Did our American hard "R" come from Irish and Scot Immigrants?

[Taverner]

Just wondering - since those seem to be the only other English dialects to share (or at least have a similar) hard "R" (like we use in "car" and "bar")

[velvet]

1. I've always thought so, but ...

But come to think of it, there are hard Rs in Cornish and Somerset accents too.

Not an American-speaker myself, am Australian and soft R all the way.

[Odin2005]

2. No, it's a retained archaism.

The Brits and many Americans living on the coast started dropping Rs at the end of syllables during the 1700s. Americans living farther inland were insulated from that sound shift and that is why most Americans don't drop our Rs.

However, many American English dialects, my own included, have a tendency towards pronouncing the R farther and farther back in the mouth so that, for example, after back vowels my R is pronounced similar to the French R.

[pam4water]

3. Dunno I grew up in New England form Irish and Scotch stock and we don't have any R's

and we don't need them.

[Deep13]

9. wicked good! nt

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. Well, no "ahs" except at the beginning of a word. I eat rice, not ahice :^P Oddly enough, though,

our words that end in "a" sound like they end in "r." Go figger!

[jobycom]

4. I think it comes from pirates. nt

[MrScorpio]

5. Not at all...

This is something for which we should blame Pirates.

[Iggo]

6. Indeed, matey.

Aaarrrr. (Now THAT'S a hard R.)

[Drunken Irishman]

7. Ha! I thought this thread was about America's strong right turn.

And I was going to say, most Irish identified with the left and Democrats and that's still the case today, though not nearly at the level it was during FDR and Kennedy.

[Orsino]

8. No, it came from the bluenoses at the MPAA. n/t