Re: "y" and "r" (Uusisuom)

Raymond Brown scripsit:

> I'm by no means an expert on Italian regional dialects, but I do understand
> that northern dialects are not immediately comprehensible to southern
> dialect speakers & vice-versa, i.e. there is a good deal of variation
> within Italy.
I think that there is no great barrier between northerners and southerners
*when both are speaking Standard Italian*.  But of course people in both
North and South often speak their so-called local dialects, which really amount
to separate languages -- indeed, far northern Italian dialects are
really Gallo-Romance rather than Italo-Romance at all.

> I was under the impression that there was some sort of notional "general
> American", but I may be mistaken.
"General American" is the name of a specific regional variety.  It has
a broader distribution than the other regional varieties, but it is not
truly "general".  Furthermore, it does not have special status in
the other regions.

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore
        --Douglas Hofstadter

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