The pronunciation of Ancient Greek is a fascinating story that stretches from the epic Homeric legends through Classical Greece and Rome to the modern era. How did the sound of Greek change from early to late antiquity to the Mediaeval period to the present? In this series of videos, I will answer those questions, and many more! 🇬🇷 🏺 Lucian Pronunciation of Ancient Greek: ruclips.net/video/Dt9z5Gvp3MM/видео.html 📄 Ancient Greek Pronunciation Guide: bit.ly/ranierigreekpronunciationguide ▶️ Ancient Greek Pronunciation playlist: ruclips.net/p/PLQQL5IeNgck0hFZ5oEfTV1Zhp_xksAgCz 🗞 My newsletter/blog discussing the importance of pronunciation in working with ancient languages like Ancient Greek: lukeranieri.com/newsletter_2021-02-11/ 🐢 Learn Ancient Greek with my Comprehensible Input video series Ancient Greek in Action! ruclips.net/p/PLU1WuLg45SixsonRdfNNv-CPNq8xUwgam 👨🏫 Luke Ranieri presents (in Latin! subtitles in English) his research on Latin & Greek Pronunciation Evolution 500 BC to 500 AD "Vōcēs quae per saecula inmūtantur" (Living Latin & Ancient Greek in New York City 2020): ruclips.net/video/c_Giy_LHAlU/видео.html 🕰 Ranieri's Greek Pronunciation Chronology Spreadsheet: bit.ly/ranierigreekpronunciation 📺 Dialect VS Language (polýMATHY video): ruclips.net/video/zUlNhs8rJ_g/видео.html • Free Ancient Greek audio in Lucian Pronunciation • 👨🌾 Athenaze www.patreon.com/posts/36186862 🏺 Polis www.patreon.com/posts/45481663 🕵️♂️ Kataskopos www.patreon.com/posts/42738514 References used in this video: Vox Graeca by W. Sydney Allen: amzn.to/3qFL0IK Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers by Horrocks: amzn.to/3qNzAmj Social Variation and the Latin Language by J.N. Adams: amzn.to/2ZC4an4 Spell It Out, history of English orthography by David Crystal: amzn.to/3pJpHVl Occurrences of “Alexandrēa” in Roman Latin literature: latin.packhum.org/search?q=alexandrea Occurrences of “Alexandrīa” in Roman Latin literature: latin.packhum.org/search?q=alexandria And by Cicero: latin.packhum.org/search?q=%5Bcic%5D+alexandrea latin.packhum.org/search?q=%5Bcic%5D+alexandria @Paleogloss Raphael Turrigiano's channel: ruclips.net/channel/UC_rRxsAwe9nNvI-bHcXraQw Join this channel to get access to perks: ruclips.net/channel/UCLbiwlm3poGNh5XSVlXBkGAjoin 🦂 Support my work on Patreon: www.patreon.com/LukeRanieri ☕️ Support my work with PayPal: paypal.me/lukeranieri 📚 Luke Ranieri Audiobooks: luke-ranieri.myshopify.com 🏛 Ancient Greek in Action · Free Greek Lessons: ruclips.net/p/PLU1WuLg45SixsonRdfNNv-CPNq8xUwgam 👨🏫 My Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata playlist · Free Latin Lessons: ruclips.net/video/j7hd799IznU/видео.html 🦂 ScorpioMartianus (my channel *entirely* in Latin & Ancient Greek) ruclips.net/user/polymathyluke 🎙 Luke Ranieri ASMR in Latin: ruclips.net/user/LukeRanieriASMR 🌍 polýMATHY website: lukeranieri.com/polymathy/ 😊 polýMATHY on Facebook: facebook.com/lukepolymath 🐦 polýMATHY on Twitter: twitter.com/LukePolymath/ 🎮 Join the Discord community: discord.gg/u4PN2u2 🌅 polýMATHY on Instagram: instagram.com/lukeranieri/ 🦁 Legio XIII Latin Language Podcast: ruclips.net/user/LegioXIII 🎙 Hundreds of hours of Latin & Greek audio: lukeranieri.com/audio 👕 Merch: teespring.com/stores/scorpiomartianus 🦂 www.ScorpioMartianus.com 🦅 www.LukeRanieri.com ☕️ Supported in part by LanguageMugs.com : languagemugs.com/shop/?wpam_id=11 📖 My book Ranieri Reverse Recall on Amazon: amzn.to/2nVUfqd 00:00 Intro 00:32 ρ in Modern Greek 01:13 Difference between single R and double RR 02:20 Learn how to roll your Rs! 04:17 Why distinguishing single R and double RR is *so important* 04:49 How to trill the R 06:30 Don't trill your R too much! 10:17 Initial R 12:28 Latin rh, rhh for Ancient Greek ῥ, ῤῥ 14:22 Difference between voiced and voiceless consonants 19:22 The marking of ῤῥ 21:00 Portuguese comparison 22:49 Why this matters 24:45 stinger
@@Glassandcandy and how is your Japanese? Because most Americans struggle with their unconscious iotization-dyphthongization in Japanese as well, pronouncing sensee (written se n se i but actually being se n se e sounds) as senseyyy, onee as oneyyy. Japanese plus some Spanish/Italian should do.
@@Glassandcandy this could be that hidden double sword. Since AmEnglish pronounces many sounds differently in different places, this might be a subconscious reason for treating any sound in this flexible nature and often choosing a wrong variation and not seeing the difference. English phonetics are so weird, compared to a typical generic language, seems so at least. Japanese is total opposite, though it to had a history of few weird pronunciation changes.
By the way, if you want to hear a really bad ancient Greek accent try to listen to the buffoon Boris Johnson reciting the Homeric poems. He doesn't use Erasmian or (God forbid) modern Greek accent, he uses something totally incomprehensible. He claims to be an expert in ancient Greek but he's not always precise in his claims (he also claims to be an expert in politics).
I can't believe it! I'm a native greek speaker, I'm learning ancient greek at school and I'm watching a video in english about how to pronounce a letter I learned when I was 2!!! Thank you!!
Just as classics departments are killed in colleges and universities all over the country and indeed all over the world we see this incredible refinement in educational skills exemplified by your excellent videos.
For Finnish children, when learning to speak the letter "R" (Rolled) is often the most difficult. The way to get them motivated is to tell them they're allowed to say a swear word once (Perkele) lf they can roll the R. 😇
Hahaha I love that!! In one of my fictional cultures, there's a tongue-twister "rrizhurru rreve" (meaning "marmot burrow") that is commonly used to help children practice rolling their R's.
Yeah, that one is a common one for us foreign learners too. 😂 But for me the thing that really got me to roll my R was "ärrän kierrän ympäri orren". 😅 I still have trouble with it sometimes but it's definitely better now.
My ostrobothnian grandma said when I was a kid "voi Ristuksen tähären!" with her extra strong rolling ostrobothnian R or "ryssän perkeles!" or "voi ristus notta me nauroomma" etc.
Spanish native speaker here. The [r] sound was the last one I acquired, even after learning to read (incidentally, the first word I read "publicly" was Retiro, a Buenos Aires metro station, and I pronounced it wrongly; in (Argentinian, and I believe everywhere) Spanish, the word initial R is always geminated.
I have something to share about the r/rr differences. My native language is Brazilian Portuguese, and we usually do have an aspirated "h" sound instead of strong r, in case of rr. However, my inlaws speak a German dialect as a native language. It is from a ancient German settlements in Southern Brazil. They do speak Portuguese fluenty, but they cannot differ r/rr sounds. Sometimes there are funny stories here due their accent.
Luke: *says “ara ara” Weebs: you rang? One interesting thing I noticed is that the italian word “caro” is similar to the Irish word “cara” meaning “friend”. Might be a false cognate tho
@@polyMATHY_Luke i just checked and it seems that it’s from PIE *kāro- meaning “dear” so I definitely see the connection! Lol I need to get back into learning Japanese at some point. Massive time committment tho
I'm Greek and studying engineering (so completely unfamiliar with this level of linguistics), but I find these videos so so fascinating. I was thinking about buying Horrocks' book that you've mentioned before, but I don't know whether it is suitable for a beginner. Όπως και να'χει, καλή συνέχεια!
@@polyMATHY_Luke how can you be so ignorant? That sound is all over Albanian language and we border greeks and latins and live within their populations but you never mention Albanian linguistically... I can't take you seriously... to me you sound like a good parrot.. but not a genuine mind. It is cause of people like you Breton is an endangered language... you never put enough emphasis on those academically ignored languages.
@@seeb4486 Albanian it represents its own branch within the Indoeuropian family and it is heavily latinised .. it also borders Greek... quite odd and quite interesting in fact .. but you never hear of that... simply cause it was left out due to political reasons of the last 2 centuries. It is like the elephant in the room... so where is the honesty amongst academics? It is not only Albanian... it is the treatment almost all "small" languages get... Albanian is spoken at least by 10 million people and won't be dying anytime soon... but that's not the same fate for other neglected languages... and with every language we lose, we lose a part of our shared memory as a species and a bit of our humanity. Do you see where my frustration is coming from now!?
@@kohterg3713 Well, you might try doing something about it instead of complaining what he has done, it won't make a difference IMO. there's a fine line between belittling a person than doing constructive criticism because of a distaste in a certain topic, frustration would mean nothing without action. Do something about it mate, A simple contribution to the preservation of a language wouldbe of semblance instead of being pessismistic about it. Cheers
Great video! As a native Spanish speaker I would still make a geminated trill in the phrase "La Romana". I even recall being taught in school that the initial R is always geminated trill regardless of what comes before, but that was many MANY years ago 😅
That is correct. Saying "la romana" with a flap and not a trill immediately gives you away as a foreigner, probably an Italian. We do not do it in Spanish. An r at the beginning is always unambiguously pronounced as a trill.
A special thumbs up for the ASMR whispering thing. 🤣🤦 A double thumbs up for such a good comprehension of Brazilian pronunciation. I'm native and at the age of 41 I learnt something from my own pronunciation.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Que legal/fixe! Eu sou brasileiro e estou morando em Portugal tem 4 anos. Então posso considerar-me aprendendo ativamente português também 😂😂. Em especial, é incrível o quanto aprendo sobre isso com meus filhos, que aprenderam a falar aqui em Portugal mas pronunciam como brasileiros. O nome Fernando aqui fica algo como Furnandw, e Felipe vira F'lip. O curioso é que eles acham que são quatro nomes completamente diferentes 😂😂😂
A bit of pedantry: the Welsh is not a voiceless lateral approximant /l̥/, it's a voiceless lateral fricative: /ɬ/ which has a separate voiced complement: /ɮ/.
in the past spanish actually distinguished the two sounds. e.g. la casa was pronounced with a /z/ but esse was pronounced /s/. In the 15. and 16. century that distinction disappeared.
You have real gift of explaining linguistics. I love your videos! Btw I'm from Poland and I still don't know if we pronounce initial r as [r] / [ɾ] or [r̥]
Thanks so much! In Polish, like Italian and other Slavic languages, usually initial R is [r], and others are [ɾ], but intervocalic single R *may* be trilled in Slavic languages, since it doesn't cause confusion.
In Polish initial r is often a trill when followed by a consonant as in rwać, rdest, rżeć and so on but in general it's more of a free variation depending on the stress patterns and other sounds. Tap is clearly not distinctive from trill in Polish, though gemminated (long) trill is, like in the words terror and horror
There's some recent research (Stolarski) that tested that. It turns out it's always just a tap for almost all speakers. Exceptions are borrowings like "horror" and when people reeeeeally enunciate.
As a choral teacher who teaches songs in other languages, as well as a fluent Spanish speaker, I have also used the "Bitter butter battle" / "Wetter water waddle" to help develop the flipped / trilled R to my students. :)
I grew up with a tongue tie as did my dad and sister. So as native Spanish speaker, we couldn’t roll our rr’s properly. Yet we adapted and never had an issue being understood. R and RR were different even with out limited tongues. It’s so interesting how accents can form.
Can i just say i love how relaxed *and* engaging your videos are, & how perfect a frame that is to start doing weird mouth actions (looking at you, welsh LL 17:57) - the sort of which so often intimidate new learners, unfortunately!
I'm italian, and the trilled r is difficult to pronounce for some of us too: since I was a kid I have pronounced it as an alveolar approximant or something similar. It took me a lot of time just to pronunce the alveolar tap! We call this defect "erre moscia", "soft R".
Good for you! È importante non permetterci questo particolare difetto di pronuncia, se vogliamo mantenere la lingua italiana in una forma riconoscibile; altrimenti entro un secolo suonerà come tedesco e francese, che hanno perso la R italiana solo uno o due secoli fa.
before i took any formal spanish classes i taught myself how to roll my rs incorrectly, so when i got into college my professors always commented on it. although i could hear a clear difference i was never totally sure what i was doing wrong physically, but now thanks to this video i know its because i accidentally taught myself the voiceless alveolar trill! im still trying to fully unlearn it, hopefully ill get some mileage out of that vocal cord tip. super informative!!
I don't know if trilling the r's or alveorar tapping is hard but for me as a Greek little infant it was the very first letter or sound if you like that I made. Great video once again, greetings and much love from Greece
Είναι αλήθεια; 😃 Wow that's so cool. Yeah, it's one of the most common sounds in world languages, that it's surprising when a language loses the sound.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Τω όντι αδερφέ μου. I always thought the opposite, that this sound was acquired by few έθνη somehow down the line such as the romance family and us, turns out its the other way around? 😅
I’m reminded of a story my dad told me from his semester abroad in Rome during college. His friend tried to order “linguine con carne” but due to his heavy Boston accent he asked for “linguine con cane” and got a very distraught look from the waiter. Pronunciation matters
Interesting that you mentioned Brazilian Portuguese phonology, the older generation of speakers in São Paulo (mostly of italian descent) actually would pronunce the r just as in Italian or Spanish. Sadly this pronunciation is almost lost nowadays.
Brazilian Portuguese rs (I'm not laughing) are so interesting! There's taps and trills and retroflex sounds. Uvular sounds and kind of palatal ones. And so many different versions of when to use each one. I feel like there's different rules by region and then I catch people drifting between rulesets as they talk to different people. What's the socioeconomic version of code switching?
@@Wxyz2001 Maybe so, but I've definitely heard people move between a more "standardised" accent and structures and more "countrified/caipira" ones. I guess that's an urban/rural difference, but I feel like it has socio-economic implications at least. I'm less familiar with it, but I feel like I've heard people become more or less North-Eastern in their speech patterns here in the South, depending on context, which again, would have socio-economic implications. That's something I'm less certain about though. The first one I feel like I've definitely heard. Chieftly changes in r sounds and agreement between article and nouns. "Os bicho". "As mina". I'm not totally fluent in Portuguese yet, so maybe I'm missing important information, or just mistaken
@@Wxyz2001 I'm aware of most of what you are saying. (Not everything mind you, so thank you for sharing your knowledge.) But you would surely acknowledge that caipira identity goes beyond the merely geographical? With my admittedly limited exposure to Brazilian culture, I feel confident that there are socio-economic aspects to this characterisation. Ie caipira doesn't just mean someone from the countryside of Sao Paulo, but also carries connotations of maybe rustic, less educated, poorer etc. (And maybe as a self identification: simple, honest, hard-working etc.) And that a speaker emphasizing and deemphasizing that retroflex r sound depending on social context would seem to carry a social message? It would maybe reflect a desire to integrate into different social circles and/or socio-economic groups?
This was an amazing video and worth subscribing! I study Ancient Greek and Latin in university (also did it in highschool) and when I saw this video in my recommended, I only clicked on it out of curiosity if I'd learn anything new. I'm a native Dutch (Flemish) speaker and we do have a rhotic r, but not a geminated r, so I only know that sound from my ventures into other languages and I knew it was phonemic in Latin. (It was never explicitly stated in my Greek courses, but I'm not surprised.) I stayed for the engaging explanation and I even learned something new because I'd never considered the r could be voiceless. Coincidentally, I learned just yesterday that the aspiration on the rho comes from a PIE s (like Gr. ῥέω < PIE *srewe/o), so now I have the full picture, pronunciation included.
Great video! I enjoyed it just as much as the one on "ει"! Please do this on all ancient greek sounds. I am particularly curious regarding the following: 1) How to pronounce the iota subscriptum in classical Greek - does an omega (which has two morai) receive a third mora with the iota subscriptum? How long is the syllable? 2) How to pronounce the ξ ("x") sound in classical Greek - Attic inscriptions from the classical age often render is as "χσ" - does that mean that is was somehow "voiced"? 3) Did the neutral ending -ον lose its "n" when spoken, much like the "m" in the Roman ending -um? In modern Greek, the ending has been shortened to -o; when did this process begin?
Ι can't help much with ancient phonology but the final -n still exists in many dialects especially in the Aegean as well as in Cypriot and Pontic greek and not just in the neuter. Cypriots for example will say θάλασσαν (in the accusative)
Holy crap Luke, I've learned how to pronounce so many sounds in languages like the alveolar tap in Japanese, and the uvular trill in Welsh, but I was never able to figure out how to produce the alveolar trill, UNTIL NOW. That tip about trying to say "Per-ro" separated literally NO JOKE instantly made me able to produce it pretty convincingly. I'm gonna keep practicing so it becomes second nature, THANK you so much for the help, seriously!
This was very helpful. I've always had a hard time rolling my r's, but realized it's because I was trying to get my tongue to do something - which inherently meant tensing it. Derp. Hearing that I needed to relax the tongue was the linchpin for me. Thank you!!!
A happier accident than the lone unfortunate soul who disliked this video. I want to believe someone's finger slipped. Or they should reconsider their life's choices. Seriously.
That happens to me a lot when I say "water", and I'm from the western US. It often comes out as [wɑr͡ɻ], where the "-ter" part starts as a trill and ends as a retroflex approximant.
A good and simple example of how just changing the intensity or presence of a sound in English can completely change the meaning are the words “hold” and “old”. If one does not pronounce the aspirated “h” sound, it can get confusing. Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, etc, do not have this soft aspirated “h” sound. (Spanish does have a strong aspirated “h” sound with the sounds of the letters “j” and sometimes with the letter “g”. Thanks so much for this video. This will greatly help me with my Portuguese as a foreign language classes.
Czech here. We use that alveolar tap plentifully in my language, however until I was 15 years old, I suffered from rhotacism - and I really mean suffered since it made me extremely introverted for the fear of being made fun of. There's even a movie for children about the speech impediment, link down below. The trick that is often used by speech therapists (I went to multiple) first is taking a word of which the second letter is "R" and substituting it with the letter "D". It's recommended to start with words starting on the letter "T" (e.g. trnka, tramvaj, trouba, etc.) since "D" and "T" require a similar tongue placement. After getting proficient at all combinations, you move onto the next letter, like "K" (král, krysa, krumpáč, etc.) or "M" (mrak, mrož, mrně, etc.). Not sure how this would translate to English, but it could work. As for the alveolar trill, that's a tough one to crack. I can do it on its own, but my rendition doesn't have the frequency I most often hear - my tongue perhaps isn't relaxed well enough. Thankfully we don't use it often, maybe just for show :) There's also a fun letter found only in the Czech alphabet - the almighty "Ř" - raised alveolar non-sonorant trill. It can be both voiced and unvoiced. This one is probably the toughest to learn, since no other language uses it, although Polish and Kashubian have a similar-sounding digraph "rz", which is a voiced retroflex fricative. Here's the film I mentioned: ruclips.net/video/OjcvjUGa-_s/видео.html Compare Czech "řeka" and Polish "rzeka" (both mean river): upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Cs-%C5%99eka.ogg upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Pl-Rzeka.ogg
My Latin/Ancient Greek highschool teacher told me that every Mediterranean language (Greek, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese) tends to a very soft pronounciation (to palatalization ) of the consonants. That helps me understand better the romance languages using my knowledge of the Classical languages. Your tips - extremely usful (Besides tha fact that I am macedonian native speaker and I know the difference betwen r and rr). Thank you Luke!
I noticed the voiceless "r" sound in turkish when it's at the end of the word. Like "hayır" ( which means "no") . I always found it interesting. I didn't know other languages had that sound.
As a native German speaker, relaxing my tongue enough to do the geminated alveolar trill is definitely very hard. I manage sometimes, but not very consistently
Einfach weiter üben, dann klappt es mit der Zeit. Bei manchen Leuten dauert das sogar mehrere Jahre, aber irgendwann macht's "klick". Die Verbindung von Hirn zur Muskulatur im Mund passend herzustellen und das automatisch auszuführen ohne darüber nachdenken zu müssen, brauchst seine Zeit.
Native German speaker here as well, but with a fully rhothic native dialect that has alveolar trilled "r"s (Bernese German). If it makes you feel any better, the kind of "r" that most German speakers use is also incredibly difficult for me. I can do a trilled r or a very guttural French "r" which I use when speaking French. But the Standard German "r" (or also the French "Edith Piaf r") feels to me like an "in-between r" that is extremely hard for me to produce.
@@elenna_alexia Exactly. "Wasser" is pronounced "Wassr" instead of "Wassɐ". This is the case in all Alemannic dialects (i.e. in addition to the Swiss German dialects also Schwäbisch and Vorarlbergerisch).
Actually, I didn't need to learn the voiceless trill because at first I could *only* trill without voicing. I guess I was subconsciously following in the Greeks' footsteps.
The pronunciation of the letter R varies so much in Brazil that I wouldn't be surprised to come across serious papers about it. In regions of Italian immigration, the sound of the double R is that of the alveolar trill, just like in Italian. In most regions the sound is that of the uvular fricative, BUT when we speak faster, we tend to make it easier by pronouncing the glottal, as you mentioned (when we talk slowly, though, the uvular is very audible). The R in the beginning of words is always geminated; even when alone in the beginning of syllables, if not preceded by vowel, it is so (it's rare, but it happens, like in the word "melro", which means "blackbird"). Now, the R in the end of syllables is the one that varies the most. It is sometimes a tap (south and a bit of the center), sometimes uvular / glottal (east and north-east regions), and sometimes approximant, very similarly to English in words like "word" (west and, I believe, north-west). But it doesn't end there! If one goes deeper into the countryside, one can find the geminated R being pronounced like a tap, with no difference from the single R, and probably more variants which I never came across. PS: your videos are incredible. I've watched quite a load. Thank you for the excellent material!
Great video! Something of my own experience: Μy late grandma, born in Symi, Dodecannese, was pronouncing all double consonants, rr, ss, tt, nn, mm, etc. And I believe that the Cypriots keep doing this till today.
Depending on the region in Portugal, you can have the voiced alveolar trill "r" or a voiced uvular fricative "ʁ" for intervocalic "rr", depending on the region and other factors. Only in parts of Brazil a softer aspirated sound similar to the English 'h" (voiceless glottal fricative) can be found
I'm from the UK and I have an advanced (or almost advanced) level of Spanish and I still struggle with the double r pronunciation. Thanks for your video Luke- your British accent is quite accurate compared to most North Americans.
As always, great video! I should say that in modern Greek, if the context dictates that someone should stress the double ρ (because for example there was a similar-sounding word with a single ρ in the sentence), they will, even if most of the time they have it be phonetically indistinguishable from the single ρ (e.g. άρρωστος or διάρρηξη). In many regional accents, and especially in Cyprus, though, people frequently use the double ρ sound, both due to ancient Greek and foreign influences!
Additional tongue release exercises I've heard suggested as a singer: massaging along the hyoid, sticking the tongue out for approx. 7 second increments, moving the tongue along the inside of the gums can also be of use.
the explanation of the diff between s and z was brilliant. i think that was the first time in my life I pronounced s correctly lol Many thank for all these awesome vids Luke!
Portuguese had originally the same sounds for single, double and initial rs as Spanish and Italian, and they can still be heard in the more conservative areas of both Portugal and Brazil. In the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries initial and double rs became gutural, and as a later development they became fainter in Brazil, but still they are stronger than the letter h in English. They can be seen as its voiced variation, and that is a clear clue to spot Brazilians who might have an otherwise good pronunciation.
The comment about the British pronunciation of better etc made me chuckle. You're much more likely to hear it with a glottal stop here (although our glottalisation is slightly more widespread than US tapping, as it also often affects coda t as well as intervocalic t)
Excellent lesson, Luke! It helped me a lot in the understanding of a passage of the Vox Graeca. But something still obscure. Allen said the following in his text: "What is being described is clearly a trilled, alveolar [r] sound, as e.g. in Italian or some Scottish pronunciations, as not as in southern English, where it is more retracted and less strongly articulated (with single tap, friction, or neither)." And a little bit latter his talks about voiced and voiceless ρ, but in no moment mentions this single ρ of ορος as you said. It seems more natural for me to use that softer ρ in the middle of voewls, but if that is the case how to distinguish in greek the sample voiceless sound from the other? Just the spirit? Allen also says: "of course, the indication of the rough breathing on initial ρ is as superfluous as on the geminate, since it is automatic in virtually all cases." Anyway, awesome lesson. This technique of whispering is just fantastic!
Woo! Something I know about! I learned the alveolar trill when I was 2 years old. I still remember feeling very proud that day and my dad giving me tongue twisters and recording me saying them. This was speaking Slovak, but I grew up in Belgium and had to learn Dutch starting in preschool. My Rs were very "exaggerated", they said, for a long time. It took checking out Japanese and finding out the alveolar tap exists to correct myself. And turns out I had been saying it wrong in Slovak too. Now I knew about the initial rho in Ancient Greek not being voiced, but I had no idea until now that any language differentiated between r and rr like that. It just sounds like another case of a double consonant making the consonant sound longer. Still, I seem to perceive a difference between an "r-like" alveolar tap and a "d-like" alveolar tap. The American dialect words you said were d-like, Japanese's R is d-like, and all others are r-like. The r-like ones don't sound like a single tap, though when pronouncing them I can't feel my tongue tapping multiple times, unlike when saying a proper trilled R. Last point, what about a regular, non-geminated alveolar trill? You didn't mention it at all, but it seems like there must be a reason why the "geminated" is always included.
Voiceless sonorants are fascinating! Loved practicing their pronunciation when I was learning Welsh. I've been creating a conlang and there is and voiced-voiceless alveolar trill phonemic distinction. :)
@@polyMATHY_Luke yeah, it all started as morphology project back when I was in undergrad and I have carried it on to this day. I'm imagining "what would a language with extensive speech levels and honorifics like Korean/Japanese had the fusional morphology of Standard Average European?". It's been fun. :)
you have just answered a question (about the pronounciation of the aspirated ρ in the beginning of words) I had since I was 12 and for which none of my teachers could help me! Thank you!
The symbol of aspirate "δασεία" means that there is the semivowel digamma (F) which initially was the letter S and then after becoming a semivowel it was pronounced as "H" and according to Hesehious dictionary it replaced vowels and consonants on the Greek dialects.
The written history of the Greek language does not start with the Homeric period but 1.000 years maybe more during the time of Mycenean civilization and prior to it where the semivowel F and j were widely in use in all syllabic letters that Michael Ventris found in 1952 to 1954 decoding the Linnear B inscritions.
"Caro" and "carro" are also Spanish words. Ahorra ahora, para comprar un carro más caro. Armenian has, if I understand right, a three-way distinction between (bethreen?) a tap, a trill, and a double tap. The double tap occurs in "[jɛˈɾːɔɾtʰ]. I find it really hard to say /ɾː/, but have no problem with /ɾ/ (ր) and /r/ (ռ). Both Spanish and Greek have a rule that if a prefix ending in a vowel is added to a word beginning with a single , or a compound is formed thus, the is doubled: de+roca=derroca, επι+ρημα=επιρρημα. Someone who apparently didn't know this spelled the parvorders of monkeys Platyrrhini and Catarrhini, but the suborder containing them Haplorhini.
Oh thank you for this! I’m trying to learn Armenian and there are a few sounds that are hard for me to make. Mainly խ, ղ, and ռ. Which are kh, gh, and rr respectively. Kh wasn’t too bad but I still over-pronounce it sometimes, gh took me FOREVER to figure out, and rr I didn’t even know where to start until I saw this. So again thank you!
I have a Spanish minor, which included a Spanish linguistics course solely dedicated to pronunciation. I was able to get everything, including the proper "v" sound for Spanish. The trilled "rr" I just never could. I had given up years ago, but perhaps at 33 I am an old dog that can still learn a new trick with this new method to practice. Native speakers of Spanish generally know from context what I mean, since "pero" shouldn't have "el', "un", or 'mi" in front of it where "perro" almost always does, but I'd prefer for them not to need to do that. Thankfully, one of the best things about learning Spanish is native speakers tend to be among the most patient and supportive folks you can hope to find of anyone trying to learn their language.
For the V sound in English, your bottom lip touches your top front teeth, but in Spanish your lips touch. I know b/v are the same in Spanish, but to sort of visualize the sound it's easier for me to think of the English V and turn it into the Spanish V than to start with the English B sound. I had to look it up because I am bit rusty on the terminology, but the linguistic term for the Spanish b/v is the voiced bilabial fricative. Most native English speakers starting out learning Spanish just use the English B, but that sound is a voiced bilabial stop and isn't actually the proper sound.
@@seamussc Mmm... I am a bit confused about what you are trying to say. As a native Spanish speaker with a degree in Linguistics, I think that what you are trying to master is the "second" (allophonic) pronunciation of "b/v", right ?
The alveolar trill is one of those skills I've gained, lost and gained again. Right now it's useful for me because I've been diving into the strange and fascinating world of constructed languages, of which the one with the largest community (Esperanto) has seemingly canonically a trill or tap alveolar R (allophonic), though uvular and approximant alveolar are considered acceptable. (I have a habit of exaggerating trilled R sometimes, especially in songs. I maybe need to tone back on that.) I find if I'm quite dehydrated I can sometimes only pronounce a retroflex trill, requiring stronger airflow as well.
Thank you so much for this. Haha, I’ve been put off learning Italian for this reason. The Rs are like hitting a brick wall. I feel like a distressed animal trying to pronounce the Rs. I’ve learnt so much else. Blessings to you :)
I think that Spanish (and in general, Iberian languages) has a stronger distinction in manner of articulation between r and rr compared to Italian. I think Italian single r is often a flap, as opposed to a tap: it starts cycling like for a trill, and just stops before the second cycle. Iberian single r is a more rigid tap, kind of like in Japanese though not as extreme
In most parts of Brazil that have italian or spanish heritage we actually pronounce that rolled R. It is much more common to elder people do that, but I like the way it sounds. You might be seen as a hilbilly if you speak like that. We are told here that the"H" pronounciation of r is due to portuguese aristocracy in colonial times trying to sound fancy, by imitating the heavy gutural r we see in french, which soon spread among the common people and now we have this breathy h sound.
Como você falou sobre o Brasil, vou deixar aqui os meus parabéns pelo excelente vídeo escrevendo em português. Realmente, a prosódia é a manifestação espiritual de uma língua, é a poesia viva, é o som verdadeiro das notas que estão presas na pauta da escrita e que produzem a música da língua falada. Dizem que grego antigo era uma lingua cantada, com modulações de tonalidades altas e baixas. Isso não seria impossível, pois hoje temos o mandarim e o tibetano que usam vários contornos tonais.
I could roll my r’s fine before I started learning Spanish but for the life of me I could not pronounce the “dr” in “madre” or “padre”. I tried the method of pronouncing each syllable in close succession as you suggest and I can say that cluster much more easily now. Thanks for your advice.
Hi. Fantastic channel and fantastic video, thoroughly enjoyed. A tiny comment: You advised American listeners to make the voiced alveolar tap (ɾ) by recreating the "tt" part of better. While it does sound similar, I think the latter (heh) sounds a lot closer to a voiced retroflex plosive (ɖ). This is just how it sounds to my ears though, I may be a bit off base. Source: Native greek with a lot of Indian friends, I say (ɾ/r) and hear (ɖ) every day :P
Thanks! Yes, it’s definitely not the retroflex sound of many Indian accents. I do love that accents! It’s a beautiful sound, but distinctly foreign to an American ear.
I'm bilingual, my other first language is Norwegian, we have the alveolar tap in "kjøre" (drive) and the trill in "prøve" (the infinitive form of attempt), I feel like that has helped me learn new phonemes from additional languages. That said, my favorite phrase is from Czhech - "Strč prst skrz krk"
In Portugal when we use the double r but we usually pronounce it /R/ and we simply do not pronounce h's at all, it's one of the main differences between Portugal's portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese
In my native language (Dutch), especially in the region where I'm from people usually trill the "R" as a voiced dental trill. I've never actually been able to do it even after help for a speech therapist, I'm stuck on a voiced uvular trill. Never heard of these perticular techniques though, I will try them out! Who knows maybe after practice I can actually sound like someone from the region I'm from after 29 years.
Me too! Standard Dutch has the alveolar trill, but growing up near the German border, I learnt the uvular trill natively and can barely pronounce the alveolar one. One day though...
@@ppenmudera4687 I already forgot about this comment, but this video actually helped me out. I am able to trill my "R" now. It took me a few weeks of practice, and it's still a tad difficult, it hasn't entered my usual speech, but just the fact that I'm able to do it now is enough for me. I'm sure that one day you can do it too!
Hi I love your videos about languages and pronunciation! I’d like to point out that at 11:42 you have ロマ時 instead of ローマ字. Just a small thing, but wonderful video! Keep up the fantastic work!
I was reminded of this video last night when I met someone from Hungary who lived in the US for 22 years (on a multiperson Zoom call in English). I never left Hungary for more than a week, and I had less of an accent than her 😲
What a rich explanation, thanks. Speaking of 'r', do you know about the Czech letter 'ř'? It's supposed to be a phoneme existing only on that language.
I think Old Norse might of had it in their -r suffix, descended from Proto-Germanic *-az. If a Z became an R, something tells me it could have been a Czech Ř or something similar like a voiceless and/or aspirated R at some point.
Great video! Thank you for clearing up this issue. Have you been keeping up with your Hebrew? It’s been a while since I’ve seen you comment on Aleph with Beth’s videos.
Would it perhaps be possible to get a video at some stage about pitch accent? I don’t just struggle to make the different pitches, I honestly can’t even hear them.
Sure! I've already made a non-public one that you can see: ruclips.net/video/v6Fj8gdjsNs/видео.html It's not edited, but I'll be doing *every* aspect of Ancient Greek pronunciation in this video series, and a good one on pitch accent will follow!
Your Spanish is great, Luke. I’ve had a lot of trouble trying to trill my R’s since I was a child, but I began doing your exercises and I began to improve in that.
The stuff about the alveolar tap in intervocalic 't' is US English has reminded me of my favourite ever observation about English pronunciation around the world. If you're American, and you say "space ghettoes" in your own accent, you've just said "Spice Girls" in a Scottish accent. Try it!
I took a Spanish class in college years ago, but had so much trouble doing trills; I gave up trying. My tongue simply would not do it. After watching this video, I believe that may change.
I am German, yet I have somehow been able to roll an R as long as I can remember. Just tapping it though is something a had to actively learn and which I initially forced by closing my jaws until there was no room for my tongue left to swing with the R.
I personally came up with a basic exercise for rolling yours Rs. I show to everyone that doesn't speak Spanish and even to some of my bilingual friends where their Spanish is still in need of practice. Very very basic, I tell everyone that just focus on learning your Vowels in Spanish. A, E, I, O, U. Get them very used to saying it alot. Then I tell them to try and give me their very best impression of a Motorcycle or Lawnmower (bear with me lol) just so they can feel their tongues loosening. Then we go back to the Vowels and simply say all the Vowels again with a RR in the beginning. rra, rre, rri, rro, rru It's not a fancy exercise, but it has helps alot!
Thank you. I had wondered if Ancient / Classical Greek used a French RH (uvular) rather than a trilled or tap R/RR like Spanish, plus how he aspiration entered into it. Bonus points for including the TNG clip with the introduction of Ens. Ro Laren. :D
American English usually has that alveolar tap for T between vowels. "Kitty-kitty-kitty" is a convenient example. :D But American English rarely uses the glottal stop in place of intervocalic T, which several British English dialects (like Cockney or Northern) say bottle as /bo'ël/, better /be'ë/.
In brazilian portuguese, at least the carioca accent, we completly lost the germinated rr (even though we use the single r a lot). The rr sounds like the french r. I've always had a hard time saying perro in spanish. Your tips helped, i'm trying to practice it.
Could you make a video about the “pl-/fl-” in Latin that became “ch” /ʃ/ in Portuguese. Like Latin _pluvia_ that became Portuguese _chuva_ and Portuguese _chão_ from Latin _plānum_ Like, how does “pl” became “ch”? It's “weird” and different lol.
There are Romance languages with an intermediate stage of development from /pl/ to /ʃ/. The Lombard of Val Mesolcina (Switzerland) and areas of Valtellina (Italy) have /ptʃ/ or /tʃ/ or /ftʃ/; for example, Latin PLŪS 'more', has become /tʃu/ or /ftʃu/ in Val Mesolcina (and /tʃy/ in Valtellina). Likewise with /fl/: Latin FLORIS became /tʃor/ or /ftʃor/. Genoese (Zenèise) similarly has ciù /tʃy/ 'more', and sciua /ʃua/ 'flower', cieuve /tʃøve/ 'rain', while Latin PLĀNUM has become cian /tʃã/. Portuguese likely went through similar sound changes.
I learned the French R in school. I could do a guttural vibrating German R. Once I made the connection that the vibration needs to come in the tip I was able to start trying to isolate the part that needs to trill. I am still working on it. I can vibrate but adding a sound is tricky. There's also something you do with your throat. My sister is trying to help.
The pronunciation of Ancient Greek is a fascinating story that stretches from the epic Homeric legends through Classical Greece and Rome to the modern era. How did the sound of Greek change from early to late antiquity to the Mediaeval period to the present? In this series of videos, I will answer those questions, and many more! 🇬🇷
🏺 Lucian Pronunciation of Ancient Greek:
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📄 Ancient Greek Pronunciation Guide:
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👨🏫 Luke Ranieri presents (in Latin! subtitles in English) his research on Latin & Greek Pronunciation Evolution 500 BC to 500 AD "Vōcēs quae per saecula inmūtantur" (Living Latin & Ancient Greek in New York City 2020):
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🕰 Ranieri's Greek Pronunciation Chronology Spreadsheet:
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• Free Ancient Greek audio in Lucian Pronunciation •
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References used in this video:
Vox Graeca by W. Sydney Allen:
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Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers by Horrocks:
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Social Variation and the Latin Language by J.N. Adams:
amzn.to/2ZC4an4
Spell It Out, history of English orthography by David Crystal:
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Occurrences of “Alexandrēa” in Roman Latin literature: latin.packhum.org/search?q=alexandrea
Occurrences of “Alexandrīa” in Roman Latin literature: latin.packhum.org/search?q=alexandria
And by Cicero:
latin.packhum.org/search?q=%5Bcic%5D+alexandrea
latin.packhum.org/search?q=%5Bcic%5D+alexandria
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00:00 Intro
00:32 ρ in Modern Greek
01:13 Difference between single R and double RR
02:20 Learn how to roll your Rs!
04:17 Why distinguishing single R and double RR is *so important*
04:49 How to trill the R
06:30 Don't trill your R too much!
10:17 Initial R
12:28 Latin rh, rhh for Ancient Greek ῥ, ῤῥ
14:22 Difference between voiced and voiceless consonants
19:22 The marking of ῤῥ
21:00 Portuguese comparison
22:49 Why this matters
24:45 stinger
In spanish all r at the beginning of words are doubled, unlike Italian. La romana is pronounced "larromana" in Spanish.
@@Glassandcandy and how is your Japanese? Because most Americans struggle with their unconscious iotization-dyphthongization in Japanese as well, pronouncing sensee (written se n se i but actually being se n se e sounds) as senseyyy, onee as oneyyy. Japanese plus some Spanish/Italian should do.
@@Glassandcandy this could be that hidden double sword. Since AmEnglish pronounces many sounds differently in different places, this might be a subconscious reason for treating any sound in this flexible nature and often choosing a wrong variation and not seeing the difference. English phonetics are so weird, compared to a typical generic language, seems so at least. Japanese is total opposite, though it to had a history of few weird pronunciation changes.
By the way, if you want to hear a really bad ancient Greek accent try to listen to the buffoon Boris Johnson reciting the Homeric poems. He doesn't use Erasmian or (God forbid) modern Greek accent, he uses something totally incomprehensible. He claims to be an expert in ancient Greek but he's not always precise in his claims (he also claims to be an expert in politics).
@@Glassandcandy Donald Trump won't waste his time with the Aeneid, he only reads the national Enquirer.
I can't believe it! I'm a native greek speaker, I'm learning ancient greek at school and I'm watching a video in english about how to pronounce a letter I learned when I was 2!!! Thank you!!
Παρακαλώ! Thank you for the comments.
Are Greeks taught English in school? And is it throughout your schooling or just a section of it.
@@AuxxiliaryATC Yes we do and it's mandatory. We usually have to choose between German and French mostly.
Αλλά το σημερινό Ρω δεν έχει η ίδια η ακριβή προφορά όταν αρχίζει σε μια λέξη η είναι το διπλό Ρω (ῥῤ).
I don't know. My family is hopeless when it comes to this R sound.
Just as classics departments are killed in colleges and universities all over the country and indeed all over the world we see this incredible refinement in educational skills exemplified by your excellent videos.
That's really too kind.
For Finnish children, when learning to speak the letter "R" (Rolled) is often the most difficult. The way to get them motivated is to tell them they're allowed to say a swear word once (Perkele) lf they can roll the R. 😇
what actually got me able to roll my r properly after a vowel was saying perkele over and over lmao
XD
Hahaha I love that!! In one of my fictional cultures, there's a tongue-twister "rrizhurru rreve" (meaning "marmot burrow") that is commonly used to help children practice rolling their R's.
Yeah, that one is a common one for us foreign learners too. 😂 But for me the thing that really got me to roll my R was "ärrän kierrän ympäri orren". 😅 I still have trouble with it sometimes but it's definitely better now.
My ostrobothnian grandma said when I was a kid "voi Ristuksen tähären!" with her extra strong rolling ostrobothnian R or "ryssän perkeles!" or "voi ristus notta me nauroomma" etc.
21:33 Thanks for acknowledging the dialectal variation of Portuguese, much appreciated. :)
Claro! 😃 É necessário dizer, naturalmente. A variedade en português me encanta. 🤩 🇵🇹 🇧🇷
Spanish native speaker here. The [r] sound was the last one I acquired, even after learning to read (incidentally, the first word I read "publicly" was Retiro, a Buenos Aires metro station, and I pronounced it wrongly; in (Argentinian, and I believe everywhere) Spanish, the word initial R is always geminated.
Pues en español es fácil decir la [rr]omana. Only if we try to speak excessively fast, we might not gemminate it at all.
I have something to share about the r/rr differences. My native language is Brazilian Portuguese, and we usually do have an aspirated "h" sound instead of strong r, in case of rr. However, my inlaws speak a German dialect as a native language. It is from a ancient German settlements in Southern Brazil. They do speak Portuguese fluenty, but they cannot differ r/rr sounds. Sometimes there are funny stories here due their accent.
Luke: *says “ara ara”
Weebs: you rang?
One interesting thing I noticed is that the italian word “caro” is similar to the Irish word “cara” meaning “friend”. Might be a false cognate tho
Irish cara is from the same root as caro! 😃
アラ〜！
@@polyMATHY_Luke i just checked and it seems that it’s from PIE *kāro- meaning “dear” so I definitely see the connection! Lol I need to get back into learning Japanese at some point. Massive time committment tho
@@polyMATHY_Luke something incredibly blursed about seeing you type that
Also 'charaid' in Scots Gaelic I presume
@@cameroff most likely yeah. Irish and Scots Gaelic are sister languages so it’s no surprise. ‘Charad’ is the genitive case for ‘cara’ in Irish
I'm Greek and studying engineering (so completely unfamiliar with this level of linguistics), but I find these videos so so fascinating. I was thinking about buying Horrocks' book that you've mentioned before, but I don't know whether it is suitable for a beginner. Όπως και να'χει, καλή συνέχεια!
Γειά σου Ναταλία. Χαίρομαι που βρίσκω έστω και μία άλλη ελληνόφωνη εδώ. Να είσαι καλά.
Your English accent is perfect
Thank you! 🇬🇧
@@polyMATHY_Luke how can you be so ignorant? That sound is all over Albanian language and we border greeks and latins and live within their populations but you never mention Albanian linguistically... I can't take you seriously... to me you sound like a good parrot.. but not a genuine mind.
It is cause of people like you Breton is an endangered language... you never put enough emphasis on those academically ignored languages.
@@kohterg3713 Do you wan't him to list all laguages that use the sound?
@@seeb4486 Albanian it represents its own branch within the Indoeuropian family and it is heavily latinised .. it also borders Greek... quite odd and quite interesting in fact .. but you never hear of that... simply cause it was left out due to political reasons of the last 2 centuries.
It is like the elephant in the room... so where is the honesty amongst academics?
It is not only Albanian... it is the treatment almost all "small" languages get... Albanian is spoken at least by 10 million people and won't be dying anytime soon... but that's not the same fate for other neglected languages... and with every language we lose, we lose a part of our shared memory as a species and a bit of our humanity. Do you see where my frustration is coming from now!?
@@kohterg3713 Well, you might try doing something about it instead of complaining what he has done, it won't make a difference IMO. there's a fine line between belittling a person than doing constructive criticism because of a distaste in a certain topic, frustration would mean nothing without action. Do something about it mate, A simple contribution to the preservation of a language wouldbe of semblance instead of being pessismistic about it. Cheers
Great video! As a native Spanish speaker I would still make a geminated trill in the phrase "La Romana". I even recall being taught in school that the initial R is always geminated trill regardless of what comes before, but that was many MANY years ago 😅
That is correct. Saying "la romana" with a flap and not a trill immediately gives you away as a foreigner, probably an Italian. We do not do it in Spanish. An r at the beginning is always unambiguously pronounced as a trill.
After 47 years on this planet, I finally learned how to roll my Rs thanks to this video! Who knew it was so easy?
I’m really happy to hear that!
A special thumbs up for the ASMR whispering thing. 🤣🤦 A double thumbs up for such a good comprehension of Brazilian pronunciation. I'm native and at the age of 41 I learnt something from my own pronunciation.
Obrigado! That’s very nice of you. I really love Brazilian Portuguese, and am actively learning it.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Que legal/fixe! Eu sou brasileiro e estou morando em Portugal tem 4 anos. Então posso considerar-me aprendendo ativamente português também 😂😂. Em especial, é incrível o quanto aprendo sobre isso com meus filhos, que aprenderam a falar aqui em Portugal mas pronunciam como brasileiros. O nome Fernando aqui fica algo como Furnandw, e Felipe vira F'lip. O curioso é que eles acham que são quatro nomes completamente diferentes 😂😂😂
A bit of pedantry: the Welsh is not a voiceless lateral approximant /l̥/, it's a voiceless lateral fricative: /ɬ/ which has a separate voiced complement: /ɮ/.
Indeed! They are equated evidently in many textbooks, hence my mention of it. Ah well
“The distinction between /s/ and /z/ is extremely common.”
*Spanish crying in the corner*
in the past spanish actually distinguished the two sounds. e.g. la casa was pronounced with a /z/ but esse was pronounced /s/. In the 15. and 16. century that distinction disappeared.
What about the Spanish from Spain?? In some communities of Spain the language makes a difference between 's'(/s/), 'c' and 'z'(/TH/).
@@danielperales3958 yep, distinción still exists in a large portion of Spain
@@danielperales3958 that's not what we're talking about, z in the international phonetic alphabet represents voiced s, not θ
this channel never ceases to amaze me,every episode has quality and love for what you do
πολυμαθής και φιλομαθής
ευχαριστώ πολύ
You have real gift of explaining linguistics. I love your videos! Btw I'm from Poland and I still don't know if we pronounce initial r as [r] / [ɾ] or [r̥]
Thanks so much! In Polish, like Italian and other Slavic languages, usually initial R is [r], and others are [ɾ], but intervocalic single R *may* be trilled in Slavic languages, since it doesn't cause confusion.
In Polish initial r is often a trill when followed by a consonant as in rwać, rdest, rżeć and so on but in general it's more of a free variation depending on the stress patterns and other sounds. Tap is clearly not distinctive from trill in Polish, though gemminated (long) trill is, like in the words terror and horror
There's some recent research (Stolarski) that tested that. It turns out it's always just a tap for almost all speakers. Exceptions are borrowings like "horror" and when people reeeeeally enunciate.
As a choral teacher who teaches songs in other languages, as well as a fluent Spanish speaker, I have also used the "Bitter butter battle" / "Wetter water waddle" to help develop the flipped / trilled R to my students. :)
I grew up with a tongue tie as did my dad and sister. So as native Spanish speaker, we couldn’t roll our rr’s properly. Yet we adapted and never had an issue being understood. R and RR were different even with out limited tongues. It’s so interesting how accents can form.
Can i just say i love how
relaxed *and* engaging your videos are, & how perfect a frame that is
to start doing weird mouth actions (looking at you, welsh LL 17:57) - the sort of which so often intimidate new learners, unfortunately!
Wow thanks so much! I’m glad you feel that way.
Say “plot” slooowly and pay attention to the ‘l’.
I'm italian, and the trilled r is difficult to pronounce for some of us too: since I was a kid I have pronounced it as an alveolar approximant or something similar. It took me a lot of time just to pronunce the alveolar tap! We call this defect "erre moscia", "soft R".
Good for you! È importante non permetterci questo particolare difetto di pronuncia, se vogliamo mantenere la lingua italiana in una forma riconoscibile; altrimenti entro un secolo suonerà come tedesco e francese, che hanno perso la R italiana solo uno o due secoli fa.
before i took any formal spanish classes i taught myself how to roll my rs incorrectly, so when i got into college my professors always commented on it. although i could hear a clear difference i was never totally sure what i was doing wrong physically, but now thanks to this video i know its because i accidentally taught myself the voiceless alveolar trill! im still trying to fully unlearn it, hopefully ill get some mileage out of that vocal cord tip. super informative!!
I don't know if trilling the r's or alveorar tapping is hard but for me as a Greek little infant it was the very first letter or sound if you like that I made.
Great video once again, greetings and much love from Greece
Είναι αλήθεια; 😃 Wow that's so cool. Yeah, it's one of the most common sounds in world languages, that it's surprising when a language loses the sound.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Τω όντι αδερφέ μου.
I always thought the opposite, that this sound was acquired by few έθνη somehow down the line such as the romance family and us, turns out its the other way around? 😅
I’m reminded of a story my dad told me from his semester abroad in Rome during college. His friend tried to order “linguine con carne” but due to his heavy Boston accent he asked for “linguine con cane” and got a very distraught look from the waiter. Pronunciation matters
Interesting that you mentioned Brazilian Portuguese phonology, the older generation of speakers in São Paulo (mostly of italian descent) actually would pronunce the r just as in Italian or Spanish. Sadly this pronunciation is almost lost nowadays.
Legal!
Brazilian Portuguese rs (I'm not laughing) are so interesting! There's taps and trills and retroflex sounds. Uvular sounds and kind of palatal ones. And so many different versions of when to use each one. I feel like there's different rules by region and then I catch people drifting between rulesets as they talk to different people. What's the socioeconomic version of code switching?
Colonia Claudia Ara Agripinensis. My home town
@@Wxyz2001 Maybe so, but I've definitely heard people move between a more "standardised" accent and structures and more "countrified/caipira" ones. I guess that's an urban/rural difference, but I feel like it has socio-economic implications at least.
I'm less familiar with it, but I feel like I've heard people become more or less North-Eastern in their speech patterns here in the South, depending on context, which again, would have socio-economic implications. That's something I'm less certain about though.
The first one I feel like I've definitely heard. Chieftly changes in r sounds and agreement between article and nouns. "Os bicho". "As mina".
I'm not totally fluent in Portuguese yet, so maybe I'm missing important information, or just mistaken
@@Wxyz2001 I'm aware of most of what you are saying. (Not everything mind you, so thank you for sharing your knowledge.)
But you would surely acknowledge that caipira identity goes beyond the merely geographical? With my admittedly limited exposure to Brazilian culture, I feel confident that there are socio-economic aspects to this characterisation. Ie caipira doesn't just mean someone from the countryside of Sao Paulo, but also carries connotations of maybe rustic, less educated, poorer etc. (And maybe as a self identification: simple, honest, hard-working etc.)
And that a speaker emphasizing and deemphasizing that retroflex r sound depending on social context would seem to carry a social message? It would maybe reflect a desire to integrate into different social circles and/or socio-economic groups?
This was an amazing video and worth subscribing! I study Ancient Greek and Latin in university (also did it in highschool) and when I saw this video in my recommended, I only clicked on it out of curiosity if I'd learn anything new. I'm a native Dutch (Flemish) speaker and we do have a rhotic r, but not a geminated r, so I only know that sound from my ventures into other languages and I knew it was phonemic in Latin. (It was never explicitly stated in my Greek courses, but I'm not surprised.) I stayed for the engaging explanation and I even learned something new because I'd never considered the r could be voiceless. Coincidentally, I learned just yesterday that the aspiration on the rho comes from a PIE s (like Gr. ῥέω < PIE *srewe/o), so now I have the full picture, pronunciation included.
Great video! I enjoyed it just as much as the one on "ει"! Please do this on all ancient greek sounds. I am particularly curious regarding the following:
1) How to pronounce the iota subscriptum in classical Greek - does an omega (which has two morai) receive a third mora with the iota subscriptum? How long is the syllable?
2) How to pronounce the ξ ("x") sound in classical Greek - Attic inscriptions from the classical age often render is as "χσ" - does that mean that is was somehow "voiced"?
3) Did the neutral ending -ον lose its "n" when spoken, much like the "m" in the Roman ending -um? In modern Greek, the ending has been shortened to -o; when did this process begin?
Such great questions! Yes these will all be topics in future videos.
Ι can't help much with ancient phonology but the final -n still exists in many dialects especially in the Aegean as well as in Cypriot and Pontic greek and not just in the neuter. Cypriots for example will say θάλασσαν (in the accusative)
Thank you! Enjoyed the comparisons between different languages. Great series!
Holy crap Luke, I've learned how to pronounce so many sounds in languages like the alveolar tap in Japanese, and the uvular trill in Welsh, but I was never able to figure out how to produce the alveolar trill, UNTIL NOW. That tip about trying to say "Per-ro" separated literally NO JOKE instantly made me able to produce it pretty convincingly. I'm gonna keep practicing so it becomes second nature, THANK you so much for the help, seriously!
I’m delighted!
There is no uvular trill /ʀ/ in Welsh. Welsh has two rhotics, /r/ voiced alveolar trill, written r and /r̥/ voiceless alveolar trill, written rh.
This was very helpful. I've always had a hard time rolling my r's, but realized it's because I was trying to get my tongue to do something - which inherently meant tensing it. Derp. Hearing that I needed to relax the tongue was the linchpin for me. Thank you!!!
I've caught myself accidentally trilling the "did" in a quick, relaxed "how did I...?" leading to a pronunciation like ['haʊraɪ
].
Wow!
i do that way too often lol
A happier accident than the lone unfortunate soul who disliked this video.
I want to believe someone's finger slipped. Or they should reconsider their life's choices. Seriously.
“But I…” does this a lot too
That happens to me a lot when I say "water", and I'm from the western US. It often comes out as [wɑr͡ɻ], where the "-ter" part starts as a trill and ends as a retroflex approximant.
A good and simple example of how just changing the intensity or presence of a sound in English can completely change the meaning are the words “hold” and “old”.
If one does not pronounce the aspirated “h” sound, it can get confusing.
Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, etc, do not have this soft aspirated “h” sound. (Spanish does have a strong aspirated “h” sound with the sounds of the letters “j” and sometimes with the letter “g”.
Thanks so much for this video. This will greatly help me with my Portuguese as a foreign language classes.
Czech here. We use that alveolar tap plentifully in my language, however until I was 15 years old, I suffered from rhotacism - and I really mean suffered since it made me extremely introverted for the fear of being made fun of. There's even a movie for children about the speech impediment, link down below. The trick that is often used by speech therapists (I went to multiple) first is taking a word of which the second letter is "R" and substituting it with the letter "D". It's recommended to start with words starting on the letter "T" (e.g. trnka, tramvaj, trouba, etc.) since "D" and "T" require a similar tongue placement. After getting proficient at all combinations, you move onto the next letter, like "K" (král, krysa, krumpáč, etc.) or "M" (mrak, mrož, mrně, etc.). Not sure how this would translate to English, but it could work.
As for the alveolar trill, that's a tough one to crack. I can do it on its own, but my rendition doesn't have the frequency I most often hear - my tongue perhaps isn't relaxed well enough. Thankfully we don't use it often, maybe just for show :)
There's also a fun letter found only in the Czech alphabet - the almighty "Ř" - raised alveolar non-sonorant trill. It can be both voiced and unvoiced. This one is probably the toughest to learn, since no other language uses it, although Polish and Kashubian have a similar-sounding digraph "rz", which is a voiced retroflex fricative.
Here's the film I mentioned:
ruclips.net/video/OjcvjUGa-_s/видео.html
Compare Czech "řeka" and Polish "rzeka" (both mean river):
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Cs-%C5%99eka.ogg
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Pl-Rzeka.ogg
Thanks for the comment!
@Dimitrij Fedorov I agree, it sounds like a small child trying to pronounce Ř :)
My Latin/Ancient Greek highschool teacher told me that every Mediterranean language (Greek, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese) tends to a very soft pronounciation (to palatalization ) of the consonants. That helps me understand better the romance languages using my knowledge of the Classical languages. Your tips - extremely usful (Besides tha fact that I am macedonian native speaker and I know the difference betwen r and rr). Thank you Luke!
Portuguese is not Mediterranean, though.
@@Xarmsie Yeah, but doesn't it tends to palatalize the consonants? Th, c, j etc?
I noticed the voiceless "r" sound in turkish when it's at the end of the word. Like "hayır" ( which means "no") . I always found it interesting. I didn't know other languages had that sound.
in Irish we have this same sound as Turkish and English-speakers are very very bad at learning it hahaha
As a native German speaker, relaxing my tongue enough to do the geminated alveolar trill is definitely very hard. I manage sometimes, but not very consistently
Einfach weiter üben, dann klappt es mit der Zeit. Bei manchen Leuten dauert das sogar mehrere Jahre, aber irgendwann macht's "klick". Die Verbindung von Hirn zur Muskulatur im Mund passend herzustellen und das automatisch auszuführen ohne darüber nachdenken zu müssen, brauchst seine Zeit.
Native German speaker here as well, but with a fully rhothic native dialect that has alveolar trilled "r"s (Bernese German). If it makes you feel any better, the kind of "r" that most German speakers use is also incredibly difficult for me. I can do a trilled r or a very guttural French "r" which I use when speaking French. But the Standard German "r" (or also the French "Edith Piaf r") feels to me like an "in-between r" that is extremely hard for me to produce.
@@chriflu fully rhotic... so you pronounce r at the end of words as a consonant and not a vowel?
@@elenna_alexia Exactly. "Wasser" is pronounced "Wassr" instead of "Wassɐ". This is the case in all Alemannic dialects (i.e. in addition to the Swiss German dialects also Schwäbisch and Vorarlbergerisch).
Actually, I didn't need to learn the voiceless trill because at first I could *only* trill without voicing. I guess I was subconsciously following in the Greeks' footsteps.
The Greeks’ tonguesteps!
yeah, it's harder to do without the push of air from not voicing
How the fuck... when did they put Ogham into unicode for usernames, that's amazing!
@@Anonie324 Tom Scott has a video on that process 😉
The pronunciation of the letter R varies so much in Brazil that I wouldn't be surprised to come across serious papers about it. In regions of Italian immigration, the sound of the double R is that of the alveolar trill, just like in Italian. In most regions the sound is that of the uvular fricative, BUT when we speak faster, we tend to make it easier by pronouncing the glottal, as you mentioned (when we talk slowly, though, the uvular is very audible). The R in the beginning of words is always geminated; even when alone in the beginning of syllables, if not preceded by vowel, it is so (it's rare, but it happens, like in the word "melro", which means "blackbird"). Now, the R in the end of syllables is the one that varies the most. It is sometimes a tap (south and a bit of the center), sometimes uvular / glottal (east and north-east regions), and sometimes approximant, very similarly to English in words like "word" (west and, I believe, north-west).
But it doesn't end there! If one goes deeper into the countryside, one can find the geminated R being pronounced like a tap, with no difference from the single R, and probably more variants which I never came across.
PS: your videos are incredible. I've watched quite a load. Thank you for the excellent material!
Great video! Something of my own experience: Μy late grandma, born in Symi, Dodecannese, was pronouncing all double consonants, rr, ss, tt, nn, mm, etc. And I believe that the Cypriots keep doing this till today.
Yea think that’s ancient but to hard lol I don’t do it but it’s hard to always remind myself to try
Depending on the region in Portugal, you can have the voiced alveolar trill "r" or a voiced uvular fricative "ʁ" for intervocalic "rr", depending on the region and other factors. Only in parts of Brazil a softer aspirated sound similar to the English 'h" (voiceless glottal fricative) can be found
My mom has a uvular trill "ʀ" for intervocalic "rr" which is interesting.
I'm from the UK and I have an advanced (or almost advanced) level of Spanish and I still struggle with the double r pronunciation. Thanks for your video Luke- your British accent is quite accurate compared to most North Americans.
Ευχαριστούμε για όλες τις πληροφορίες που ούτε εμείς οι Έλληνες πολλές φορές δε γνωρίζουμε για τη γλώσσα μας. :)
Ευχαριστώ, Σοφία!
As always, great video! I should say that in modern Greek, if the context dictates that someone should stress the double ρ (because for example there was a similar-sounding word with a single ρ in the sentence), they will, even if most of the time they have it be phonetically indistinguishable from the single ρ (e.g. άρρωστος or διάρρηξη).
In many regional accents, and especially in Cyprus, though, people frequently use the double ρ sound, both due to ancient Greek and foreign influences!
Ναι! And Cypriot Greek is marvelous
Additional tongue release exercises I've heard suggested as a singer: massaging along the hyoid, sticking the tongue out for approx. 7 second increments, moving the tongue along the inside of the gums can also be of use.
Excellent, excellent exercises!
the explanation of the diff between s and z was brilliant. i think that was the first time in my life I pronounced s correctly lol
Many thank for all these awesome vids Luke!
Ευχαριστώ!
Portuguese had originally the same sounds for single, double and initial rs as Spanish and Italian, and they can still be heard in the more conservative areas of both Portugal and Brazil. In the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries initial and double rs became gutural, and as a later development they became fainter in Brazil, but still they are stronger than the letter h in English. They can be seen as its voiced variation, and that is a clear clue to spot Brazilians who might have an otherwise good pronunciation.
The comment about the British pronunciation of better etc made me chuckle. You're much more likely to hear it with a glottal stop here (although our glottalisation is slightly more widespread than US tapping, as it also often affects coda t as well as intervocalic t)
this vid, and the previous one, is hella useful, thank you!
I'm really glad you think so! :D
Excellent lesson, Luke! It helped me a lot in the understanding of a passage of the Vox Graeca. But something still obscure. Allen said the following in his text:
"What is being described is clearly a trilled, alveolar [r] sound, as e.g. in Italian or some Scottish pronunciations, as not as in southern English, where it is more retracted and less strongly articulated (with single tap, friction, or neither)."
And a little bit latter his talks about voiced and voiceless ρ, but in no moment mentions this single ρ of ορος as you said. It seems more natural for me to use that softer ρ in the middle of voewls, but if that is the case how to distinguish in greek the sample voiceless sound from the other? Just the spirit? Allen also says:
"of course, the indication of the rough breathing on initial ρ is as superfluous as on the geminate, since it is automatic in virtually all cases."
Anyway, awesome lesson. This technique of whispering is just fantastic!
Woo! Something I know about! I learned the alveolar trill when I was 2 years old. I still remember feeling very proud that day and my dad giving me tongue twisters and recording me saying them. This was speaking Slovak, but I grew up in Belgium and had to learn Dutch starting in preschool. My Rs were very "exaggerated", they said, for a long time. It took checking out Japanese and finding out the alveolar tap exists to correct myself. And turns out I had been saying it wrong in Slovak too.
Now I knew about the initial rho in Ancient Greek not being voiced, but I had no idea until now that any language differentiated between r and rr like that. It just sounds like another case of a double consonant making the consonant sound longer.
Still, I seem to perceive a difference between an "r-like" alveolar tap and a "d-like" alveolar tap. The American dialect words you said were d-like, Japanese's R is d-like, and all others are r-like. The r-like ones don't sound like a single tap, though when pronouncing them I can't feel my tongue tapping multiple times, unlike when saying a proper trilled R.
Last point, what about a regular, non-geminated alveolar trill? You didn't mention it at all, but it seems like there must be a reason why the "geminated" is always included.
Voiceless sonorants are fascinating! Loved practicing their pronunciation when I was learning Welsh. I've been creating a conlang and there is and voiced-voiceless alveolar trill phonemic distinction. :)
Wow that's fun!
@@polyMATHY_Luke yeah, it all started as morphology project back when I was in undergrad and I have carried it on to this day. I'm imagining "what would a language with extensive speech levels and honorifics like Korean/Japanese had the fusional morphology of Standard Average European?". It's been fun. :)
you have just answered a question (about the pronounciation of the aspirated ρ in the beginning of words) I had since I was 12 and for which none of my teachers could help me! Thank you!
My pleasure!
The symbol of aspirate "δασεία" means that there is the semivowel digamma (F) which initially was the letter S and then after becoming a semivowel it was pronounced as "H" and according to Hesehious dictionary it replaced vowels and consonants on the Greek dialects.
The written history of the Greek language does not start with the Homeric period but 1.000 years maybe more during the time of Mycenean civilization and prior to it where the semivowel F and j were widely in use in all syllabic letters that Michael Ventris found in 1952 to 1954 decoding the Linnear B inscritions.
First seeing the title :"OK, it's about rho, I'm greek I have nothing more to learn about it. Then comes the" rh" sound and I'm like 🤪
😃
"Caro" and "carro" are also Spanish words. Ahorra ahora, para comprar un carro más caro.
Armenian has, if I understand right, a three-way distinction between (bethreen?) a tap, a trill, and a double tap. The double tap occurs in "[jɛˈɾːɔɾtʰ]. I find it really hard to say /ɾː/, but have no problem with /ɾ/ (ր) and /r/ (ռ).
Both Spanish and Greek have a rule that if a prefix ending in a vowel is added to a word beginning with a single , or a compound is formed thus, the is doubled: de+roca=derroca, επι+ρημα=επιρρημα. Someone who apparently didn't know this spelled the parvorders of monkeys Platyrrhini and Catarrhini, but the suborder containing them Haplorhini.
Oh thank you for this! I’m trying to learn Armenian and there are a few sounds that are hard for me to make. Mainly խ, ղ, and ռ. Which are kh, gh, and rr respectively. Kh wasn’t too bad but I still over-pronounce it sometimes, gh took me FOREVER to figure out, and rr I didn’t even know where to start until I saw this. So again thank you!
The devoiced geminate reminds me of Greenlandic where medial [v l ɣ ʁ] contrast (and sometimes alternate) with [f: ɬ: ç: χ:].
Its verry easy for me to pronounce every word. Hello from Poland!
I have a Spanish minor, which included a Spanish linguistics course solely dedicated to pronunciation. I was able to get everything, including the proper "v" sound for Spanish. The trilled "rr" I just never could. I had given up years ago, but perhaps at 33 I am an old dog that can still learn a new trick with this new method to practice.
Native speakers of Spanish generally know from context what I mean, since "pero" shouldn't have "el', "un", or 'mi" in front of it where "perro" almost always does, but I'd prefer for them not to need to do that.
Thankfully, one of the best things about learning Spanish is native speakers tend to be among the most patient and supportive folks you can hope to find of anyone trying to learn their language.
Quite!
What do you mean by the "proper" v sound?
For the V sound in English, your bottom lip touches your top front teeth, but in Spanish your lips touch. I know b/v are the same in Spanish, but to sort of visualize the sound it's easier for me to think of the English V and turn it into the Spanish V than to start with the English B sound. I had to look it up because I am bit rusty on the terminology, but the linguistic term for the Spanish b/v is the voiced bilabial fricative.
Most native English speakers starting out learning Spanish just use the English B, but that sound is a voiced bilabial stop and isn't actually the proper sound.
@@seamussc Mmm... I am a bit confused about what you are trying to say. As a native Spanish speaker with a degree in Linguistics, I think that what you are trying to master is the "second" (allophonic) pronunciation of "b/v", right ?
@@alexanderavendano7404 He's referring to the bilabial fricative~approximant allophone of /b/, yes.
The alveolar trill is one of those skills I've gained, lost and gained again. Right now it's useful for me because I've been diving into the strange and fascinating world of constructed languages, of which the one with the largest community (Esperanto) has seemingly canonically a trill or tap alveolar R (allophonic), though uvular and approximant alveolar are considered acceptable. (I have a habit of exaggerating trilled R sometimes, especially in songs. I maybe need to tone back on that.)
I find if I'm quite dehydrated I can sometimes only pronounce a retroflex trill, requiring stronger airflow as well.
I can use this guy's voice as ASMR all day long! So soothing!
Thanks! I have an audiobooks store if you’re interested: LukeRanieri.com
@@polyMATHY_Luke Well I am interested and I will check this out! Thanks a lot
Wow! Thank you so much! Finally I understand how to pronounce rh in Latin!!!
I really enjoy this one :D
I am waiting for more videos of Greek & More Languages Pronunciation.
Thanks so much! There will be many like this.
Ro Laren and Admiral Cain used in the right moments, thank you for making this geek happy :D
I've been able to roll my rs since about November after using this technique
Thank you so much for this. Haha, I’ve been put off learning Italian for this reason. The Rs are like hitting a brick wall. I feel like a distressed animal trying to pronounce the Rs. I’ve learnt so much else. Blessings to you :)
And to you! Good luck; you can do it!
I think that Spanish (and in general, Iberian languages) has a stronger distinction in manner of articulation between r and rr compared to Italian. I think Italian single r is often a flap, as opposed to a tap: it starts cycling like for a trill, and just stops before the second cycle. Iberian single r is a more rigid tap, kind of like in Japanese though not as extreme
In most parts of Brazil that have italian or spanish heritage we actually pronounce that rolled R. It is much more common to elder people do that, but I like the way it sounds. You might be seen as a hilbilly if you speak like that. We are told here that the"H" pronounciation of r is due to portuguese aristocracy in colonial times trying to sound fancy, by imitating the heavy gutural r we see in french, which soon spread among the common people and now we have this breathy h sound.
Great video Luca,
Sicilian has developed an interesting developments of the trill r.
It's has become a retroflex sound.!
Como você falou sobre o Brasil, vou deixar aqui os meus parabéns pelo excelente vídeo escrevendo em português. Realmente, a prosódia é a manifestação espiritual de uma língua, é a poesia viva, é o som verdadeiro das notas que estão presas na pauta da escrita e que produzem a música da língua falada. Dizem que grego antigo era uma lingua cantada, com modulações de tonalidades altas e baixas. Isso não seria impossível, pois hoje temos o mandarim e o tibetano que usam vários contornos tonais.
I could roll my r’s fine before I started learning Spanish but for the life of me I could not pronounce the “dr” in “madre” or “padre”. I tried the method of pronouncing each syllable in close succession as you suggest and I can say that cluster much more easily now. Thanks for your advice.
Great video! I do have one note though. The welsh ll is actually a voiceless lateral fricative [ɬ], not a voiceless lateral approximant [l̥]
Nice touch with the Mozart at the end, Amadeo.
Hi. Fantastic channel and fantastic video, thoroughly enjoyed.
A tiny comment: You advised American listeners to make the voiced alveolar tap (ɾ) by recreating the "tt" part of better. While it does sound similar, I think the latter (heh) sounds a lot closer to a voiced retroflex plosive (ɖ). This is just how it sounds to my ears though, I may be a bit off base.
Source: Native greek with a lot of Indian friends, I say (ɾ/r) and hear (ɖ) every day :P
Thanks! Yes, it’s definitely not the retroflex sound of many Indian accents. I do love that accents! It’s a beautiful sound, but distinctly foreign to an American ear.
I'm bilingual, my other first language is Norwegian, we have the alveolar tap in "kjøre" (drive) and the trill in "prøve" (the infinitive form of attempt), I feel like that has helped me learn new phonemes from additional languages.
That said, my favorite phrase is from Czhech - "Strč prst skrz krk"
The aspirated ῥ is still present in Byzantine chant. It truly does sound different from the simple “r” sound.
Very general explanation to 8:39. How world "όρος" and "όρρος" created?
In Portugal when we use the double r but we usually pronounce it /R/ and we simply do not pronounce h's at all, it's one of the main differences between Portugal's portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese
In my native language (Dutch), especially in the region where I'm from people usually trill the "R" as a voiced dental trill. I've never actually been able to do it even after help for a speech therapist, I'm stuck on a voiced uvular trill. Never heard of these perticular techniques though, I will try them out! Who knows maybe after practice I can actually sound like someone from the region I'm from after 29 years.
Me too! Standard Dutch has the alveolar trill, but growing up near the German border, I learnt the uvular trill natively and can barely pronounce the alveolar one. One day though...
@@ppenmudera4687 I already forgot about this comment, but this video actually helped me out. I am able to trill my "R" now. It took me a few weeks of practice, and it's still a tad difficult, it hasn't entered my usual speech, but just the fact that I'm able to do it now is enough for me. I'm sure that one day you can do it too!
Hi I love your videos about languages and pronunciation! I’d like to point out that at 11:42 you have ロマ時 instead of ローマ字. Just a small thing, but wonderful video! Keep up the fantastic work!
Heh yeah I know, I found the typo after I had completed the video. Thanks.
Un pozzo di scienza, come sempre.
Grazie mille, Stefano!
I was reminded of this video last night when I met someone from Hungary who lived in the US for 22 years (on a multiperson Zoom call in English). I never left Hungary for more than a week, and I had less of an accent than her 😲
In Portuguese, in my dialect, at least, R has a huge amount of pronunciations, french r, German ch, English h, Spanish r, and no sound at all
Sim! É increivel português 🤩 Gosto muito disso.
we have every sounds for R ahhsahsahas, for mine is: french r and English h, German ch, Spanish tap r, and English r. and nothing at all too kkkkk
It's like Dutch R. It can sound like the Spanish R, German/French R, German CH, or even like the American R colored vowel!
As a Brazilian myself I pronounce carro and Roma, with this h sound but also vibrating my vocal chords.
What a rich explanation, thanks. Speaking of 'r', do you know about the Czech letter 'ř'? It's supposed to be a phoneme existing only on that language.
It’s my favorite sound in Czech! 🤩
@@polyMATHY_Luke any tip to pronounce it correctly?
I think Old Norse might of had it in their -r suffix, descended from Proto-Germanic *-az. If a Z became an R, something tells me it could have been a Czech Ř or something similar like a voiceless and/or aspirated R at some point.
@@Zimisce85 The best method that I can think of is trying to pronouce a trilled R and a ZH sound at the same time.
In spanish of the Andes, in Bolivia, Perú and Ecuador, the 'rr' and 'r' at the beginning of the word, sound like r with the hat in Czech language.
Great video! Thank you for clearing up this issue.
Have you been keeping up with your Hebrew? It’s been a while since I’ve seen you comment on Aleph with Beth’s videos.
Thanks!
Not lately I fear, but soon I am returning to Hebrew!
@@polyMATHY_Luke Good. Good. ;)
Would it perhaps be possible to get a video at some stage about pitch accent? I don’t just struggle to make the different pitches, I honestly can’t even hear them.
Sure! I've already made a non-public one that you can see: ruclips.net/video/v6Fj8gdjsNs/видео.html
It's not edited, but I'll be doing *every* aspect of Ancient Greek pronunciation in this video series, and a good one on pitch accent will follow!
Your Spanish is great, Luke. I’ve had a lot of trouble trying to trill my R’s since I was a child, but I began doing your exercises and I began to improve in that.
The stuff about the alveolar tap in intervocalic 't' is US English has reminded me of my favourite ever observation about English pronunciation around the world. If you're American, and you say "space ghettoes" in your own accent, you've just said "Spice Girls" in a Scottish accent. Try it!
Nice!
I took a Spanish class in college years ago, but had so much trouble doing trills; I gave up trying. My tongue simply would not do it. After watching this video, I believe that may change.
Ok. Two days later, I finally got it. THIS is the only video that got me there!
You got all us Greek hooked.
I am German, yet I have somehow been able to roll an R as long as I can remember. Just tapping it though is something a had to actively learn and which I initially forced by closing my jaws until there was no room for my tongue left to swing with the R.
I personally came up with a basic exercise for rolling yours Rs. I show to everyone that doesn't speak Spanish and even to some of my bilingual friends where their Spanish is still in need of practice.
Very very basic, I tell everyone that just focus on learning your Vowels in Spanish.
A, E, I, O, U. Get them very used to saying it alot.
Then I tell them to try and give me their very best impression of a Motorcycle or Lawnmower (bear with me lol) just so they can feel their tongues loosening.
Then we go back to the Vowels and simply say all the Vowels again with a RR in the beginning.
rra, rre, rri, rro, rru
It's not a fancy exercise, but it has helps alot!
Thank you. I had wondered if Ancient / Classical Greek used a French RH (uvular) rather than a trilled or tap R/RR like Spanish, plus how he aspiration entered into it. Bonus points for including the TNG clip with the introduction of Ens. Ro Laren. :D
American English usually has that alveolar tap for T between vowels. "Kitty-kitty-kitty" is a convenient example. :D But American English rarely uses the glottal stop in place of intervocalic T, which several British English dialects (like Cockney or Northern) say bottle as /bo'ël/, better /be'ë/.
I love these videos! Keep 'em up.
Thanks! Many many more to come
Beautifully done. Congratulations.
In brazilian portuguese, at least the carioca accent, we completly lost the germinated rr (even though we use the single r a lot). The rr sounds like the french r. I've always had a hard time saying perro in spanish. Your tips helped, i'm trying to practice it.
Legal!
Could you make a video about the “pl-/fl-” in Latin that became “ch” /ʃ/ in Portuguese. Like Latin _pluvia_ that became Portuguese _chuva_ and Portuguese _chão_ from Latin _plānum_
Like, how does “pl” became “ch”? It's “weird” and different lol.
Great question! Yes I shall have to do that
Before it was /tʃ/, and after became fricative. Today, in northern portuguese of Portugal, still is pronuncied affricate.
There are Romance languages with an intermediate stage of development from /pl/ to /ʃ/. The Lombard of Val Mesolcina (Switzerland) and areas of Valtellina (Italy) have /ptʃ/ or /tʃ/ or /ftʃ/; for example, Latin PLŪS 'more', has become /tʃu/ or /ftʃu/ in Val Mesolcina (and /tʃy/ in Valtellina). Likewise with /fl/: Latin FLORIS became /tʃor/ or /ftʃor/. Genoese (Zenèise) similarly has ciù /tʃy/ 'more', and sciua /ʃua/ 'flower', cieuve /tʃøve/ 'rain', while Latin PLĀNUM has become cian /tʃã/. Portuguese likely went through similar sound changes.
Love the use of Starrr Trrrek.
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I learned the French R in school. I could do a guttural vibrating German R. Once I made the connection that the vibration needs to come in the tip I was able to start trying to isolate the part that needs to trill. I am still working on it. I can vibrate but adding a sound is tricky. There's also something you do with your throat. My sister is trying to help.
Check out the video by Elissa!