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Thomas Burke is correct - British sounds are a form of lingering
Germanic accent. English was originally an ancient, low-German dialect,
the language of the Angles and the Saxons, originally from what is now
northeastern Holland, northwestern Germany, and southwestern Denmark.
So British sounds like the silent R's after E's and A's (Robber,
Darling, Barter = Robba, Dahling, Bahta) and the R sound after a final A
are echoes of that Germanic linguistic heritage. In modern German, you
hear the same phenomenon with these same sound combinations (Bier [Beer]
= Beeah, Martin = Mahtin).
In North American English, there are very few places where this
phenomenon still occurs - mainly in Boston where they say Hahvahd for
Harvard, and Pahty for Party. Elsewhere in North America, most of us
have replaced those final sounds with prounounced R's or no additional
sound after a final A.
Hope this helps!
Robert
-----Original Message-----
From: Linda Cast
Roberto in Toronto wrote:
The Economist style guide - very good run-through of British usage -
check out the Americanisms section and the online quiz! http://www.economist.com/research/StyleGuide/ - I highly recommend the
book, too.
Linda wrote:
The article on this site is warm and amusing, though I couldn't always
tell which was intended as the American word and which UK. What I long
to know is, what's the origin of the sound of the final "A" on many
words that stretches to reach a breathy "AR" sound (as in Cynthiahr)?
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