🚀 go-pugleaf

mcovingt@aisun3.ai.uga.edu (Michael Covington) writes:


>What was the phonetic value of /r/ in French just before the change?
>Was this odd change something that happened along the way from an
>apical to a uvular r ?


Perhaps it was an apico-dental flap -- as in today's Spanish, or
the local pronunciation in Toulouse -- rather than the apico-
alveolar pronunciation described in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.

The evolution seems fairly natural: from flap (a "quick" stop,
as it were) to fricative, (fairly similar to English th, but
apico-dental instead of interdental), then grooved sibilant
([z]).

The evolution of an alveolar flap or trill into a uvular is
strange, but seems fairly widespread. It has taken place, 
for instance, in the language of Hiw Island (Vanuatu), and
is definitely not the effect of a French influence.