| Subject: |
Re: I beg to differ... |
| Author: |
ClaudiaS (Authenticated as ClaudiaS) |
| Date: |
June 19, 2012 at 8:21:40 PM |
| Reply to: |
Re: I beg to differ... by SugarPlumFairy |
I think you need to be very careful about claiming a given pronunciation to be "preferred," "educated," or "supposed to be that way" when comparing dialects across countries. What is preferred in England and Portugal may not be preferred in the U.S. and Brazil. To say, for instance, that pronouncing the suffix "-er" as a schwa, [ə], (standard British pronunciation) is educated and just supposed to be that way, while the rhotic [ɚ] (standard American pronunciation) is uneducated and shouldn't be imitated, would be quite offensive.
The Wikipedia page you referenced, in fact, draws a clear distinction between the standard pronunciation of R in Portugal and Brazil. To quote phonetic note #3 in part:
"In Europe, it is typically a uvular trill [ʀ]...In Brazil...it is usually pronounced as a voiceless velar fricative [x], a voiceless glottal fricative [h] or voiceless uvular fricative [χ]."
In Brazil, according to this article, the letter R is USUALLY pronounced as an [h], or as [x] or [χ], which are fricatives similar to [h] and perceived by English-speakers as variants of that phoneme. How can it be a "gross generalization" to say that the preferred or standard pronunciation of R in most parts of Brazil is H or an H-like sound?
| Because this message is archived you cannot respond to it. |
- Renzo - Maggie Jun 18 2012, 11:40:17 AM
- Re: Renzo - SugarPlumFairy Jun 18 2012, 6:05:29 PM
- Re: Renzo - ClaudiaS Jun 18 2012, 12:08:03 PM
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