Re: OT: Latin subject-verb agreement

Jeff Rollin wrote:
> In the last episode, (On Thursday 13 December 2007 21:24:43), T. A. McLeay
> wrote:
>> Likewise, it's worth noting that "aren't" could develop from "amn't" by
>> purely phonetic processes in non-rhotic dialects---the orthography, as
>> ever, misleads---and then be generalised to rhotic ones, much as
>> Americans put an /r/ in Burma and Myanmar that was never there before.
>>
>> --
>> Tristan.
>
> AFAIK the /r/ in "Myanmar" and the first /r/ in "Burma" have always been there
> (for people with rhotic accents, anyhoo); I suppose it's possible some people
> pronounce "Burma" as "Burmar" though.
The Burmese words for "Burma" and "Myanmar" contain no /r/.* For
instance, "Myanmar" is "Myanma" in Burmese, and "Burma" is "Bama". The
<r> represents a low tone because low tones are long and long /a:/ is
represented in non-rhotic English as <ar>. Americans pronounce an /r/
that does not exist in the original word, because it is based on an
orthography not intended for them.

[*]: Historically the my- of "Myanmar" was mr-