Rhotacism

Rhotacism is the name for a sound change that creates a rhotic consonant. Examples include:

• *z → /r/ (in the history of the Italic languages, Germanic languages and several others)
• *l → /r/ (found in Indo-Iranian languages)
• *n → /r/ (found in Albanian)
• *ð → /r/ (Ostrobothnian Finnish etc.)
• *ɣ → /r/

Rhotacism is commonly an unconditional sound change.

A change to a flap such as /ɾ/ is, however, usually not called rhotacism, but simply flapping. It is also commonly restricted to intervocalic or medial positions. Flapping usually affects stops such as /d/ (for example American English), or laterals such as /l/ (for example Norwegian).

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