Re: Spanish /rr/ (was Re: IPA / SAMPA question)

Roger wrote:

>>There is, of course, some dialectal variation, i.e. mountain dialects in
>>Ecuador and Southern Colombia (Peru?), pronounce /rr/ as [Z] or [z`].
>Interesting!! And anywhere else, do you know?? Any idea how it originated??
It originated with Quechua speakers being unable to pronounce the trilled /rr/.
The interesting thing is that they do it with Spaninsh loans ('rr' and word initial 'r')
and with word- (or even root-)final 'r', e.g. 'yawar' "blood" ['yawar\'].

>That pronunciation also occurs in some provincial areas of Argentina; e.g.
>in Tucumán I was told I could change money at [la'kasa 'ZeZes] and was
>completely flummoxed until the lady pointed down the street to a sign,
>REYES.  At cabarets etc. in Buenos Aires, comedians made fun of it.  Arg.
>linguist-friends claimed it's not the same as the [Z] = |y, ll|, but has
>still some kind of rhotic quality (maybe more retroflexed)-- they cited
>Czech r-hacek as comparable. Anyhow, I couldn't produce the sound to their
>satisfaction.
They pronounce it retroflex, to my ears almost like in Chinese 'ren' and is indeed
distinctive from [Z].
So I would transcribe the above to [la'kasa 'r\'eZes].


Rob