一个鲜为人知的秘密——英国人为什么不卷舌?

　　1776年，无论是美国人宣布国家独立或英国人宣誓效忠英王乔治三世，人们的发音都大致相同AAVE币。当时，美国和英国口音尚未分化。然而，令人惊讶的是，好莱坞古装片都搞错了：爱国者美国兵和英国兵(注：美国独立战争时期英国士兵穿红色军上衣)的发音更接近当代美国口音而不是女王时期的标准英语。

　　在过去的两个世纪，标准的英国口音已发生巨大变化，而典型的美国口音则只有微妙改变AAVE币。

　　传统英语，无论是在英伦三岛或美国殖民地，其发音大部分都带有“卷舌音”（rhotic）AAVE币。带卷舌音的人在说 “hard(艰难)”和“winter(冬季)”这类词时，总是发出/r/音，而不带卷舌音的人则不然。然而今天，在英国大部分地区，人们说话通常都不带卷舌音。例如，大部分现在英国人会跟你说，这是一个“haad wintuh(严冬)”。

　　大约在美国独立战争时期，在伦敦及附近地区，英格兰南部的上层阶级之间开始用非卷舌音讲话AAVE币。据约翰·艾尔吉奥在《剑桥英语史》(剑桥大学出版社，2001年)的说法，之所以发生这种转变，因为出生于低阶层的人们在工业革命时期已发家致富，他们极力寻求使自己有别于其他平民的方法；他们逐步养成久负盛名的非卷舌音发音（non-rhotic），以显示他们的新贵地位。"

　　艾尔吉奥写道：“伦敦发音成为专家们(正音学研究者和朗诵教师)对一种新口音的特权AAVE币。正音学研究者们决定修正发音，编纂发音词典，并在私下收费高昂的辅导课上，用流行的发音方式对一些努力进取的公民进行训练”。

　　由这些专家们开发的高傲讲话方式逐渐成为标准化-- 被正式称为“标准发音”-- 在英国各地传播开来AAVE币。不过，在英格兰北部、苏格兰和爱尔兰的人们大部分都还保持其传统带卷舌音的口音。

　　大多数美国人的口音也保持卷舌音，当然也有例外：纽约和波士顿口音已成为非卷舌音AAVE币。据艾尔吉奥的说法，独立战争后，这些城市“受英国精英们的影响最大。

　　更细致的AAVE币，详见英文维基百科《Rhotic and non-rhotic accents》

　　先摘取部分段落及图片如下：

　　【图片一】On this map of England, the red areas are where the rural accents were rhotic in the 1950s. Based on H. Orton et al., Survey of English Dialects (1962–71). Some areas with partial rhoticity (for example parts of the East Riding of Yorkshire) are not shaded on this map.[可见，直到20世纪60年代，英格兰还有将近一半的乡村地区依旧保持传统的卷舌音AAVE币。]

　　【图片二】Red areas are where English dialects of the late 20th century were rhotic. Based on P. Trudgill, The Dialects of England.

　　【段落】

　　DEVELOPING OF NON-RHOTIC

　　The earliest traces of a loss of /r/ in English are found in the environment before /s/ in spellings from the mid-15th century: the Oxford English Dictionary reports bace for earlier barse (today "bass", the fish) in 1440 and passel for parcel in 1468. In the 1630s, the word juggernaut is first attested, which represents the Sanskrit word jagannāth, meaning "lord of the universe"; the English spelling uses the digraph er to represent a Hindi sound close to the English schwa. Loss of coda /r/ apparently became widespread in southern England during the 18th century;John Walker uses the spelling ar to indicate the broad A of aunt in his 1775 dictionary and reports that card is pronounced "caad" in 1791 (Labov, Ash, and Boberg 2006: 47).

　　Non-rhotic speakers pronounce an /r/ in red, and most pronounce it in torrid and watery, where R is followed by a vowel, but not in hard, nor in car or water when those words are said in isolation. However, in most non-rhotic accents, if a word ending in written "r" is followed closely by a word beginning with a vowel, the /r/ is pronounced—as in water ice. This phenomenon is referred to as "linking R".

　　DISTRIBUTION

　　Examples of rhotic accents are: Scottish English, Mid-Ulster English, Canadian English and most varieties of American English and Irish English. Non-rhotic accents include most accents of England, Wales, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and the specific non-rhotic regions of the United States, such as New England, and areas of the South.

　　Most speakers of most of North American English are rhotic, as are speakers from Barbados, Scotland and most of Ireland.

　　In England, rhotic accents are found in the West Country (south and west of a line from near Shrewsbury to around Portsmouth), the Corby area, most of Lancashire (north and west of the centre of Manchester), some parts of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and in the areas that border Scotland. The prestige form, however, exerts a steady pressure towards non-rhoticity. Thus the urban speech of Bristol or Southampton is more accurately described as variably rhotic, the degree of rhoticity being reduced as one moves up the class and formality scales.

　　Most speakers of Indian English and Pakistani English, and many speakers of Sri Lankan English have a rhotic accent. Other areas with rhotic accents include Otago and Southland in the far south of New Zealand's South Island, where a Scottish influence is apparent.

　　Canada is entirely rhotic except for small isolated areas in southwestern New Brunswick, parts of Newfoundland, and the Lunenburg English variety spoken in Lunenburg and Shelburne Counties, Nova Scotia.

　　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 central and southern Alabama, Savannah, Georgia, and Norfolk, Virginia,as well as in the y'at accent of New Orleans. Parts of New England, especially Boston, are non-rhotic, as are New York City and surrounding areas. African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is largely non-rhotic.

　　linking r举例详见视频：