Re: Indo-European question

> X-Accept-Language: en
> Date:         Mon, 18 Jun 2001 21:10:31 -0400
> From: Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
>
> jesse stephen bangs wrote:
> > More Linguistic Urban Legends: I had a Spanish teacher who insisted that
> > the [T] in Castilian Spanish arose because of a king that had a lisp, and
> > insisted that everyone around him talk the same way.  This is absurd
> > enough that it falls apart right away--there are still plenty of [s]'s in
> > Castilian Spanish, and so that king must have had an awfully selective
> > lisp.
>
> Yeah, I've heard that story too.  Awful odd that he consistently
> pronounced the *letter* {s} as /s/, but {z/c} as /T/.  Besides, I'd
> think that king wouldn't appreciate people mimicking him.  :-)
How about if he consistently pronounced the unvoiced sound as /s/, and
the voiced one as /T/? Some people find /s/ much easier to pronounce
than /z/.

It's not unusual for a group --- especially teens --- to adopt a
variant pronunciation of some sound, as a combination joke and social
symbol; it's often hard to say how each particular instance gets
started, but the factors that keep it alive are not mysterious.

If such a group happens to be influential in local society, the change
can move from in-group to prestige speech, and thence to universal
use. It's very likely that the uvular R of Europe got started in this
way among young aristocrats in Paris in mid-18th century --- and now
it's spread to mid-Sweden and the Pyrenees, IIRC.

But it takes a very rare combination of favourable circumstances and
random factors coming out right for such a thing to happen --- most
times such usages disappear without a trace after a few years when the
group dissolves.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)

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