eastern and northern dialects of English tended to use a 'tap' or uvular r, where in middle English it may have been a trilled r,. which into the 20th C started to become dropped. Simon Roper on youtoob, discusses changes in regional English. Just a natural progression. Meanwhile the SW of the UK uses a retroflex 'r', like Ireland, and it is this that was transported to America.
Then there's the semi rhotic or inconsistently rhotic accents such as some New York and southern accents where they'll drop some postvocalic Rs and keep the others.
Indeed! The most common R to stay on is in words like NURSE - especially true for New Yorkers. The most common R to drop in these is in the unstressed syllable, such as words like LETTER.
Yep, the non-rhotic American accents have rhoticity in the " nurse " set of words (bird, world, term, etc ), even though the accents might be otherwise non-rhotic.
I’m trying to identify my own accent, as silly as that sounds, because I just said ‘I’ll just throw it on the bed.’ But when I said throw, I dropped the R completely and said ‘thow’. Is that a southern trait? I’m from oklahoma and I’m just curious as to why I do that.
If your final vowel, where the R is dropped, is a fairly strong/distinct vowel, I can see why people might mistake you for being from Boston - there's more of a tendency to make it strong/distinct there, while most New Yorkers who drop the R make it weak/indistinct.
Speech really interests me. Is a child using a W sound for an R non-rhotic? As in 'wabbit' instead of 'rabbit?' Also dropping Ts in the middle of words seems to be the norm for most americans, whereas in Australia (where I'm from) it's just seen as a lazy way of speaking. Someone giving a speech wouldn't say 'innernet' they'd hit the T and say 'internet'.
The R sound is typically one of the last sounds that a child learns, so they often substitute something else as they're figuring it out, so it's not weally non-wotic...
I don't know of a term for it, but it often carries over to unstressed syllables being a schwa sound, or even being dropped altogether: family-famly, history-histry, valuable-valyuble, natural-nachrl, finally-finely.
Many people with rhotic accents put on non-rhotic accents when they sing. Bon Jovi is one example. His native accent is rhotic, but when he sings, the rhoticity goes away (we'll make it ah sweah, livin on a preah ). I don't know why this happens.
Do you think that the non-rhotic southern accent that was common place changed to a more rhotic one after the civil rights movement? I'm not too familiar with linguistics, but from what I've read, this could be why older Southern American English shifted from non-rhotic to rhotic in the past few decades.
The timing is roughly right - though I think it was more in the 70s - but you could argue that's a reaction to civil rights. It also times out with other changes, such as the NYC change away from first=foist and toilet=terlet. Certainly media was becoming more and more widespread and influential, which could be an element. Accents shift over time, so change is inevitable. That said, racism and other forms of prejudice are so clearly a part of our world that I couldn't for a moment say that you're wrong.
World War Two probably had a bigger bearing on the shift towards rhoticity. After ww2, the cultural center of gravity moved from the UK and the east coast of the USA to the midwestern USA. This may be the reason non-rhotic accents suddenly lost prestige after the Second World War. Heck, from the 1890s to the 1940s, there was a pseudo RP type accent that was used as a standard accent. It even had most of the hallmarks of the standard British accent (non-rhoticity, trap\bath split, etc )
@@suthinscientist9801Just to make sure, when you were talking about 1890s to 1940s, was it about Translantic accent? Because from what I remember that accent combines RP and Standard American Accent but non rhotic.
My tongue is short, the distance of the tip from the muscle that connects the tongue to the base of my mouth is non-existent, seriously there is no "bottom" of my tongue.. I can speak normally most of the time.. But sometimes if I talk really fast it sounds like I'm mumbling my words. And I can't pronounce the letter R, it sounds like a choked L.. 🤣🤣
My tongue is sgort, the distance of the tip from the muscle that connects the tongue to the base of my mouth is non-existent.. I can speak normally most of the time.. But sometimes if I talk really fast it sounds like I'm mumbling my words. And I can't pronounce the letter R, it sounds like a choked L.. 🤣🤣
The way you said "NOO- AWLINS" made my night. It gave me a reason to keep on living.
As a New Orleans native I appreciate that he said ‘Noo-awlins’ rather than ‘Nawlins’ which i didn’t really here there. My parents have the accent more than me. They laugh when I make fun of them saying ‘cardboard’ like ‘cawdbawd’
"some people make the Rs even harder"
Thank you, this was the accent help I came here for
LOL I love it! The way you did the NOLA accent and Cajun was perfect! My niece even said "he sounds like pawpaw!"
2 southern accents are different. There is a plantation and hillbilly. In Alabama plantation is "ova thea" and hill Billy is "overr therre". Usually only the older people speak with the plantation accent.
I tend to categorize those, loosely, as "Hard-R" and "Soft-R" Southern accents - and indeed, the Soft-R is dying out...
@@AccentHelp Most regional accents appear to be dying out. It's probably due to a combination mass migration to different parts of the country and the push to be more nationalistic or globalistic as opposed to localistic. Most major cites have far more transplants than natives, this is great for the economy, but terrible for local dialects and cultures!
The " plantation " accent isn't exclusive to the elderly, I'm one of the younger ones who has it. Also, a few non-rhotic southern accents can be found in south Louisiana, even among younger people.
@@AccentHelp Basically rhotic and non-rhotic. There's multiple southern accents which fit into each category, and the majority of southern accents where the rhoticity is variable.
I was born and bred in Charleston, SC and am almost 40 and I fear I’m the last generation that will sound Old South.
I've always been fascinated by language, accents, and dialects. I think I'm in the right place.
In Brazil, we have three kids of R, depending on your dialect: 1) one that sounds like the northern USA dialects; 2) one that sounds like the French; 3) one that sounds like the rolled R from the italians and Spanish. It´s pretty funny when all of the 03 meet and talk to each other.
It's awesome how you did the accents that you described! It was very useful. Thank you!
Brilliant! Brief and to the point, but substantive and super informative. You got my subscription.
I've been to England & love English history. I'm a first-generation American by way of Eritrea, Africa. I've been in the state since I was 18 months old and am closer to 40 now than I am 30. I've always found the rhotic and non-rhotic explanations very interesting. Understanding this has helped me with my ability to get other languages. Most languages seem to be non-rhotic languages and I see that a lot of foreigners in America struggle with English because of that. It always weirded me out how well and sharp the east Asians spoke English. As I got older, I paid attention to the sound in a lot of Chinese-based languages.
They pronounce their R the same way Americans do. After I realized that. Their ability to speak English as crisp and clean as they do makes total sense to me. To be clear. What I mean about the East Asians and their way of speaking English is the first generation Asians that I went to school with. They spoke their native tongue at home with their parents like me and then spoke English everywhere else. The way in which they spoke English and the crisp sound of their English compared to mine and the other first-generation American kids is what always floured me. This was a great video. Thank you for making it.
this was interesting, thanks for sharing
Jim Johnson, thank you for this fascinating information. My BA was a composite major of linguistics-English-teaching ESL. Listening to you speak on rhotic vs. non-rhotic makes me wish I had included more linguistics in my subsequent career.
the letter r: *exists*
British accent: NO
Before a vowel - Yes, it does.
After a vowel - it doesn't, in most accents, but West Country historically does have a post-vowel R sound.
No such thing as a British accent, our accents can change dramatically in just a few miles. And in Lancashire, where I'm from, we use rhotic pronunciation.
@@toastracktramcar Maybe he's refering to the recieved pronunciation.
@@MazdaRX7007 oh aye, they will be.
@@AccentHelp Scottish accents also tend to be rhotic - non rohtic English RP always sounds rather lazy and ugly to me.
I had fun and learned a bunch watching this, this is totally going to help in my research :D
Thank you - I had never heard the expression 'rhotic' - and I had a good British education in England and have strong interest in languages and pronunciation. That was SO interesting, thanks again.
Super helpful and brilliantly done. Thank you!
Thank you this was very informative and easily explained
I'm proud of my non-rhotic southern accent.
“Suthin Anahkist” thought it was an Indian name at first glance
Please y'all stay talk dropping R's. I'm learnin' English with a non-rhotic accent, lookin' at Louisiana.
Bella ciao
I was watching Buffy the Vampire slayer and she was playing as a woman from 1775 and I fell into the rabbit hole of rhotic and non-rhotic and how people actually used to speak, thanks for the great explanation :)
Also as a British person I honestly had no idea how many r's I would miss out naturally when speaking.
@@coreoporeo2394 ...but you likely would have kept back in 1775... :-)
Amazing video! Learned a lot here in a just a little over three minutes!
Mind blown. Thank you for this.
Most ' non-rhotic ' American accents are not completely non rhotic as the R's get pronounced in words like work girl and curb, Even If all other postvocalic R's get dropped. My own accent is largely non rhotic. American non-rhoticity is found in New England English, the Tidewater accent, New Orleans and Cajun accents ( basically my accent ) , New York City English ( somewhat ) and AAVE. There's also a Savannah Georgia accent and a Charleston SC accent that are non rhotic, But for some reason, only the elderly natives of these two cities have Savannah or Charleston accents these days.
It can be in some other parts of the south as well, but it's not as common outside of the regions you mentioned. (Heard a gent in Texas who was largely non-rhotic, though born and raised there - that was an oddity.) The accent throughout the south especially seems to be dying out. A mother and daughter from Atlanta that I interviewed: The mother was largely non-rhotic and the daughter was rhotic. That seems to be the direction it's going. Some blame it on film and TV, others say it's about people traveling and transplanting more, watering down the accent. I don't think it's one cause, but it certainly is moving in that direction...
Accent Help, I don't think there's a such thing as a completely non-rhotic North American accent, at least not anymore. Pretty much every North American accent has at least a bit of rhoticity, mainly in the NURSE set of words ( such as ' work ' ' world ' ' quirky ' ' burn ' etc. ) Even if a particular North American accent is otherwise non rhotic. The only exception I know of are North Americans who can't pronounce R's due to a speech impediment. I've heard several movies and radio broadcast samples from the 1920s to the 1940s where there was a person or people with a totally R-less American accents, mainly New Yorkers from that era, what with their " toidy toid " streets buying ' moichandise ' etc. There was a time when such an accent would have been considered prestigious and patriotic, but that's not so much the case anymore!
Accent Help my late grandmother from southern Virginia had that old school southern accent you describe. She was quite a well spoken woman. Gentle and tender in her mannerisms and an incredible teacher. She will be greatly missed.
@@AccentHelp Alot of Louisiana's accents are nonrhotic, even among 20 something's like myself! I bet there's even children native to Louisiana with non-rhoticity!
I've got a largely non rhotic southern accent and I'm under 30. Check out some of my videos!
@@theutopianoutopioan464 I agree, most of the "non-rhotic" American accents are actually "soft-rhotic", similar to the strong African American accent.
But, there is definitely still some non-rhotic accents left, just very rare... There are plenty of little towns with few people in the middle of nowhere who still kept their accents, remember that America is gigantic.
amazing video, so clear and concise!! THANK YOU
That was an excellent brief explanation. Thank you.
Can someone explain why singers often put on non-rhotic accents, even when their spoken accents are rhotic?
Singers tend to be taught to sing the first half of a diphthong rather than the second half, largely because it's more open, and it tends to sound more pleasant to most listeners. Similarly, leaving off the R sound is often considered more pleasant to hear, and it's commonly taught that way - people tend to sing on the vowel and not so much on consonants, and I think even the "vowel form of R" falls into that category for a lot of people.
@@AccentHelp That and non-rhoticity may be more charming\ mooa chahming to some people.
@@AccentHelp That is quite interesting. I can never understand lyrics because I feel like people don't enunciate the words. This explanation helps me to grasp a bit about *why* singers seem to hate me. :-)
@@ErikWeathers I hadn't thought of it as hate before... thanks for now making all music feel like a personal attack on me.
Cause it's easier to sing.
Just a superb discussion, and examples! Wow. Impressive. And educational, too! :-) If I do declay-uh!
I’m from the West Country in England, it’s rather rhotic here haha!
this was a great video! thank you!
Thanks. I enjoyed hearing your discussion. New Orleans native here. Lawd-a-moicy! Yeah you rite. NOLA is the capital of non-rhoticity. AAVE and Yat are the official languages.
Let me know if you might be willing to do a dialect recording for my work! I've been to NOLA a number of times, picking up recordings... and a couple of drinks...
Just like in Boston, in Australia we hate Rs. Cah pahk.
swell guy ripper
Jamobu Wadeji
Rippaaaa
Wouldn't it be pahking lot?
The Australians are speaking with a cockney accent!
@@HenkKroonenburg Not really, alot of similarities though.
THAT WAS FASCINATING!! 😃🤙
One thing that fascinates me, is how the rhotic accents from the UK will put an R after a word ending in A. Such as Florider, Canader, and Amander.
Thank you so much for the video, helped a lot. A tip of my hat to you sir
Then you have the accents that are kind-of in the middle between rhotic and non-rhotic, where some post vocalic Rs get dropped and others don't. I'm not talking about accents that are non-rhotic except for the " nurse " set of words, but those where the level of rhoticity is inconsistent, as is the case of most southern accents, NYC English and some others.
Wow. That was clearly amazing!
For alot of my childhood people use to think I was British or one of my parents were so I was picking up on their accent, i couldn't figure out why because of lived in Canada my whole life, a few months ago I figred out its because I have a speech impediment, I can't say my Rs correctly. People Really thought I was a Brit around 4th grade when I went in to speech therapy because the impediment was only sorta there lol
Same here, when I got older I had some people ask about my "accent" and the reality is that it's a speech impediment. I went to speech classes all through elementary but it's never fully gone away lol.
Gotta therapy the Britishness out of you.
Argh. A speech impediment is not an accent. Nobody from UK regions would claim that their whole region pronounced their Rs as Ws. Sorry.
You're right! West country dialects are rhotic! I noticed for all these years but never consciously understood
today i learned something new. thank you.
Damn dawg. I was all excited for him to give an example of african american vernacular in one of its stronger forms
I studied Linguistics in college as well as Black English. Having been an Honors student in high school I had some challenges with Linguistics. Most of our work involved dissecting the Hungarian language which most schools use. I had never heard of rhotic sounds until this video. As old as I am I'm surprised I still learn new things. Very informative.
Keep learning, TJ! I'm learning new stuff about this all the time, and I've spent most of my life doing it. Let's not even get into what I'm learning in areas of my life that I haven't spent most of my time on...
@@AccentHelp Thank you so much! Have great days.
Great examples thank you
In America the Southern non-rhotic accents, like the Northern non-rhotic accents, tend to be on the east coast. Interesting that you picked up on the cajun accent (gulf coast). Almost forgot about that one.
And most of those non-rhotic southern accents are only spoken by an older generation these days, outside of African-Americans, Cajuns, and people from New Orleans. The non-rhotic southern accent, in general, is dying out.
Like in House of cards the accent of Kevin Spacey as president Underwood the R's disappears completely! At the time I when I was watching the show for the first time I was surprised that he was speaking with a non-rhotic accent but his character was from South Carolina that's explained the way he was talking! As a European I'm more used to speak with a rhotic accent for me it's easier to speak like this and to understand but I can also speak with a non-rhotic accent like the British or the Australians depending on the person in front of me!
Thanks, I have just blundered into the world of linguistics, so far I have just been reading and finding it difficult to know exactly what sounds are being described and wished I had a teacher who could demonstrate out loud.
You can watch my series on vowels and lexical set words and that may help you to hear one perspective. There are also some apps or websites that do a demonstration of their take on each sound as well. (There was a CD I got from the International Phonetic Association that does it, but I don't know that it's available anymore.)
What about the Tidewater accent? That accent extends from Baltimore down to Southeast Virginia. It is a strong non-rhotic accent.
It certainly can be - though the non-rhotic element is often inconsistent these days...
@@AccentHelp That variable rhoticity is common in most southern accents these days.
The level of rhoticity in east Virginia is variable these days, just like in many parts of the south.
I've heard Tidewater English recordings on youtoob, from the likes of Tangier/Smith Islands. It most deffo is rhotic, as is its ancester, Cornish-English. I am interested as I come from Cornwall, the home of where many of the ancesters of Tangier/Smith Islands came from in the 17th C
Look up a very Richmond Phone Call
This was very helpful! Thank you
Wow! Thank you. #MerriamWebster just added the word #rhoticity to its dictionary. That's how I found this vid! Enjoyed it.
So glad they're catching up!
Interesting to know America & Canada has preserved our British forefathers Rhotic English.
Americans do lots of "funky" things. The word 'pants' for example. Great video!
Excellent video.
I noticed this when learning japanese that I had to pronounce a lot of the borrowed words differently
great video, ty
Very interesting, thank you :)
this was the most interesting video i’ve ever watched
I'm bringing non-rhotic accents back !!! :)
doing a paper on uk vs usa pronunciation and this was a lifesaver (i'm a uk uni student)
Learn something new every day...
I am from Devon England- most people speak with a non-rhotic accent, but a lot of people who live near the farms speak more rhotic like hagrid. There are a few people in the city that use the rhotic R though and it is very common in the city of Bristol.
The accents in Britain are incredibly diverse and they can sometimes become difficult to understand when you go further up north. Liverpool for example make a very aggressive R sound that fits into none of these 2 categories, similar to the French scratchy-sounding R, but much more prominent.
The North West of England is rhotic, mostly across Lancashire, Cumberland and Westmoreland. The south West is also classed as being rhotic, although you seem to suggest this has changed within the urbanised population.
@anonanon7497 That's right. The rhotic R in the West Country isn't very common now, especially in cities other than Bristol. I think a lot of this has something to do with a lot of people migrating here from other parts of the country. I think many areas of Somerset still use rhotic R though. But in Exeter & Torbay in Devon, the rhotic R is rare and a lot of the locals have an accent similar to a less posh version of 'Queen's English' or 'Oxford' English; typical of what many northerners consider a "typical southern accent".
thanks dude that was very clear... cleah... clearr...
Thank you!
Very helpful, thanks!
I was waiting for him to provide an example of the vernacular African-American non rhoticity ;)
I have no idea how I got here, but the more you know
British 50 year old. As I get older, the rhotic r in American accents gets louder and louder to my ears. 'How are they doing that?' 'It hurts my throat to copy it!'
The south sure does tend to have a hard R.....LOL
Then we have non-rhotic accents where the " nurse " set of words retains the r, even though the speech is otherwise non-rhotic. This phenomenon is most common in the greater Boston area and in the southern half of Louisiana.
And it's very commonly the "first R" that people from NYC put on.
@@AccentHelp especially since the stereotypical " toidy toid " thing is now almost extinct.
It would’ve been good to mention not just SW England but also the rest of the English speaking world.
Teacha, can y'all teach how to do a genuine Yat - Noo-Awlins accent?
www.accenthelp.com/products/new-orleans
You are awesome. That is all.
Sending this to my mom. That is all.
what if you ADD an R ? as in “wersh” instead of “wash” ?
Yet another phenomenon! Often occurs in Warshington as well.
@@AccentHelp Then that's hyper rhotic.
My grandmother did that, and we would always tease her! We live in Washington state, and she would always say Warrshington. I don't know where that originated.
Helpful. Thanks
roll the R for god sake!!!! ROLL IT like an italian! :D Ferrrrrrrrrráááárrrryyyy
Some Scottish still do
Does rhoticity also include trilling the R’s, like the Scots or us Slavs when we speak English? 😅
If you tend to have an R (of any kind) after a vowel, such as in the word HARD, you would be a rhotic speaker, but if that kind of R is missing, you're non-rhotic. Make sense?
Rhoticity includes ANY r sound.
I think many scots trill their R's but drop them in final position.
My life was turned upside down when I read that the medieval English accent would of sounded like modern day American.
It wouldn't have sounded anything like a modern day American accent, because there were a ton of other differences. Even in Shakespeare's day, it's likely that 'love' rhymed with 'move' and 'prove', or else he was really bad at writing poetry.
@MrStig691 It would have been more like modern american than modern RP english, that is true. However, there are more accurate british accents, like south western english.
No, logically it would sound more phonetic, probably harder to understand, maybe have some irish characteristics like the rhoticity and maybe sound more german, but i wouldnt say it would be close to anything american lol.
Old English would have sounded nothing like American English. Also, as pointed out by another comment, RP isn't a major accent in England (mostly the product of a few upper circles and TV) and there are lot of regional accents which retain many Old English pronunciations (mostly in the North but also South West).
Middle English was the language spoken among peasantry in the High and Late Middle Ages, whereas the nobility spoke Anglo Norman (similar to French)
Useful explanation! Are accents either rhotic or non-rhotic, or are there degrees of rhoticity? For example, is Spanish very rhotic because of that strong "r"?
Spanish is rhotic, indeed. There are many non-rhotic accents in the US that have some rhoticity that creeps in, like how many New Yorkers with a strong non-rhotic accent will still say the R on a word like FIRST. Similarly, even though most American accents are rhotic, Rs on very unstressed words will often be dropped: "I stopped by for tickets" may drop the R in FOR. I don't know of anyone who has laid them out by degrees... Maybe we need a Rhotic Scale, much like the Richter Scale? Not too many lives are saved by this one though...
@@AccentHelp Thank you for the lucid and funny reply! The Rhotic Scale: I love it. That must explain the rarity of earthquakes here in Massachusetts where I live.
What do you call it, in linguistic terms, when someone adds an intervocalic R where there shouldn't be one? I worked for a headmaster, from Maine who always did this! My favorite was "Monicker rand Vanesser" for Monica and Vanessa. (Hmm, he's also put it on the end of a "voweled" word!)
It's commonly called an Intrusive-R, and I covered that idea-r in this video: th-cam.com/video/-CGISNe4LrI/w-d-xo.html
Rhoticity can be variable, for example, most southern American accents are variably rhotic. This means the r-dropping and r-pronouncing patterns are not consistent.
Some people just love the hard R...
Holy shit. Annnnnd subscribed
thank you so much
takes notes: Rotisserie, got it.
Interestingly, many midwestern blacks are non-rhotic, especially in cities like Toledo, Detroit, Cincinnati and Chicago. This is despite the midwestern part of the country having no history of native r-lessness. It's strange.
The various "Great Migrations" involved a lot of African-Americans moving north in the early 20th century, and many of them retain roots with family in the South. It's not uncommon for their children to spend summers down South with the grandparents, which certainly increases the likelihood that the accent remains strongly connected to its Southern roots.
@@AccentHelp it may also have been that once African Americans migrated to the midwest, they tend to stay separated in their own communities rather than integrating linguistically into the dominant accents of the region.
@@suthinscientist9801 That's absolutely true - plus a lot of African-Americans code switch, speaking differently to whites than they do to other blacks.
Thanks ❤
Is there a consensus amongst researchers as to why or when the mainstream/southern (excl. southwest) English accent became non-rhotic?
I live in Kernow, and lived in Devon for many years. It has not become non rhotic in the rural areas at all, however it has more so in the tourist areas.
Where i am in Kernow there is a strong rhotic, we don't consider ourselves English here so i don't see that dying out any time soon :)
Eastern and northern dialects of English tended to use a 'tap' or uvular r, where in middle English it may have been a trilled r,. which into the 20th C started to become dropped. Simon Roper on youtoob, discusses changes in regional English. Just a natural progression. Meanwhile the SW of the UK uses a retroflex 'r', like Ireland, and it is this that was transported to America.
Mainstream? Lol. The only place the south east accent is mainstream is the south east and, pre-2000's, BBC.
Brilliant! thanks :)
Then there's the semi rhotic or inconsistently rhotic accents such as some New York and southern accents where they'll drop some postvocalic Rs and keep the others.
Indeed! The most common R to stay on is in words like NURSE - especially true for New Yorkers. The most common R to drop in these is in the unstressed syllable, such as words like LETTER.
Roticity...I'm familiar with the concept. It IS my favorite kind of chicken.
I love how you did examples of every accent you mentioned except for African-American vernacular. Thought it best to stay away from that one? 😂
I would say the strong african american accent and the older souther accents tend to be "soft-rhotic", rather than non-rhotic like most of england.
Yep, the non-rhotic American accents have rhoticity in the " nurse " set of words (bird, world, term, etc ), even though the accents might be otherwise non-rhotic.
@@suthinscientist9801 I've heard nurse pronounced as "naahs." We need a naahs in here!
I’m trying to identify my own accent, as silly as that sounds, because I just said ‘I’ll just throw it on the bed.’ But when I said throw, I dropped the R completely and said ‘thow’. Is that a southern trait? I’m from oklahoma and I’m just curious as to why I do that.
Not uncommon, especially throughout the south!
I'm originally from.Brooklyn. I have been asked if I'm from Boston. I say "numba"
If your final vowel, where the R is dropped, is a fairly strong/distinct vowel, I can see why people might mistake you for being from Boston - there's more of a tendency to make it strong/distinct there, while most New Yorkers who drop the R make it weak/indistinct.
Speech really interests me. Is a child using a W sound for an R non-rhotic? As in 'wabbit' instead of 'rabbit?' Also dropping Ts in the middle of words seems to be the norm for most americans, whereas in Australia (where I'm from) it's just seen as a lazy way of speaking. Someone giving a speech wouldn't say 'innernet' they'd hit the T and say 'internet'.
The R sound is typically one of the last sounds that a child learns, so they often substitute something else as they're figuring it out, so it's not weally non-wotic...
Where would you put my accent? Which region of the USA?
What do you call it when you drop the o or w at the end of the word? I say yellow as yella, Amarillo as Amarilla, tomorrow as tomorrah etc.
I don't know of a term for it, but it often carries over to unstressed syllables being a schwa sound, or even being dropped altogether: family-famly, history-histry, valuable-valyuble, natural-nachrl, finally-finely.
Many people with rhotic accents put on non-rhotic accents when they sing. Bon Jovi is one example. His native accent is rhotic, but when he sings, the rhoticity goes away (we'll make it ah sweah, livin on a preah ).
I don't know why this happens.
Very common for many singers to go towards that!
Sir i found it extremely hard to pronounce words with "l, p, r" like parallel...
How can help myself
Infahmative an' entahtainin'
Can you tell me where people pronounce the " ow " diphthong as "eeoo\yoo " ? For example, " town " sounds a lot like how many brits say " tune ".
I'm not familiar with that...
@@AccentHelp Suthin Scientist has that phenomenon in his accent.
i was hoping for an AAVE accent impression :(
Do you think that the non-rhotic southern accent that was common place changed to a more rhotic one after the civil rights movement? I'm not too familiar with linguistics, but from what I've read, this could be why older Southern American English shifted from non-rhotic to rhotic in the past few decades.
The timing is roughly right - though I think it was more in the 70s - but you could argue that's a reaction to civil rights. It also times out with other changes, such as the NYC change away from first=foist and toilet=terlet. Certainly media was becoming more and more widespread and influential, which could be an element. Accents shift over time, so change is inevitable. That said, racism and other forms of prejudice are so clearly a part of our world that I couldn't for a moment say that you're wrong.
World War Two probably had a bigger bearing on the shift towards rhoticity. After ww2, the cultural center of gravity moved from the UK and the east coast of the USA to the midwestern USA. This may be the reason non-rhotic accents suddenly lost prestige after the Second World War. Heck, from the 1890s to the 1940s, there was a pseudo RP type accent that was used as a standard accent. It even had most of the hallmarks of the standard British accent (non-rhoticity, trap\bath split, etc )
@@suthinscientist9801Just to make sure, when you were talking about 1890s to 1940s, was it about Translantic accent? Because from what I remember that accent combines RP and Standard American Accent but non rhotic.
Very rhotic, Rochester, NY
I'm a bit odd, I like rhotic accents when spoken by men and non-rhotic accents spoken by women.
My tongue is short, the distance of the tip from the muscle that connects the tongue to the base of my mouth is non-existent, seriously there is no "bottom" of my tongue.. I can speak normally most of the time.. But sometimes if I talk really fast it sounds like I'm mumbling my words. And I can't pronounce the letter R, it sounds like a choked L.. 🤣🤣
My tongue is sgort, the distance of the tip from the muscle that connects the tongue to the base of my mouth is non-existent.. I can speak normally most of the time.. But sometimes if I talk really fast it sounds like I'm mumbling my words. And I can't pronounce the letter R, it sounds like a choked L.. 🤣🤣