The Letter "r"

[stoutfellow]

This isn't anything important, but it's a phenomenon I've run into several times in the recent past, and I think it's interesting.

One of the great divisions of English is between "rhotic" and "non-rhotic" dialects. Non-rhotic dialects are those which weaken or omit "r" after vowels; most dialects of the Southern USA, and many dialects of British English are such. Generally, this presents no great difficulty to the ear or eye, but there's one situation in which it does have an impact. If a speaker of a non-rhotic dialect writes a non-standard word, especially if he's using eye-dialect ("Ah jist cain't unnerstan' 'im!"), what he writes can easily be misinterpreted by speakers of rhotic dialects. (NB: in the cases I'm about to describe, all of the writers are in fact male; hence the choice of pronoun.)

1) The Winnie-the-Pooh books feature a donkey by the name of Eeyore. Like most rhotic speakers (including the makers of the Disney movies), I've always pronounced the "r". But it was recently pointed out to me that A. A. Milne spoke a non-rhotic dialect. Now pronounce the name to yourself using an English accent. It makes a little more sense, doesn't it? (As an aside, the donkeys I've heard seem to say "haw-hee", not "hee-haw", but maybe that's just me.)

2) In the Uncle Remus stories, several characters are referred to as "Brer" - Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and the rest. Again, I have always pronounced this to rhyme with "rare". (Disney gets into the act again here.) But Joel Chandler Harris was a Southerner, and I have it on good authority that the correct pronunciation is closer to "bruh". (Compare "bro" today - or, for a more exotic analog, the use of "Fra" (< "frater") as a title for monks in medieval and Renaissance Italy.)

3) Turning to England, one sometimes sees the eye-dialect form "barmy". Once more, I needed to be reminded that the "r" is not pronounced (at least, not as an "r"). Giving it the correct pronunciation, I can see that it's really just a variant spelling - not a variant pronunciation - of "balmy". ("l" is almost as prone to being dropped, in certain contexts, as "r" is; compare "chalk", "talk", or - in some Southern dialects - "film" and "calm".)

It's not very significant, but I keep noticing things like this.

Comments

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

This was a most interesting linguistic post! I had never even thought of origin of name when I read/read aloud the books you use as illustrations. From this point of view, "Eeyore" does indeed sound more like a donkey bray. We probably all try to pronounce a foreign word or name when it is a different language, but as for changing the pronunciation for words in English from sources British, Scottish, Welsh, Australian, Indian English, et al., I'm not sure it would have occurred to me. I imagine there are a great number of examples out there, which would give us an additional insight into the character or author's thoughts were we only to pronounce the words *correctly!*

[filkferengi]

And we keep enjoying them when you do, so keep up the good work! :)

"How are the cute doggies in the household?" [ttto "How much is that doggie in the window?"]

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

I must admit that this stuff isn't original with me. The bit about "Eeyore" came up on ADS-L a couple of months ago, and the bit about "brer" likewise a day or two ago. My contribution was recognizing what was going on with "barmy" and then tying the three together.

The dogs are fine. They both look a little funny at the moment; the vet shaved a patch on their right front legs for the IV while they were out.

[coalboy.livejournal.com]

It was less than 5 years ago that I realized how onomatopoeic Eeyore's name is, since, as you do, I pronounced the "r". And I -know- it's more than 50 years since Pooh was first read to me.

[allyra.livejournal.com]

How interesting!

As a native Southerner, I always just assumed "Brer" was "Brother". Y'know, Bro Rabbit and Bro Fox. It never occured to me that anyone might pronounce it any other way.

Funny how these things are.

[rikkios.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the ideas.
Memory often plays games, but somehow I always thought it was Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Fox. I never thought about what the " ' " was replacing, but it fits well with brother.
Regarding pronunciation: I don't have my copy of the Uncle Remus stories (I think it's in that parallel universe with all them "r"s,) but I do recall that Uncle Remus' speech was written in dialect with most of the offending "r"s already removed. This led me to assume that "what you see is what you say". And if you read it out loud, brer (rhyming with rare) fits well.
BTW, your comment about "Bruh" provoked me into looking up "Bruh Rabbit" in the Internet and sure enough, there's a book "Bruh Rabbit And The Tar Baby Girl" in Amazon.
One question: How do you classify the people who put in an extra "r" after a vowel? e.g. "warsching machine" or our first president "George Warshington". This is supposed to be the influence of the Pennsylvannia Dutch who moved into Michigan. (The use of "supposed" means that I have no references to support this claim".) Are they r-rhotic?

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

I remembered it with the apostrophe but, being uncertain, I checked with the Britannica, which omits it.

As for the intrusive "r", I doubt that it's derived from the Pennsylvania Dutch, if for no other reason than that I and my siblings used it for a time in my childhood, and we've never lived in Pennsylvania or Michigan. (Come to think of it, though, this was shortly after my father's tour of duty in Germany...) The Oxford Guide to World English doesn't mention it anywhere, though. It may have arisen as a hypercorrection. I'll poke around and see what I can find out.