Is BBC English non-rhotic ?

[Mbruno]

I was told BBC news anchors were supposed to use Received
Pronunciation, which is in turn supposed to be non-rhotic. However,
listening to BBC World, I clearly hear /r/, even in final position and
when it is not followed by a vowel sound. Do I have a "bad ear" or has
the BBC changed its standard pronunciation ? Thanks for the info.

[Christopher Culver]

Post by Mbruno
I was told BBC news anchors were supposed to use Received
Pronunciation, which is in turn supposed to be non-rhotic. However,
listening to BBC World, I clearly hear /r/, even in final position
and when it is not followed by a vowel sound. Do I have a "bad ear"
or has the BBC changed its standard pronunciation ?

The BBC changed its standard pronunciation over the last couple of
decades. Actually, there really isn't much of a standard anymore,
though it seems speakers of RP aren't especially welcome anymore.

Christopher Culver

[Paul J Kriha]

Post by Christopher Culver

Post by Mbruno
I was told BBC news anchors were supposed to use Received
Pronunciation, which is in turn supposed to be non-rhotic. However,
listening to BBC World, I clearly hear /r/, even in final position
and when it is not followed by a vowel sound. Do I have a "bad ear"
or has the BBC changed its standard pronunciation ?

The BBC changed its standard pronunciation over the last couple of
decades. Actually, there really isn't much of a standard anymore,
though it seems speakers of RP aren't especially welcome anymore.
Christopher Culver

In recent years, I get the impression that it's perfectly in order
for them to exhibit a clearly audible speech impediment of one
kind or another. It seems to be compulsory for the weather forecasters.
:-)
Anything goes, slured speech, mangled sibilants, shibilants....
pjk

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Christopher Culver

Post by Mbruno
I was told BBC news anchors were supposed to use Received
Pronunciation, which is in turn supposed to be non-rhotic. However,
listening to BBC World, I clearly hear /r/, even in final position
and when it is not followed by a vowel sound. Do I have a "bad ear"
or has the BBC changed its standard pronunciation ?

The BBC changed its standard pronunciation over the last couple of
decades. Actually, there really isn't much of a standard anymore,
though it seems speakers of RP aren't especially welcome anymore.

Considering that there are no, or nearly no, native speakers of RP, it
seems a wise policy. But surely it predates 1986?

[JBDP]

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Considering that there are no, or nearly no, native speakers of RP

???

I and my siblings are native speakers of RP, as are my mother and her
sister.

(These days, though, I'd describe my speech as "degraded RP.)

-- jP --

[Vaughan]

Post by JBDP

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Considering that there are no, or nearly no, native speakers of RP

???
I and my siblings are native speakers of RP, as are my mother and her
sister.
(These days, though, I'd describe my speech as "degraded RP.)
-- jP --

Just out of interest, that sentence above seemed very 'clunky' (no offence)!
It seems smoother to write:

My siblings and I are native speakers of RP, as is my mother and her sister.

However, is my rewrite grammatically correct? In particular the 'are', with
regard to mother and her sister, seemed to jar. Is replacing it with 'is'
ok?

[Brian M. Scott]

On Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:11:46 GMT, Vaughan <***@vorn.com>
wrote in

Post by Vaughan

Post by JBDP

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Considering that there are no, or nearly no, native speakers of RP

???
I and my siblings are native speakers of RP, as are my mother and her
sister.
(These days, though, I'd describe my speech as "degraded RP.)

Just out of interest, that sentence above seemed very 'clunky' (no offence)!
My siblings and I are native speakers of RP, as is my mother and her sister.

'My siblings and I', yes; replacing the 'are' with 'is',
however, turns a mildly awkward sentence into one that's
positively wince-worthy.

Post by Vaughan
However, is my rewrite grammatically correct? In
particular the 'are', with regard to mother and her
sister, seemed to jar.

I can't imagine saying anything else there.

Post by Vaughan
Is replacing it with 'is' ok?

Not for me.

Brian

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by JBDP

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Considering that there are no, or nearly no, native speakers of RP

???
I and my siblings are native speakers of RP, as are my mother and her
sister.

I find that rather hard to believe.

Are you Prince Charles or Prince Andrew?

Post by JBDP
(These days, though, I'd describe my speech as "degraded RP.)

[Brian M. Scott]

On Wed, 28 Jun 2006 01:29:14 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by JBDP

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Considering that there are no, or nearly no, native speakers of RP

???
I and my siblings are native speakers of RP, as are my mother and her
sister.

I find that rather hard to believe.
Are you Prince Charles or Prince Andrew?

The Queen doesn't speak RP, but I see no reason to doubt
that others still do, and natively at that.

[...]

Brian

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Brian M. Scott
On Wed, 28 Jun 2006 01:29:14 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by JBDP

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Considering that there are no, or nearly no, native speakers of RP

???
I and my siblings are native speakers of RP, as are my mother and her
sister.

I find that rather hard to believe.
Are you Prince Charles or Prince Andrew?

The Queen doesn't speak RP, but I see no reason to doubt
that others still do, and natively at that.

I'd prefer hearing that from an English dialectologist.

The Queen by definition speaks the Queen's English, on which RP is
modeled.

[Paul J Kriha]

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by Brian M. Scott
On Wed, 28 Jun 2006 01:29:14 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"

Post by Peter T. Daniels

Post by JBDP

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Considering that there are no, or nearly no, native speakers of RP

???
I and my siblings are native speakers of RP, as are my mother and her
sister.

I find that rather hard to believe.
Are you Prince Charles or Prince Andrew?

The Queen doesn't speak RP, but I see no reason to doubt
that others still do, and natively at that.

I'd prefer hearing that from an English dialectologist.
The Queen by definition speaks the Queen's English, on which RP is
modeled.
Peter T. Daniels

I don't think so. If anything, it's the other way around. Isn't it?
pjk

[SherLok Merfy]

Post by Mbruno
I was told BBC news anchors were supposed to use Received
Pronunciation, which is in turn supposed to be non-rhotic. However,
listening to BBC World, I clearly hear /r/, even in final position and
when it is not followed by a vowel sound. Do I have a "bad ear" or has
the BBC changed its standard pronunciation ? Thanks for the info.

I sometimes wonder if non-rhotic speakers know that they're dropping
awrs.
I usually spell "thought" as "thot", and I remember a Kiwi spelling it
as "thort" to indicate how she said it.
What I would expect from a Kiwi is more along the lines of "thoht".

[Nigel Greenwood]

Post by SherLok Merfy
I sometimes wonder if non-rhotic speakers know that they're dropping
awrs.
I usually spell "thought" as "thot", and I remember a Kiwi spelling it
as "thort" to indicate how she said it.
What I would expect from a Kiwi is more along the lines of "thoht".

There's a fair amount of confusion on the BBC, leading to "I sore it"
(saw) & "Maria rand I" coexisting with the pompous hypercorrection "Fah
East".

Nigel

--
ScriptMaster language resources (Chinese/Modern & Classical
Greek/IPA/Persian/Russian/Turkish):
http://www.elgin.free-online.co.uk

[Neeraj Mathur]

Post by Nigel Greenwood

Post by SherLok Merfy
I sometimes wonder if non-rhotic speakers know that they're dropping
awrs.
I usually spell "thought" as "thot", and I remember a Kiwi spelling it
as "thort" to indicate how she said it.
What I would expect from a Kiwi is more along the lines of "thoht".

There's a fair amount of confusion on the BBC, leading to "I sore it"
(saw) & "Maria rand I" coexisting with the pompous hypercorrection "Fah
East".

I don't think this is a 'pompous hypercorrection' at all. My observations of
British dialects of the well-educated over these last few years is that the
non-rhotic ones fall neatly into two camps. The first insert an [r] sound as
a glide between two vowels over a word-break. The second never have any [r]
in that position. I have never met somebody who consistently has an [r]
where it matches a rhotic varieties word-final /r/ and does not otherwise -
although the vast majority of speakers believe that this is what they do. If
you listen carefully, you will almost never find somebody who has a
consistent difference between 'the law is ...' and 'the lore is ...' (or
more common words and phrases, of course).

The fact that so many people believe they make a difference is often
confirmed by occasional instances of making the difference; these are best
considered spelling-pronunciations, since at other moments, when they're not
paying attention, they revert to one of the two camps. (I'm not sure yet if
a single person switches between these two in ordinary circumstances.)

Incidentally, what you call the 'pompous hypercorrection' - the lack of
[r] - is decidedly less common amongst those from the highest social strata,
who prefer the opposite.

Neeraj Mathur

[Nigel Greenwood]

".

Post by Neeraj Mathur

Post by Nigel Greenwood
There's a fair amount of confusion on the BBC, leading to "I sore it"
(saw) & "Maria rand I" coexisting with the pompous hypercorrection "Fah
East".

I don't think this is a 'pompous hypercorrection' at all. My observations of
British dialects of the well-educated over these last few years is that the
non-rhotic ones fall neatly into two camps. The first insert an [r] sound as
a glide between two vowels over a word-break. The second never have any [r]
in that position.

You're probably right. I haven't studied it that closely.

Post by Neeraj Mathur
Incidentally, what you call the 'pompous hypercorrection' - the lack of
[r] - is decidedly less common amongst those from the highest social strata,
who prefer the opposite.

I don't recall ever hearing anyone except that BBC announcer say "Fah
East". But then I probably spend too much time in the rhotic
Gloucestershire!

Nigel

--
ScriptMaster language resources (Chinese/Modern & Classical
Greek/IPA/Persian/Russian/Turkish):
http://www.elgin.free-online.co.uk

[Seán O'Leathlóbhair]

Post by Neeraj Mathur

Post by Nigel Greenwood

Post by SherLok Merfy
I sometimes wonder if non-rhotic speakers know that they're dropping
awrs.
I usually spell "thought" as "thot", and I remember a Kiwi spelling it
as "thort" to indicate how she said it.
What I would expect from a Kiwi is more along the lines of "thoht".

There's a fair amount of confusion on the BBC, leading to "I sore it"
(saw) & "Maria rand I" coexisting with the pompous hypercorrection "Fah
East".

I don't think this is a 'pompous hypercorrection' at all. My observations of
British dialects of the well-educated over these last few years is that the
non-rhotic ones fall neatly into two camps. The first insert an [r] sound as
a glide between two vowels over a word-break. The second never have any [r]
in that position. I have never met somebody who consistently has an [r]
where it matches a rhotic varieties word-final /r/ and does not otherwise -
although the vast majority of speakers believe that this is what they do. If
you listen carefully, you will almost never find somebody who has a
consistent difference between 'the law is ...' and 'the lore is ...' (or
more common words and phrases, of course).

That is my experience as well. Consistently distinguishing 'the law is
...' and 'the lore is ...' is almost certainly deliberate and
artificial. If you listen carefully to someone who claims to do this,
you will probably find a mistake soon enough. Of course, they will be
reluctant to believe it.

Post by Neeraj Mathur
The fact that so many people believe they make a difference is often
confirmed by occasional instances of making the difference; these are best
considered spelling-pronunciations, since at other moments, when they're not
paying attention, they revert to one of the two camps. (I'm not sure yet if
a single person switches between these two in ordinary circumstances.)

I think that I am in the "never" camp. In certain circumstances, I
will make an effort to do it "properly" and use linking "r" where
indicated by the spelling but this is not natural.

The French treatment 'liaison' of many final consonants is similar, how
common are errors among native French speakers?

Post by Neeraj Mathur
Incidentally, what you call the 'pompous hypercorrection' - the lack of
[r] - is decidedly less common amongst those from the highest social strata,
who prefer the opposite.

--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair

[Neeraj Mathur]

Post by Seán O'Leathlóbhair
I think that I am in the "never" camp. In certain circumstances, I
will make an effort to do it "properly" and use linking "r" where
indicated by the spelling but this is not natural.
The French treatment 'liaison' of many final consonants is similar, how
common are errors among native French speakers?

I'm not sure about the errors; the French liaison is interesting in other
ways too. It sometimes seems that the 'default' inserted consonant is [t],
as suggested by forms like 'a-t-il', where it is completely
non-etymological. So a question we might ask about French speakers, to test
if the phenomenon is similar to the invasive English [r], is how often a [t]
is inserted regardless of the etymological consonant, if any.

Neeraj Mathur

[Nigel Greenwood]

Post by Neeraj Mathur

Post by Seán O'Leathlóbhair
The French treatment 'liaison' of many final consonants is similar, how
common are errors among native French speakers?

I'm not sure about the errors; the French liaison is interesting in other
ways too. It sometimes seems that the 'default' inserted consonant is [t],
as suggested by forms like 'a-t-il', where it is completely
non-etymological. So a question we might ask about French speakers, to test
if the phenomenon is similar to the invasive English [r], is how often a [t]
is inserted regardless of the etymological consonant, if any.

The "fausse liaison", inserting a [t], is referred to as "pataquès",
ostensibly imitating the garbled phrase "je ne sais pas-t-à
qu'est-ce". The inserted consonant is perhaps equally often [s] or
[z], as in Les Quat'z Arts (for Les Quatre Arts), by analogy with les
Beaux Arts (/bozaR/). Another example is "Les Grands Zéros" for "Les
Grands Héros", where the H is not supposed to have a liaison

Nigel

--
ScriptMaster language resources (Chinese/Modern & Classical
Greek/IPA/Persian/Russian/Turkish):
http://www.elgin.free-online.co.uk
.

[Christian Weisgerber]

Post by Neeraj Mathur
I'm not sure about the errors; the French liaison is interesting in other
ways too. It sometimes seems that the 'default' inserted consonant is [t],
as suggested by forms like 'a-t-il', where it is completely
non-etymological.

Isn't that simply by analogy with those verbs in -t?

[Nigel Greenwood]

Post by Seán O'Leathlóbhair
That is my experience as well. Consistently distinguishing 'the law is
...' and 'the lore is ...' is almost certainly deliberate and
artificial. If you listen carefully to someone who claims to do this,
you will probably find a mistake soon enough. Of course, they will be
reluctant to believe it.

I ought to come clean & confess that I'm only a semi-native speaker of
British English, having come from Canada at the age of 10. I think I'm
right in saying that the intrusive "r" never occurs in Canadian speech,
which is why it struck -- & to some extent still strikes -- me as so
odd.

About 20 years ago I contributed a few words to the OED, one of which
was the chess term "drawish" (tending to lead to a draw). I was
surprised to see that in the NSOED the pronunciation is given as
/"drO:(r)IS/ -- but then again, I suppose many people would indeed
rhyme it with "moreish".

Nigel

--
ScriptMaster language resources (Chinese/Modern & Classical
Greek/IPA/Persian/Russian/Turkish):
http://www.elgin.free-online.co.uk

[Nigel Greenwood]

Apologies for a rather belated follow-up.

Post by Neeraj Mathur

Post by Nigel Greenwood
There's a fair amount of confusion on the BBC, leading to "I sore it"
(saw) & "Maria rand I" coexisting with the pompous hypercorrection "Fah
East".

I don't think this is a 'pompous hypercorrection' at all. My observations of
British dialects of the well-educated over these last few years is that the
non-rhotic ones fall neatly into two camps. The first insert an [r] sound as
a glide between two vowels over a word-break. The second never have any [r]
in that position.

I suppose that the non-standard, but stubbornly persisting, UK variant
spelling "non-curricula" (as in "non-curricula activities") is a sort
of back-formation based on the assumption that the /r/ is an
intervocalic glide. Would that be a correct analysis?

Nigel

--
ScriptMaster language resources (Chinese/Modern & Classical
Greek/IPA/Persian/Russian/Turkish):
http://www.elgin.free-online.co.uk

[Seán O'Leathlóbhair]

Post by SherLok Merfy

Post by Mbruno
I was told BBC news anchors were supposed to use Received
Pronunciation, which is in turn supposed to be non-rhotic. However,
listening to BBC World, I clearly hear /r/, even in final position and
when it is not followed by a vowel sound. Do I have a "bad ear" or has
the BBC changed its standard pronunciation ? Thanks for the info.

I sometimes wonder if non-rhotic speakers know that they're dropping
awrs.
I usually spell "thought" as "thot", and I remember a Kiwi spelling it
as "thort" to indicate how she said it.
What I would expect from a Kiwi is more along the lines of "thoht".

My experience is that few non-rhotic speakers realise and they can be
very reluctant to believe it when told. Several times, it has taken me
a long time to convince them. I have even experienced this with infant
teachers who teach reading and writing. If you have several sceptics
then you can prepare trick sentences using words such as "pores" and
"paws" and demonstrate that they can't consistently distinguish them.

Using r to indicate vowel quality is very common. It is even used in
transliterations of other languages, most transliterations of Thai do
it. Thai does not have final "r" or "r" before a consonant (a written
r sounds like n in this context) yet you would not know this from
typical transliterations.

--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair

[Richard Wordingham]

Post by Seán O'Leathlóbhair
Using r to indicate vowel quality is very common. It is even used in
transliterations of other languages, most transliterations of Thai do
it. Thai does not have final "r" or "r" before a consonant (a written
r sounds like n in this context) yet you would not know this from
typical transliterations.

Actually, there does seem to be some correlation between the presence
of a final "r" or penultimate "r" in the Thai spelling and its use in
informal transliteration to indicate the vowel. Thus you have "Nakorn"
'city' (final "r" pronunced /n/, but also influencing the Thai vowel
sound) and "Samart" 'capable', also a brand name (penultimate "r" - the
vowel is already long in Sanskrit). Some authors (I hesitate to say
schemes) seems to use "aa" when there is no "r" in the Thai and "ar"
when there is an "r" in the Thai.

Richard.

[j***@yahoo.com]

Post by Richard Wordingham

Post by Seán O'Leathlóbhair
Using r to indicate vowel quality is very common. It is even used in
transliterations of other languages, most transliterations of Thai do
it. Thai does not have final "r" or "r" before a consonant (a written
r sounds like n in this context) yet you would not know this from
typical transliterations.

Actually, there does seem to be some correlation between the presence
of a final "r" or penultimate "r" in the Thai spelling and its use in
informal transliteration to indicate the vowel. Thus you have "Nakorn"
'city' (final "r" pronunced /n/, but also influencing the Thai vowel
sound) and "Samart" 'capable', also a brand name (penultimate "r" - the
vowel is already long in Sanskrit). Some authors (I hesitate to say
schemes) seems to use "aa" when there is no "r" in the Thai and "ar"
when there is an "r" in the Thai.

Interesting, I have not researched it that carefully. After noticing
this, and many other typical defects of most transliterations, I gave
up using transliterations and decided to learn the Thai alphabet.

Indeed, in many cases, a silent "r" in the transliteration matches a
silent "r" in the Thai. I will need to think for a while to find an
example of silent "r" in the transliteration but not in the Thai. Do
you think that this is the motivation for the scheme? I had presumed
that the transliterations were devised by non-rhotic English speakers.
Poor phrase books for other languages sometimes do this as well. I
have got tired of these odd schemes, if a language's own script is not
simple enough to learn quickly, I try to find books that use IPA.

I don't recall see "aa" much but the currency is normally spelt "Baht"
rather than "Bart" so you may be right.

--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair