lallation

English

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

Noun

lallation (countable and uncountable, plural lallations)

1. The incorrect pronunciation of the letter "r" so that it sounds like an "l" (or "w").
   • 1918, Earl Williams, chapter 19, in The Court of Belshazzar: A Romance of the Great Captivity‎^[1], Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, page 199:

     She spoke Aramaic with a lazy lallation, affected by many because it was the natural speech of a class.

   • 1982, Bernard Malamud, “The Schooltree”, in God’s Grace:

     “Everybody wovs you,” Mary Madelyn said to Melchior.
     Whenever she pronounced an el it became doubleu. […] Except for her partial lallation she spoke well […]

2. Baby-talk or gibberish.
   • 1648, Robert Baron, Erotopaignion, Or the Cyprian Academy, London: J. Hardesty et al., “To the Ladies and Gentlewoemen of England,”^[2]

     When you talke with your children you expect from them no congruence or quaint language, yet you are often pleased to heare them prattle, & are delighted with their lisping Ideoms. This makes me hope that you will dispence with the Lallation & Low dialect of this babe, whose tone is rude, yet his meaning is plaine dealing, which according to the proverbe is a jewell, and consequently most fit for Ladies.

   • 1914, Max Nadoleczny, “Disorders of Speech and Phonation in Childhood”, in Diseases of the Eye and Disorders of Speech in Childhood‎^[3], Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, page 362:

     The auto-imitation in lallation, a form of spontaneous talking, precedes the imitation of strange words and sounds. […] in lallation the infant follows his own inclination, while in imitating the sound heard from others he will have to accommodate himself to a strange perception.

   • 1962, Ashton L. Welsh, Side Effects of Anti-Obesity Drugs‎^[4], Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, Part 3, p. 173:

     The chronic effects of the barbiturates on neurological and psychic function resemble those of alcohol. There may be dizziness, clumsiness and ataxia; dysarthria, nystagmus, mental disturbances, nervousness, tremor, lallation, confusion, peculiar behavior, weakness of judgment, emotional instability and hallucinations.

Related terms

• lall
• lallate

References

• “lallation”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• lallation on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

lallation f (plural lallations)

1. lallation

Further reading

• “lallation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.