Voiced uvular fricative

Voiced uvular fricative
ʁ
IPA Number	143
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʁ
Unicode (hex)	U+0281
X-SAMPA	R
Image

The voiced uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ʁ, a rotated small uppercase letter ‹R›, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is R. This consonant is one of several collectively called guttural R when found in European languages.

Because the IPA symbol stands for both the uvular fricative and the uvular approximant, the fricative nature of this sound may be specified by adding the uptack to the letter, [ʁ̝]. (The approximant can be specified by adding the downtack, [ʁ̞].)

Features

Features of the voiced uvular fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is uvular which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) against or near the palatine uvula.
• Its phonation type is voiced, which means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

Occurrence

In Western Europe, a uvular trill pronunciation of rhotic consonants spread from northern French to several dialects and registers of Danish, Dutch, German, Hebrew, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Swedish. However, not all of these remain a uvular trill today. In Danish, the r is a pharyngeal approximant in all but the most conservative speech. In Brazilian Portuguese, it is usually a voiceless velar fricative [x], voiceless uvular fricative [χ], or a voiceless glottal fricative [h]. Because such uvular rhotics don't often contrast with alveolar ones, <r> may often be used to represent them for ease of typesetting. For more information, see guttural R.

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Abkhaz		цыҕ	[tsəʁ]	'marten'
Adyghe		гъызын	[ʁəzən]	'to wail'
Aleut	Atkan dialect	[[[Latin alphabet|chamĝul]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[tʃɑmʁul]	'to wash'
Armenian		ղեկ		'rudder'
Avar		тIагъур	[tʼaˈʁur]	'cap'
Chilcotin		[ʁəlkɪʃ]		'he walks'
Danish		[[[Danish alphabet|rød]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ʁɶð]	'red'	See Danish phonology
Dutch	Southern	[[[Latin alphabet|rond]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ʁɔnt]	'round'	See Dutch phonology
French		[[[French orthography|rester]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ʁɛste]	'to stay'	See French phonology
German	Standard	[[[German orthography|Rübe]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈʁyːbə]	'turnip'	In free variation with a uvular trill. See German phonology
	Lower Rhine
Modern Hebrew		רע	[ʁa]	'bad'	May also be trilled. See Hebrew phonology
Inuktitut	East Inuktitut dialect	[[[Latin alphabet|marruuk]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[mɑʁʁuuk]	'two'
Kabardian		гъэ	[ʁɑ]	'let'
Kabyle		[[[Latin alphabet|bbeγ]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[bːəʁ]	'to dive'
Kazakh		[[[Cyrillic alphabet|саған]]] Error: {{Lang}}: script: cyrl not supported for code: kk (help)	[sɑˈʁɑn]	'you (singular dative)'
Kyrgyz		жамгыр	[dʒɑmˈʁɯr]	'rain'
Lakota		aǧúyapi	[aʁʊjapɪ]	'bread'
Limburgish	Maastrichtian dialect	[[[Latin alphabet|roond]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ʁoːnt]	'round'
Norwegian	Western dialects	[[[Latin alphabet|rar]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ʁɑːʁ]	'strange'
Portuguese	European	[[[Portuguese orthography|carro]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈkaʁu]	'car'	See Portuguese phonology and Guttural R.
Sakha		тоҕус	[toʁus]	'nine'
Swedish	Southern dialects	rör	[ʁɶʁ]	'pipes'
Tatar		яңгыр, yañğır	[jɒŋˈʁɯr]	'rain'
Tsez		агъи	[ˈʔaʁi]	'bird'
Ubykh		[ʁa]		'his, her, its'	Ubykh has ten different uvular fricatives. See Ubykh phonology
Uzbek		ёмғирcode: uzb promoted to code: uz , yomg´ircode: uzb promoted to code: uz	[jɒmˈʁɨr]	'rain'
Yiddish		רעגןcode: yid promoted to code: yi	[ˈʁɛɡŋ]	'rain'
Zhuang		[[[Latin alphabet|roek]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ʁɔ̌k]	'six'

See also

• List of phonetics topics

Bibliography

• Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 25 (2): 90–94
• Hall, Tracy Alan (1993), "The phonology of German /ʀ/", Phonology, 10 (1): 83–105