Rhoticity in English

People speak English in many different ways across the globe. One major way to group these accents is through rhoticity. This term describes how people pronounce the letter R. In rhotic accents, the R sound is always heard. This includes most speakers in Scotland, Ireland, the United States, and Canada.

In non-rhotic accents, the R sound often disappears. This happens when the R follows a vowel and is not followed by another vowel. For example, a rhotic speaker says "hard" with a clear R. A non-rhotic speaker might "drop" that sound instead. However, they might use a "linking R" if the next word starts with a vowel. This is why "better apples" might still have an R sound in the middle.

How these sounds change can be quite interesting to study. When the R sound is dropped, the vowel before it often changes. This is sometimes called compensatory lengthening. It means the vowel becomes longer to make up for the missing R. In some accents, the R might even appear where it was not written. This is called an "intrusive R." You might hear someone say "the idea-r-of it" instead of "the idea of it."

Some people also add a small sound between vowels. They might say "drawring" instead of "drawing." These small shifts change the music of how people talk.

This way of speaking has a very long history. The loss of the R sound began sporadically in England during the mid-15th century. At first, these different spellings were very uncommon. They were mostly found in private papers written by women. By the mid-17th century, some writers noted the R sound was weakening. Ben Jonson wrote in 1640 that the R was firm at the start of words. He said it was more "liquid" in the middle and at the ends. By the 1740s, the R was often deleted entirely after certain vowels.

By the early 19th century, the standard speech in southern England had changed completely.

These changes traveled across the ocean to America. In the 18th century, British influence shaped many American port cities. Places like New York City, Boston, and Charleston became non-rhotic. This style was once seen as very prestigious and high-class. However, the American Civil War in the 1860s began to change things. Wealth and power moved to areas that were rhotic. After World War II, rhotic speech became the new standard. This happened because of mass media like radio, film, and television.

Now, the rhotic R is the most common way to speak in American media.

Today, we can see these patterns all over the world. You can find stable rhotic and non-rhotic dialects in India and Pakistan. You can also find them in the Caribbean. In the United States, non-rhotic speech is now often linked to different social factors. It is sometimes found in informal settings or among certain age groups. In the South, the strong R sound has become very dominant since the mid-20th century. Even in places like New York, the old non-rhotic way is declining.

Every time we listen to someone, we are hearing a piece of this long history.