Re: USAGE: rhotics (was: Advanced English + Babel text)

----- Original Message -----
From: "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@...>

> On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 19:29:30 -0500, Sally Caves <scaves@...>
> wrote:
>
>>Actually, I didn't really believe my friend.  He said my "r" pronunciation
>>in German wasn't "robust" enough, but sounded French.
>
> I fear we'll never know what he meant...
His most common schtick with me is teasing criticism.  That's fine.

>>  Actually, I think my
>>best linguistic gifts lie in phonic mimicry.  (Which is why I thought of
>>becoming an actress in my late teens).  I have a very good ear for
>>pronunciations and can usually reproduce them pretty well, which has
>>gotten
>>me in trouble a few times when my rapid comprehension was not up to my
>>speaking.
>
> A most remarkable and seldom gift! I've known A Swiss German who told me
> that native speaker of Spanish had taken him for mentally challenged
> because
> of his lack of vocabulary.
Ha!  Yeah, that's the problem.  You have some basic vocabulary and some
useful phrases, but you speak them well.  Then no defenses to muster against
charges of idiocy.  But I usually have some trace of an accent.  I prided
myself, though, in Geneva in being able to hide my American heritage.
People usually asked me if I was from Britain or Germany.  Had to practice,
then, on my plosives.

Is mimicry of pronunciation that remarkable?  I'm fairly good at accents,
too, but not flawless.  A lot of Americans like to make fun of a southern
accent, assuming that it is monolithic and not multifarious and regional.  I
realize that this is the same of England and its variations, and if one is
going to "adopt" an English accent, she should listen closely to one region,
or even just one person, and copy that, not just copy the copies of British
accents.  I'm not sure Renee Zellweger was entirely convincing in _Bridget
Jones Diary_. she sounded just a little too "plummy."  ??  But it's easier
for me to gauge British mimicry of American accents.

Our actor Billy Bob Thornton (born in Arkansas) gave a hilarious interview,
mimicking actors mimicking a southern accent (he's a pro--he's one of the
most versatile actors I've ever seen and I like him best in _Pushing Tin_
and _Slingblade_).  "What the hell kinda accent is that?" he says, of his
mimicry of a mimicked southern accent.  I've always admired actors, like
Helen Mirren and especially Toni Collette, who can fool me into thinking
they are American.  Collette does a working class Philly accent in The Sixth
Sense, and a more generic American accent in _Changing Places_.  Oh!  And
Kenneth Branach!  He was a major character in _Dead Again_ and I couldn't
put my finger on what was different about him.  Bingo!  He had not the
slightest trace of a British accent!  I don't think Anthony Hopkins was
quite as good in _Nixon_.

>>> I've always thought of the German non-rhoticity to
>>> be related to the uvular realization of the /r/, but that might be
>>> wrong.
>>
>>It might be right.  I've heard "der" pronounced as though it rhymes with
>>British English "hair."
>
> German |her| and non-rhotic English |hair| may both be [hE6]
>
>>> By the way, I assume that English also had a trill-flap /r/ originally,
>>> but is there any evidence on the time it was fricativized?
>>
>>I'm unsure what you mean by fricativized when speaking of British English
>>pronunciation.  Do you mean "flapped"?  Retroflex?
>
> I should have said 'approximazed' (or something alike). For what I know,
> English /r/ may be retroflex, but not necessarily, but it's almost always
> an
> approximant [r\], not a trill-tap (as e.g. in Scots).
Do you mean the retroflex "r" that is not as exaggerated a sound as American
retroflex "r," and spoken by a lot of Brits?  I hear that most often.  Less
often do I hear the "r" flapped, as in "very" or "horrid"; does it strike
some British speakers as uppish and elite?

>>Are you Swiss?  Do you or have you live(d) in Switzerland?
>
> Yes, I do, I live in Berne and speak Bernese German.
I had a very pleasant visit to Berne.  We went in December of 1985.  We
clocked the time it took for the signs to change from "sortie" to "Ausfahrt"
on the Autobahn.  We fed carrots to the bears, all of them very antic, and I
took a picture of my friend next to a wall near the bear pit that had
graffiti written on it: Ba"r oder nicht Ba"r: das ist hier die Frage.  I
have a picture here of store on a corner (a no entry sign on the street).
The building has a corner tower on it next to an arcade.  Painted on the
cement wall is "Apotheke und Drogerie: Scheidegger," and above it is a mural
of customers dressed in seventeenth century clothing.  IS THAT STILL THERE?

I spent an hour inside a Berne toy shop drooling over a little toy Apotheke
all lit up by electric light.  I think it might have been in the pharmacy: I
see from my photograph that is has an attached corner tower.  From the
bridge, the old town looked like a toy itself, with its clock tower,
steeples, and shining shop windows.  I had no Schwiizertu"tsche, much less
the Bernese German, but they understood hochdeutsch, of course, and also
French and English.  I bought a sweater that I have to this day.  It's
beginning to get a little threadbare, but I can't bear to throw it away.
I'll ask my friend if she remembers more about our day trip to Berne.  I
took some lovely pictures of architecture, some very notable gargoyles, and
I wish we could have stayed longer.

Sally

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