Mess of a language: It’s London’s fault.
My friend Nik (better known as the Funky Mother on DalianXpat.com) posted a fascinating story on the expat forum that got me thinking. It seems the historically recent butchery of English, as it’s spoken by those who still have a queen, is the fault of those living at the very heart of that once-upon-a-time empire.
Who put the R in bath? Surely this is a trick question, you may think, there is no R in bath. But if you search hard enough in certain parts of Britain the rogue consonant is there - squatting erroneously between the A and the T.
So which linguistic criminals are to blame? The Americans? Nope. They may have been guilty of savagely stealing the U from honour, colour and glamour, and ruthlessly usurping poor S from its position among realise, organise and their lexical brethren so they could replace it with the rather radical Z, but we can’t pin this one on the English-speakers across the pond. If we want to uncover who really put the R in bath we need look no further than England’s great capital.
London, home of the Queen and the apparently “proper†English speakers, is actually to blame for the mutated pronunciation. According to an expert at the British Library, the Telegraph reports, the R sound in words such as laugh and bath only came about 150 years ago when Londoners adopted the trend into their speech. Apparently, the entire nation used the bath and “laff” pronunciations about 250 to 300 years ago – a tradition which is still alive and kicking in northern England. The south gradually adopted an “aa†sound which, over time, became the familiar “barth†of the ubiquitous London and Home Counties drawl of today.
I’m glad she acquits us Yanks. I spent most of February traveling with Britons, two from Devon and a Welsh woman living in Birmingham. Half our conversations devolved into “why do you keep talking about your underwear?” and whether various parts of an automobile actually belonged on elephants or Amish women.
It became a quasi-nationalistic thing after a while. Who invented the language? Who rescued who in which world war? Where did the Beatles come from? Stupid, all of it.
We’ve all really made a mess of this language, I must say. Much of my speech, I realize, has become a mish-mash of Cali slang and verbosity better suited to concealing meaning than conveying it.
Then again, being straightforward all the time can be so dull.
April 10th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
So your in 大连 hun? How is that treating you.
I’ve been there a bunch of times. I was born in Harbin and lived there until I was 6. The funniest memory of dalian I have is from a picture when I was 5…. i was by all of the lillypads pretending to be grumpy and sour, attempting not to laugh.
April 10th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Hi Mike,
Dalian’s a cool place, especially on days like today, when the sun is out and I can walk on the beach near my university and skip rocks in the Yellow Sea. Life ain’t bad.
I’d be curious to compare Dalian to Shenzhen, since they’re both largely products of the economic reforms of the past 30 years. I went through Shenzhen briefly a month ago, on my way to the airport. Must get down there again.
April 11th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
/b/ /a:/ /θ/
vs.
/b/ /æ/ /θ/
/r/ doesn’t come into it.
April 12th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Alex, there is an r there if you’re from southeastern England, New Zealand or Australia. r is only a sound at the beginning of a syllable; otherwise it lengthens the preceeding vowel. Sometimes.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
originally hailing from wales, and therefore saying ‘laff’, etc., when i then went to study in london i rather self-conciously adopted the southern drawl in order to try to better fit in. now i realise that was dumb.
but still, i often confuse myself and others by sometimes asking for a “glarss of wahter”, and sometimes a good old-fashioned “glass ‘f water”
April 13th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Chris: That’s what /a:/ means. /a:/ is like a long ‘ahhh’ /b/ ‘ahhh’ /θ/
The tongue stays low, the sound comes from the pit of the throat. It’s distinct from /r/ which involves the tongue.
West Country speak (Somerset, Bristol) would involve the tongue and insert an /r/.
April 19th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
I’m honoUred to be mentioned on your blog, if not by name. On the subject of accents, I’d like to clarify that although two people from Devon were present, neither person has the misfortune to be cursed with the Devonian regional accent. For that I’m eternally thankful.