2585: Rhotacism in Latin 'esse' Jan 11, 2022

Rhotacism in Latin, a process in which [s] and [z] in Archaic Latin would develop into [r] in Classical Latin. This was not universal, and some lingering traces existed because of the oppositional phenomenon of zetacism. This led to the Archaic Latin verb 'esō' ('to be') having the 3rd infinitive form of 'esse' in Classical Latin, but the imperfect and future forms of the word all have a root with 'r', such as 3rd person future 'erit'.

2560: Iotacism Dec 16, 2021

Iotacism, also referred to as 'itacism' describes the shift of diphthongs or groups of vowels converging into the [i] sound. This pattern is not named for a speech impediment like with sigmatism or lambdacism, but for communitywide sound-shifts as on the naming pattern of rhotacism or zetacism. Greek is notable for its iotacism, since in Modern Greek, the letters and letter pairs which used to represent all totally different sounds ι, η, υ, ει, οι, υι are all said now as [i].

2556: Zetacism and Lambdacism Dec 12, 2021

Rhotacism, named from the Greek letter Ρ, ρ (rho), is the process of sounds shifting and becoming like /r/. Other terms with names taken from this pattern like zetacism or lambdacism do not always have the same implication. For instance, zetacism occurs when /z/, the most common sound to be effected to /r/ via rhotacism, remains not rhotacized even though it would be expected to. Lambdacism can refer, rather counterproductively, to either a difficulty pronouncing the /l/ sound, or an overproduction of the /l/ sound especially in place of /r/. This happens in some varieties of Carribean Spanish, such as saying 'Puelto Rico'.

2516: Rhotacism & Dissimilation Nov 2, 2021

The word 'meridian' in English, or more directly even 'ante/post meridiem' (a.m./p.m.) is from the Latin word 'merīdiēs' meaning 'midday; noon'. This is from a corrupted phrase 'medīdiēs' which is just an contraction of 'medius' (middle) and 'diēs' (day). The R in the middle of 'merīdiēs' therefore is a bit odd at first glance. In fact, this is a fairly normal occurrence of rhotacism in the transition into Classical Latin. This normally happens to the sounds [s] or [z]—not [d]—that they should turn into [r] and really this is a process of dissimilation because it is followed by another [d].