Why do the English put a "R" on random words?

[jhf14]

something I've notice from English commentators during premier league play as well as the world cup...

for example, the commentators pronounce "Anelka" as "Anelker" .... why the "r"?

it seems this is a trend for words that end in a vowel, but I haven't nailed down the theory yet...thoughts?

 

[Desaparecido]

Accent.

 

[Goat]

Its colour, not color, got it?

 

[Matt Damon]

something I've notice from English commentators during premier league play as well as the world cup...

for example, the commentators pronounce "Anelka" as "Anelker" .... why the "r"?

it seems this is a trend for words that end in a vowel, but I haven't nailed down the theory yet...thoughts?

Its phonetics.

Its to do with "stress" within words.

And its different in different parts of the UK.

 

[Matt Damon]

Sounds Familiar? Accents and Dialects of the UK
British Library Resource
http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/

You also want to look at:

Received Pronunciation (RP)
In the UK, only a small percentage of people speak something similar to RP. In the area near Oxford, Cambridge, Brighton and London (although there is a regional accent for London also).

"Normal" Britons usually speak with their own local accents, which are often quite different from RP. Sometimes cities that are only 20 km apart have very different accents.

RP is non-rhotic, which means that the letter r is usually "silent", unless it is followed by a vowel. Here's how it works:

* In words like car, tower, inform and first, r is silent (r is not followed by a vowel).
* In words like red, foreign, print, r is pronounced (r is followed by a vowel).
* R is also pronounced at the end of a word, if the next word starts with a vowel, for example: number eight, far away.
* Most RP speakers also insert an r in phrases like: the idea(r) of, Africa(r) and Asia, law(r) and order. This r is not in the spelling; they just use it to separate two vowels.


The following pairs sound exactly the same in RP: or/awe, court/caught, sore/saw, farther/father, formerly/formally. In General American, they all sound different.

The range of American accents is much lower than English in Britain.

Also RP is what would to most people be referred to as "Queen's English" or the academic - English.

Spoken English from regions can be much different as you can see above, and is different to American English for the above.

 

[Allezfan]

something I've notice from English commentators during premier league play as well as the world cup...

for example, the commentators pronounce "Anelka" as "Anelker" .... why the "r"?

it seems this is a trend for words that end in a vowel, but I haven't nailed down the theory yet...thoughts?

We like to do stuff like that just to make life difficult for foreigners.

 

[Matt Damon]

OH. and for Wiki freaks like me:

English pronunciation can be divided into two main accent groups: A rhotic (pronounced /ˈroʊtɨk/, sometimes /ˈrɒtɨk/) speaker pronounces the letter R in hard; a non-rhotic speaker does not pronounce it in hard. That is, rhotic speakers pronounce /r/ in all positions, while non-rhotic speakers pronounce /r/ only if it is followed by a vowel sound in the same phrase or prosodic unit (see "linking and intrusive R")
These phenomena appeared in English sometime after the year 1700
Examples of rhotic accents are: Hiberno English, Mid Ulster English, Canadian English and most varieties of American English. Non-rhotic accents include most accents of England, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa.


In the United States, much of the South was once non-rhotic, but in recent decades non-rhotic speech has declined. Today, non-rhoticity in Southern American English is found primarily among older speakers, and only in some areas such as New Orleans (where it is known as the Yat dialect).
central and southern Alabama, Savannah, Georgia, and Norfolk, Virginia.

Parts of New England, especially Boston, are non-rhotic as well as New York City and surrounding areas. The case of New York is especially interesting because of a classic study in sociolinguistics by William Labov showing that the non-rhotic accent is associated with older and middle- to lower-class speakers, and is being replaced by the rhotic accent. African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is largely non-rhotic.

 

[Matt Damon]

Non-rhotic varieties of English only allow [r] to be pronounced when it immediately precedes a vowel, a feature variably called r-vocalization, r-loss, r-deletion, r-dropping, r-lessness, or non-rhoticity.

So, for example, in non-rhotic varieties, the sound [r] does not occur in a word such as cheater when it is spoken in isolation or before a word beginning with a consonant. Even though the word is spelled with an ‹r› (which reflects that an [r] was pronounced in the past), non-rhotic accents don't pronounce an [r] when there is no vowel sound to follow it.
Thus, in isolation, speakers of non-rhotic accents pronounce the words cheater and cheetah identically as [ˈtʃiːtə].


In contrast, speakers of rhotic dialects, such as those of Scotland, Ireland and most of North America, always pronounce an [r] in cheater and never in cheetah so that the two always sound distinct, even when pronounced in isolation.

 

[bluebloodinmyveins]

Oh good god.

 

[jhf14]

Sounds Familiar? Accents and Dialects of the UK
British Library Resource
http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/

You also want to look at:

Received Pronunciation (RP)
In the UK, only a small percentage of people speak something similar to RP. In the area near Oxford, Cambridge, Brighton and London (although there is a regional accent for London also).

"Normal" Britons usually speak with their own local accents, which are often quite different from RP. Sometimes cities that are only 20 km apart have very different accents.

RP is non-rhotic, which means that the letter r is usually "silent", unless it is followed by a vowel. Here's how it works:

* In words like car, tower, inform and first, r is silent (r is not followed by a vowel).
* In words like red, foreign, print, r is pronounced (r is followed by a vowel).
* R is also pronounced at the end of a word, if the next word starts with a vowel, for example: number eight, far away.
* Most RP speakers also insert an r in phrases like: the idea(r) of, Africa(r) and Asia, law(r) and order. This r is not in the spelling; they just use it to separate two vowels.


The following pairs sound exactly the same in RP: or/awe, court/caught, sore/saw, farther/father, formerly/formally. In General American, they all sound different.

The range of American accents is much lower than English in Britain.

Also RP is what would to most people be referred to as "Queen's English" or the academic - English.

Spoken English from regions can be much different as you can see above, and is different to American English for the above.

money... i think that is a very solid explanation. Finally I know that there is actually a reason for it!

 

[davek]

Oh good god.

This 100%.

 

[bluebloodinmyveins]

Accent.

This would have done. But nooooooooooooooooo, he had to post this.....

Sounds Familiar? Accents and Dialects of the UK
British Library Resource
http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/

You also want to look at:

Received Pronunciation (RP)
In the UK, only a small percentage of people speak something similar to RP. In the area near Oxford, Cambridge, Brighton and London (although there is a regional accent for London also).

"Normal" Britons usually speak with their own local accents, which are often quite different from RP. Sometimes cities that are only 20 km apart have very different accents.

RP is non-rhotic, which means that the letter r is usually "silent", unless it is followed by a vowel. Here's how it works:

* In words like car, tower, inform and first, r is silent (r is not followed by a vowel).
* In words like red, foreign, print, r is pronounced (r is followed by a vowel).
* R is also pronounced at the end of a word, if the next word starts with a vowel, for example: number eight, far away.
* Most RP speakers also insert an r in phrases like: the idea(r) of, Africa(r) and Asia, law(r) and order. This r is not in the spelling; they just use it to separate two vowels.


The following pairs sound exactly the same in RP: or/awe, court/caught, sore/saw, farther/father, formerly/formally. In General American, they all sound different.

The range of American accents is much lower than English in Britain.

Also RP is what would to most people be referred to as "Queen's English" or the academic - English.

Spoken English from regions can be much different as you can see above, and is different to American English for the above.

OH. and for Wiki freaks like me:

English pronunciation can be divided into two main accent groups: A rhotic (pronounced /ˈroʊtɨk/, sometimes /ˈrɒtɨk/) speaker pronounces the letter R in hard; a non-rhotic speaker does not pronounce it in hard. That is, rhotic speakers pronounce /r/ in all positions, while non-rhotic speakers pronounce /r/ only if it is followed by a vowel sound in the same phrase or prosodic unit (see "linking and intrusive R")
These phenomena appeared in English sometime after the year 1700
Examples of rhotic accents are: Hiberno English, Mid Ulster English, Canadian English and most varieties of American English. Non-rhotic accents include most accents of England, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa.


In the United States, much of the South was once non-rhotic, but in recent decades non-rhotic speech has declined. Today, non-rhoticity in Southern American English is found primarily among older speakers, and only in some areas such as New Orleans (where it is known as the Yat dialect).
central and southern Alabama, Savannah, Georgia, and Norfolk, Virginia.

Parts of New England, especially Boston, are non-rhotic as well as New York City and surrounding areas. The case of New York is especially interesting because of a classic study in sociolinguistics by William Labov showing that the non-rhotic accent is associated with older and middle- to lower-class speakers, and is being replaced by the rhotic accent. African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is largely non-rhotic.

One word was all that was really needed.

 

[jhf14]

Oh good god.

This 100%.

Haters... I mean.. "Hate-ahs"

 

[Matt Damon]

Haters... I mean.. "Hate-ahs"

They just wish they were as good as me.

 

[jhf14]

They just wish they were as good as me.

No one is as good as Matt Damon