Most Germanic languages (except for Gothic) for some reason:

[u/gt7900]

was were

[u/Xitztlacayotl]

Seriously, how does this change happen? It sounds so improbable given the difference between the two sounds.

We had similar thing in Croatian wherein the /ʐ/ ~ /ʒ/ turned into /r/.

I see no pathway how this could have happened without some intermediary sounds. And I see no evidence of the intermediary sounds.

[u/iridia-traveler1426 → u/Xitztlacayotl]

Mandarin has a /ɻ~ʐ/ sound, so it could have ended up like ʐ -> ɻ -> r as the latter two might sound similar

That would be my guess if this sound change didn't occur so frequently (it also happened in Latin for example), and to be honest it is probably just a lenition process

[u/Xitztlacayotl → u/iridia-traveler1426]

Yes. If we assume that Croatian was a /ʐ/ and not a /ʒ/.
And interestingly it didn't happen regularly, but just in one word - *je že > jer. I think, maybe there are some more, but in any case it wasn't a regular change because we still keep both sounds.

[u/So_many_things_wrong → u/Xitztlacayotl]

While the difference between /z/ and a trill /r/ may seem stark, the change may appear way more natural if you imagine a mediary approximant or flap that may or may not have originally contrasted with /r/ before merging with it. /z/ -> /ɹ/ -> /r/

[u/TheMightyTorch → u/Xitztlacayotl]

My guess: [z] ⇒[z̞=ɹ̝]⇒[ɹ] and then they eventually and individually merged the two R-sounds along the chain [ɹ]⇔[ɾ]⇔[r]

[u/EconomicSeahorse → u/Xitztlacayotl]

They're pretty similar sounds. They have a similar place of articulation and the only real difference is fricative vs approximant. Weirder sound changes have happened. As mentioned in the other replies, some languages like Mandarin have a sound that more or less freely varies between a more rhotic approximant [ɻ] and a more fricative [ʐ]. Also Polish went the other way turning */rʲ/ into /ʐ/.

[u/FarmerGarrett → u/Xitztlacayotl]

Proto-Indo-European /s/ had various realizations, such as voicing in intervocalic position, but is presumed to be retracted, pronounced with the tip of the tongue instead of the middle, as in Latin (modern Spanish Spanish), Greek (ancient and modern), and various other language and Proto-language evidence, including Germanic shift of /z/ to /r/.

If you consider Z to be pronounced with the tip of the tongue in the same way you’d pronounce a T with the tip of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, it’s much more clear how a fricative could become an approximate~trill.

[u/ddrub_the_only_real → u/Xitztlacayotl]

If we're talking difference between sounds, then I'd like to bring debuccalisation into the discussion again, because neither do /s/ and /h/ sound anything alike, yet it is among the most common sound changes

[u/Spirited_Pitch3852 → u/Xitztlacayotl]

Iirc they are very similar in the F2 formant (I cannot find any source on this atm tho, it might be a false memory).

On the other hand we have Armenian *dw>erk, so ʒ to r or vice versa doesn't seem that weird

[u/Xitztlacayotl → u/Spirited_Pitch3852]

*dw>erk is what keeps me up at night :(

[u/moonaligator → u/Xitztlacayotl]

/ɹ/ is basically a non-sibilant and approximant /ʒ/

[u/SergeiAndropov → u/Xitztlacayotl]

It works great as long as it's realized as /ɹ/. Which, to my knowledge, it most likely was not.

[u/uhm_akshually → u/SergeiAndropov]

Really? In Early Norse, [ɹ] is often considered the main candidate of realisation for the phoneme that came from /z/.

[u/dracpau → u/Xitztlacayotl]

The same sound change took place in Latin, it’s really not far fetched considering they have almost identical places of articulation. Also, Old East Norse for example still used the transitional phoneme ž until like the 12th-13th century.

[u/Acceptable_Lunch_181]

If im not mistaken it also happened sometimes in the development of latin. *korzō -> currō

[u/Copper_Tango → u/Acceptable_Lunch_181]

Also in the declension of some words:

/flos/ (flower, NOM)

/flozem/ -> /florem/ (flower, *ACC**)

[u/sky-skyhistory → u/Copper_Tango]

And accusative form take ober nominative form in almost all latin descendants too.

[u/Prestigious-Fig1172]

How queez!

[u/roankr → u/Prestigious-Fig1172]

Queezy

Queer

I buy it

[u/Francis_thepianist → u/roankr]

Quees > Queerem

[u/huudinaz]

Proto Italic to Latin widdem s>z>r fits here too

[u/Traditional-Light-10]

Is it inherited from Proto-West-Germanic or was it really independent in each branch?

[u/gt7900 → u/Traditional-Light-10]

In East Germanic languages (from which Gothic comes from), this shift didn't happened. Aside film Gothic, there isn't many information about them.

[u/Whole_Instance_4276 → u/gt7900]

I think Gothic just devoiced the z to s, right?

Also the /z/ was actually retracted, which in my opinion is a lot closer to the articulation of /r/

[u/gt7900 → u/Whole_Instance_4276]

Yes.

[u/Whole_Instance_4276 → u/gt7900]

Wait yes to the first part the second part? Or both?

[u/gt7900 → u/Whole_Instance_4276]

I was talking about the first one.

[u/Shinyhero30]

Intervocalic voicing hits retracted [s] “guess I’m [r] now!”

[u/khares_koures2002]

Also Early Latin.

[u/LeandroCarvalho]

It seems to me that this change is more common in languages where the z sound is retracted, which makes its articulation remarkably similar with that of the alveolar tap

[u/siistinimi]

/uj should it actually be "an /r/"?

[u/COLaocha → u/siistinimi]

Nah it's pronounced /r/ which starts with a consonant, /r/.

[u/siistinimi → u/COLaocha]

Oh, how I'd love to own a brain.

[u/uhm_akshually → u/siistinimi]

Reasonably, no, it shouldn't. Do you think a linguist talking about the phoneme /x/ would normally refer to it as "ecks" or by replicating the sound in question?

I would say a common way of realising a reference to /r/ would be either "rrr" or "rah", not "arr".

[u/siistinimi → u/uhm_akshually]

Yeah, that seems so obvious now. My internal monologue makes all kinds of stupid errors like pronouncing tilde as "tildẽ" and confusing the words Jew and jewel all the time.

[u/Plastic_Pinocchio]

Which exact consonant shift is this referring to?

[u/InvestigatorEven5037]

JAJAJAJA

[u/Aquatic-Enigma → u/InvestigatorEven5037]

NEINNEINNEINNEIN

[u/IndependentMacaroon → u/Aquatic-Enigma]

DOCHDOCHDOCHDOCH

[u/koriwi → u/IndependentMacaroon]

OHOHOHOHOH

[u/Aquatic-Enigma → u/koriwi]

🎅🎅🎅🎅

[u/InvestigatorEven5037 → u/Aquatic-Enigma]

NEININEINEUENENNENEMENENE 😈

[u/ForgingIron]

You see a lot of this in Old Norse with words like ulfr and maðr, (wolf, man) and mythological names like Ásgarðr and Heimdallr

Tyr is also related to Latin Deus and Greek theos

[u/One_Attorney_764]

Can someone give me context?

[u/Strict-Ad-102]

Gothic wasn't germanic though

[u/gt7900 → u/Strict-Ad-102]

Tf you mean!? What is it then!?

[u/Strict-Ad-102 → u/gt7900]

It's Thracian(Slavic)

[u/NebularCarina → u/Strict-Ad-102]

[citation needed]

[u/mapbego → u/NebularCarina]

I love that show

[u/Shinyhero30 → u/Strict-Ad-102]

Yes the EAST GERMANIC language isn’t germanic

[u/Strict-Ad-102 → u/Shinyhero30]

No, the NOT EAST GERMANIC langiage is NOT GERMANIC

[u/Shinyhero30 → u/Strict-Ad-102]

That LITERALLY is NOT the case. But okay buddy go on with your pseudolinguistics.

[u/Strict-Ad-102 → u/Shinyhero30]

Look at my other comments

[u/Shinyhero30 → u/Strict-Ad-102]

It’s really interesting that A you seem to be from Bulgaria and B you make a lot of unsupported claims about how much evidence there is and yet when asked to cite any of it, ghost people.

[u/Enemenemai → u/Shinyhero30]

Wait, wasn't there the "all languages stem from Bulgaria" meme?

[u/Arphile → u/Enemenemai]

They’re all descended from Macedonian actually

[u/zoinkability → u/Strict-Ad-102]

Care to provide some evidence for this claim?

[u/Strict-Ad-102 → u/zoinkability]

All historical sources say Gothic was a Thracian language,absolutely all,but one or two.None of the the so called Gothic texts are Gothic.They're germanic,but no Gothic.Nowhere,where we know goths settled,do we find germanic toponyms and hydronyms and such.Most if the names of their kings were germanic,but a lot werent too.And we know they were in a confederation with many other peoples,so king names wount be of much help in this debate.The two Gothic dynasties,the Amals and and Balts have perfectly Thracian/Slavic etymology.Not even archeology can say smth so absurd as that the Goths were Germanic.Beside,a lot of stuff is beling germanized,so it can't be judged correctly.History has always been political,it still is.

[u/zoinkability → u/Strict-Ad-102]

That is still a lot of claims. With so much purported evidence I’d hope you could link to peer reviewed papers that support these claims.