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, West Germanic languages and several others
• *l → /r/ (found in Indo-Iranian languages)
• *n → /r/ (found in Albanian)
• *ð → /r/
• *ɣ → /r/

However, a change from a stop such as /d/ to a flap such as /ɾ/ is usually not called rhotacism, but simply flapping.

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