Why do British pronounce the end of a word with an r sound?
I’ll forgo the “Well there are actually lots of British accents” thing and just assume you mean Received Pronunciation (RP), the Standard British accent.RP is a non-rhotic accent. A rhotic accent is one where the “r” sound at the end of a syllable is pronounced, while non-rhotic, predictably, means it isn’t. In RP, the word “brother”, for example, is pronounced “brotha”, or, more accurately, “brothə”.The upside-down “e” is called a schwa. It’s the most common sound in English: it’s the “e” in “system”, the “a” in “about”, the “i” in “possible”, and the italicized letters in “a moment ago”. In the International Phonetic Alphabet and in a lot of dictionaries, it’s written the symbol [ə].In English, words have stressed and unstressed syllables. Notice the difference in the way “rebel” is said between “He is a rebel” and “He rebels”? In the first example, it’s pronounced “RE-bəl”, while in the second it’s “rə-BEL”.Back to the word “brother”. The stress is on the first syllable (“BRU-thə” in RP). Since the second syllable is unstressed and ends in “r”, the “er” is replaced with “ə”.The first “r” in “rebel” is pronounced in the non-rhotic RP. This may seem pointless to note, but can you explain why the “r” is pronounced in “rebel” and not in “brother”? The answer is that, in RP, the “r” is pronounced before a vowel.You wouldn’t say “My brothə is John” in RP, you’d say “My brothər is John”. Why is the “r” pronounced there? For the exact same reason it is in “rebel”: because it comes before a vowel (the “i” in “is”).If a word ends in a vowel and -r, the “r” is not pronounced. But, if the following word starts with a vowel, the -r is pronounced.Now here’s another example sentence: “My idear is this.”Huh? Why is there an “r” in “idea”?For the same reason “brother” is pronounced with the “r” before a vowel: the words both end in a schwa (brothə, ideə), but when there is a word starting with a vowel following it (“is” in both cases), an “r” is pronounced.If a word ends in a schwa (ə) and the following word starts with a vowel, then an “r” is inserted between the two words. This is also the case for words ending with “ɔ” (the vowel in “saw”), so you would also say “I sawr it” or “I’m drawring a picture”.Don’t say “I’m going to the theatə and then home again”, say “I’m going to the theatər and then home again”.This phenomenon is known as “r-insertion”, and it’s found in most non-rhotic accents.
Why do British people pronounce any word that ends in "a" as "er"? example: Canada = Canader
Not every British person speaks like that. People who speak with Received Pronunciation (Queen's English, aka very posh) would say 'Canadar', whereas a Welshman would say 'Cann-ada'. If they have a rural accent, like West Country or Yorkshire, it'd be 'Canader', but a Geordie (around Newcastle and the north) would say 'Canada'. It also depends on the next word, in any English dialect, including American and Australian English. If you wanted to say 'Canada', then the 'a' sound would be more pronounced. If you wanted to say 'Canada rules' for example, the 'a' sound would turn into 'er' in preparation for the next word.
Dear people with British accents, how do you pronounce the word linoleum?
Brit: I'm not British, so I can't say with authority. John has already given you very useful information. As an American I had no idea British people would shorten the word. This site: [1] gives British and American pronunciations, you will note there is only one pronunciation for linoleum. However, your question was partly about "aluminum" and "aluminium" as well. That's not the result of a pronunciation trend, but something completely different which I've addressed in detail here [2]. You might be interested to read up on it. You'll want to scroll down to see my answer, there are some useful links in my post too (sources).
When the British pronounce the word "clerk," why do they say "clark"?
It's the result of the same process (that is, erroneous pronunciation) whereby "learn" becomes "larn" in some (very) nonstandard American dialects. One feature of uneducated speech in England around the 1800's was a tendency to pronounce the "er" sound of words like "clerk" as the "ar" sound of "clark". The phenomenon was sufficiently widespread that the English novelist Henry Fielding used pronunciations like "sarvis" for "service", "sartain" for "certain", and "parson" for "person" in the speech of characters meant to seem vulgar or unintelligent. Due to the overwhelming influence of such people in England (that is, the uneducated), these previously unacceptable pronunciations eventually became standard for some words, like Derby, Berkeley, and clerk...
How do British people pronounce the word "aluminum"?
That bloody silver foil stuff...
How is the word 'Fork' pronounced in American and British English?
Gosh, I think I need more sleep, I think you just asked a question about forks. Let me re-read that. Yep you did, okay. I say fork as in fork. there is an "f" and a "or" and a "k". Put it all together and you have fork. As in Mork (and Mindy) or Dork or Pork or ... some other words I am sure, just trying to wake up here.
Why do British people mispronounce certain English words?
Colonial varieties of a language change more slowly than the language does in the mother country. Icelandic is probably the best known example of this - still very close to the Old Norse of the Viking period. However, Cypriot Greek still preserves a few characteristics of the Ancient Greek of Plato's time and Romanian is closer to the Latin spoken by a Roman foot soldier than is Modern Italian. In a similar way, American English is an older form of English. Its pronunciation reflects more the way English words were pronounced in the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries. Had the Thirteen Colonies remained part of the British Empire / Commonwealth like Canada, American English probably would have kept up with the changes going on in British English a little more. Linguists tell us that whenever language change occurs, it is the vowels which change first. This was mentioned on this forum before by "Taivo." So, this partially explains the difference in the British pronunciations of words like "bone" and "clothes." Personally, I think everyone's entitled to their own opinion about "correct" and "incorrect" forms of English pronunciation. However, be careful since linguists and broadcasters, generally speaking, don't like the notion of one variety of a language being "more correct" than another. They would argue that American and British English are both equally correct. I heard this said by an announcer on a radio station one time. It was also mentioned on this forum by Taivo (a linguist) who said that all regional forms of English were correct from the perspective of the people who speak them.
Why do people speaking with British accents pronounce words ending in "A" with an "R?"?
it's a way of linking when the word finishes in a vowel and the next word begins with a vowel too, and sometimes even in the middle of a word (drawRing)...if the person is saying something like "I was surveilling the area and..." you would hear something like "I was surveilling the areaR and..."...you are not speaking incorrectly...it's sometimes called "the intrusive r" and it's a consequence of the fact that the letter r is only pronounced in British English when it is immediately followed by a vowel (non-rothic speakers)...Americans on the other hand pronounce all r's (rothic speakers) Other examples: law(r) and order the idea(r) of