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Guttural R is the phenomenon whereby arhotic consonant (an "R-like" sound) is produced in the back of thevocal tract (usuallywith the uvula) rather than in the front portion thereof and thus as aguttural consonant. Speakers of languages with guttural R typically regard guttural andcoronal rhotics (throat-back-R and tongue-tip-R) to be alternative pronunciations of the samephoneme (conceptual sound), despitearticulatory differences. Similar consonants are found in other parts of the world, but they often have little to no cultural association or interchangeability with coronal rhotics (such as[r],[ɾ], and[ɹ]) andare (perhaps) not rhotics at all.
The guttural realization of a lone rhotic consonant is typical in most of what is now France, French-speakingBelgium, most of Germany, large parts of theNetherlands,Denmark, the southern parts of Sweden and southwestern parts ofNorway. It is also frequent inFlanders, easternAustria,Yiddish (and henceAshkenaziHebrew),Luxembourgish, and among all French and some German speakers inSwitzerland.
Outside of central Europe, it also occurs as the normal pronunciation of one of two rhotic phonemes (usually replacing an olderalveolar trill) in standard European Portuguese and in other parts ofPortugal, particularly the Azores, various parts of Brazil, among minorities of other Portuguese-speaking regions, and in parts ofPuerto Rico,Cuba and theDominican Republic.
The r letter in French was historically pronounced as a trill, as was the case in Latin and as is still the case in Italian and Spanish. In Northern France, including Paris, thealveolar trill was gradually replaced with theuvular trill from the end of the 17th century.[2]Molière'sLe Bourgeois gentilhomme, published in 1670, has a professor describe the sound of/r/ as an alveolar trill (Act II, Scene IV).[3] It has since evolved, in Paris, to avoiced uvular fricative or approximant[ʁ].
The alveolar trill was still the common sound of r in Southern France and in Quebec at the beginning of the 20th century, having been gradually replaced since then, due to Parisian influence, by the uvular pronunciation. The alveolar trill is now mostly associated, even in Southern France and in Quebec, with older speakers and rural settings.[citation needed]
The alveolar trill is still used in French singing in classical choral and opera. It is also used in other French speaking countries as well as on French oversea territories such as French Polynesia due to the influence of the indigenous languages which use the trill.
Standard versions ofPortuguese have two rhotic phonemes, which contrast only between vowels. In older Portuguese, these were thealveolar flap/ɾ/ (written⟨r⟩) and thealveolar trill/r/ (written⟨rr⟩). In other positions, only⟨r⟩ is written in Modern Portuguese, but it can stand for either sound, depending on the exact position. The distribution of these sounds is mostly the same as in other Iberian languages, i.e.:
In the 19th century, theuvular trill[ʀ] penetrated the upper classes in the region of Lisbon in Portugal as the realization of the alveolar trill. By the 20th century, it had replaced the alveolar trill in most of the country's urban areas and started to give way to thevoiced uvular fricative[ʁ]. Manynorthern dialects, likeTransmontano,Portuese (which is heard in parts ofAveiro),Minhoto, and much ofBeirão retain the alveolar trill. In the rural regions, the alveolar trill is still present, but because most of the country's population currently lives in or near the cities and owing to the mass media, the guttural[ʀ] is now dominant in Portugal.
A common realization of the word-initial/ʀ/ in the Lisbon accent is a voiced uvular fricative trill[ʀ̝].[4]
The dialect of the fishermen ofSetúbal used thevoiced uvular fricative[ʁ] for all instances of "r" – word start, intervocalic, postconsonantal and syllable ending. This same pronunciation is attested in people withrhotacism, in a new developing variety of young people in São Tomean Portuguese,[5] and in non-native speakers of French or German origin.
In Africa, the classical alveolar trill is mostly still dominant, due to separate development from European Portuguese.
In Brazil, the normal pronunciation of⟨rr⟩ is voiceless, either as avoiceless velar fricative[x],voiceless uvular fricative[χ] or avoiceless glottal fricative[h].[6] In many dialects, this voiceless sound not only replaces all occurrences of the traditional trill, but is also used for all⟨r⟩ that isnot followed by a vowel (i.e. when at the end of a syllable, which uses a flap in other dialects). The resulting distribution can be described as:
In the three southernmost states, however, the alveolar trill[r] remains frequent, and the distribution of trill and flap is as in Portugal. Some speakers use a guttural fricative instead of a trill, like the majority of Brazilians, but continue to use the flap[ɾ] before consonants (e.g. inquarto) and between vowels (e.g. in caro). Among others, this includes many speakers in the city ofSão Paulo and some neighboring cities, though analveolar approximant[ɹ] is also common, not only in the city, but the approximant is the dominant articulation in theSão Paulo state, outside the capital, the most populous state in Brazil. Thecaipira dialect has thealveolar approximant[ɹ] in the same position.
In areas where⟨r⟩ at the end of a word would be a voiceless fricative, the tendency in colloquial speech is to pronounce this sound very lightly, or omit it entirely. Some speakers may omit it entirely in verb infinitives (amar "to love",comer "to eat",dormir "to sleep") but pronounce it lightly in some other words ending in⟨r⟩ (mar "sea",mulher "woman",amor "love"). Speakers in Rio often resist this tendency, pronouncing a strong fricative[x] or[χ] at the end of such words.[citation needed]
The voiceless fricative may be partly or fully voiced if it occurs directly before a voiced sound, especially in its weakest form of[h], which is normally voiced to[ɦ]. For example, a speaker whose⟨rr⟩ sounds like[h] will often pronouncesurdo "deaf" as[ˈsuɦdu] or even[ˈsuɦʊdu], with a short epenthetic vowel that mimics the preceding vowel.
In most Spanish-speaking territories and regions, guttural or uvular realizations of/r/ are considered aspeech defect. Generally the single flap[ɾ], spelledr as incara, undergoes no defective pronunciations, but the alveolar trill inrata orperro is one of the last sounds learned by children anduvularization is likely among individuals who fail to achieve the alveolar articulation. This said, back variants for/r/ ([ʀ],[x] or[χ]) are widespread in ruralPuerto Rican Spanish and in the dialect ofPonce,[7] whereas they are heavily stigmatized in the dialect of thecapital.[8] To a lesser extent, velar variants of/r/ are found in some rural Cuban (Yateras,Guantánamo Province)[9] and Dominican vernaculars (Cibao, eastern rural regions of the country)[10] In the 1937Parsley Massacre, Dominican troops attacked Haitians in Cibao and the northwestern border. The popular name of the massacre comes from theshibboleth applied to distinguish Dominicans from Haitians: the suspects were ordered to name someparsley (Spanish:perejil). If they used a French orHaitian Creole pronunciation forr orj, they would be executed.
In theBasque-speaking areas of Spain, the uvular articulation[ʁ] has a higher prevalence among bilinguals than among Spanish monolinguals.[11]
Guttural realization of/r/ is mostly considered a speech defect in Italian (cf.rotacismo), but the so-calledr moscia ('limp' or 'lifelessr', anumbrella term for realizations of/r/ considered defective), which is sometimes uvular, is quite common in areas ofNorthwest Italy, i.e.Aosta Valley,Piedmont,Liguria,Lombardy andEmilia-Romagna.[12]
As with all other Romance languages, thealveolar trill/r/ is the original way to pronounce the letter r in Occitan, as it was in Latin. Nowadays, theuvular trill[ʀ] and theVoiced uvular fricative or approximant[ʁ] are common in some Occitan dialects (Provence,Auvergne,Alps,Limousin). The dialects ofLanguedoc andGascony also have these realizations, but it is generally considered to be influence from French and therefore rejected from the standard versions of these dialects.[citation needed]
Breton, spoken inBrittany (France), is aCeltic rather thanRomance language, but is heavily influenced by French. It retains analveolar trill in some dialects, like inLéon andMorbihan, but most dialects now have the same rhotic as French,[ʁ].
The uvular rhotic is most common inCentral German dialects and inStandard German. ManyLow Franconian,Low Saxon, andUpper German varieties have also adopted it with others maintaining thealveolar trill ([r]). The development of uvular rhotics in these regions is not entirely understood, but a common theory is that these languages have done so because of French influence, though the reason for uvular rhotics in modern European French itself is not well understood (see above).
TheFrisian languages usually retain an alveolar rhotic.[citation needed]
In modernDutch, quite a few different rhotic sounds are used. InFlanders, the usual rhotic is analveolar trill, but the uvular rhotic/ʁ/ does occur, mostly in the province ofLimburg, inGhent and inBrussels. In theNetherlands, the uvular rhotic is the dominant rhotic in the southern provinces ofNorth Brabant andLimburg, having become so in the early twentieth century. In the rest of the country, the situation is more complicated. The uvular rhotic is dominant in the western agglomerationRandstad, including cities likeRotterdam,The Hague andUtrecht (the dialect ofAmsterdam conversely tends to use an alveolar rhotic, but the uvular is becoming increasingly common). The uvular rhotic is also used in some major cities such asLeeuwarden (Stadsfries). Outside of these uvular rhotic core areas, thealveolar trill is common. People learning Dutch as a foreign language also tend to use the alveolar trill because it contrasts better with thevoiceless velar fricative/x/ in Dutch.[citation needed] TheAfrikaans language of South Africa also uses an alveolar trill for its rhotic, except in the non-urban rural regions aroundCape Town, chiefly in the town ofMalmesbury, Western Cape, where it is uvular (called a bry). Some Afrikaans speakers from other areas also bry, either as a result of ancestry from the Malmesbury region or from difficulty pronouncing the alveolar trill.
In theDutch Low Saxon area there are several cities which have the uvular rhotic:Zutphen,Steenwijk,[13]Kampen,[14]Zwolle[15] andDeventer.[16] InIJsselmuiden near Kampen the uvular r can also be heard.[17] In the countryside thealveolar trill is common.[18]
Although the first standardized pronunciation dictionary byTheodor Siebs prescribed an alveolar pronunciation, most varieties ofGerman are now spoken with a uvular rhotic, usually a fricative or approximant[ʁ], rather than a trill[ʀ]. The alveolar pronunciation[r~ɾ] continues to be considered acceptable in all Standard German varieties, but is most common in the south as well as the far North of German-speaking Europe. It also remains prevailing in classical singing and, to a lesser degree, in stage acting (seeBühnendeutsch).
InGerman dialects, the alveolar has survived somewhat more widely than in the standard language, though there are several regions, especially inCentral German, where even the broadest rural dialects use a uvular R.[citation needed]
Regardless of whether a uvular or an alveolar pronunciation is used, German post-vocalic "r" is often vocalized to[ɐ̯],[ə̯], or a simple lengthening[ː]. This is most common in thesyllable coda, as innon-rhotic English, but sometimes occurs before an underlyingschwa, too. Vocalization of "r" is rare only inAlemannic (velar) andSwabian (uvular) German.
Yiddish, the traditional language ofAshkenazi Jews in central and eastern Europe, is derived fromMiddle High German. As such it presumably used the alveolar R at first, but the uvular R then became predominant in manyYiddish dialects. It is unclear whether this happened through independent developments or under influence from modern German (a language widely spoken in large parts of eastern Europe until 1945).
Speakers of the traditional English dialect ofNorthumberland and northernCounty Durham use a uvular rhotic, known as the "Northumbrian Burr".[19][20][21] However, it is no longer used by most contemporary speakers, who generally realize/r/ as analveolar approximant,[ɹʷ], in common with other varieties spoken in theEnglish-speaking world.[22][23]
TheHiberno-English of northeasternLeinster in Ireland also uses a uvular[ʁ].[24]
Alveolar rhotics predominate in northernScandinavia. Where they occur, they affect the succeeding alveolars, turning the clusters/rs/ and/rt/,/rd/,/rn/,/rl/retroflex:[ʂʈɖɳɭ]. Thus the Norwegian word "norsk" is pronounced[nɔʂk] by speakers with an alveolar flap. This effect is rare in the speech of those using a uvular R ([nɔʁsk]).
The rhotic used inDenmark is avoiced uvular approximant, and the nearby Swedish ex-Danish regions ofScania,Blekinge, southernHalland as well as a large part ofSmåland and on theÖland island, use auvular trill or auvular fricative.
To some extent inÖstergötland and still quite commonly inVästergötland, a mixture of guttural and rolling rhotic consonants (e.g./ʁ/ and/r/ is used, with the pronunciation depending on the position in the word, the stress of the syllable and in some varieties depending on whether the consonant isgeminated. The pronunciation remains if a word that is pronounced with a particular rhotic consonant is put into a compound word in a position where that realization would not otherwise occur if it were part of the same stem as the preceding sound. However, in Östergötland the pronunciation tends to gravitate more towards[w] and in Västergötland the realization is commonly voiced.Common from the time ofGustav III (Swedish king 1771–1792), who was much inspired by French culture and language, was the use of guttural R in the nobility and in the upper classes ofStockholm. This phenomenon vanished in the 1900s. The last well-known non-Southerner who spoke with a guttural R, and did not have a speech defect, wasAnders Gernandt, a popularequitation commentator on TV.
Most of Norway uses analveolar flap, but about one third of the inhabitants of Norway, primarily in the South-West region, are now using the uvular rhotic. In the western and southern part ofSouth Norway, the uvular rhotic is still spreading and includes all towns and coastal areas ofAgder, most ofRogaland, large parts ofHordaland, andSogn og Fjordane in and aroundFlorø. The origin was the city ofBergen as well as Kristiansand in the 18th century.[25][26] Becauseretroflex consonants are mutations of[ɾ] and other alveolar or dental consonants, the use of a uvular rhotic means an absence of most retroflex consonants.
In Icelandic, the uvular rhotic-like[ʀ] or[ʁ][27] is an uncommon[27] deviation from the normal alveolar trill or flap, and is considered aspeech disorder.[28]
InSlavic languages, thealveolar trill predominates, with the use of guttural rhotics seen as defective pronunciation.[citation needed] However, the uvular trill is common among the languages of theSorbian minority inSaxony, eastern Germany, likely due to German influence. The uvular rhotic may also be found in a small minority inSilesia and other German-influenced regions of Poland and alsoSlovenia, but is overall quite rare even in these regions. It can also be perceived as an ethnic marker of Jewishness, particularly in Russian whereEastern European Jews often carried the uvular rhotic from their nativeYiddish into their pronunciation of Russian.
In most forms ofHebrew, the classical pronunciation ofrêš (ר) was a flapped[ɾ], and wasgrammatically treated as anungeminable phoneme of the language. In most dialects of Hebrew among the Jewishdiaspora, it remained a flap[ɾ] or a trill[r]. However, in some Ashkenazi dialects as preserved among Jews in northern Europe it was a uvular rhotic, either a trill[ʀ] or a fricative[ʁ]. This was because many (but not all) native dialects ofYiddish were spoken that way, and their liturgical Hebrew carried the same pronunciation.[citation needed]
An apparently unrelated uvular rhotic is believed to have appeared in theTiberian vocalization of Hebrew, where it is believed to have coexisted with additional non-guttural, emphatic articulations of/r/ depending on circumstances.[29]
Although an Ashkenazi Jew in theRussian Empire, theZionistEliezer Ben-Yehuda based his Standard Hebrew onSephardi Hebrew, originally spoken in Spain, and therefore recommended an alveolar[r].[citation needed] However, just like him, the first waves of Jews to resettle in theHoly Land were Ashkenazi, and Standard Hebrew would come to be spoken with their native pronunciation. Consequently, by now nearly all Israeli Jews pronounce the consonantrêš (ר) as a uvular approximant[ʁ̞],[30]: 261 which also exists in Yiddish.[30]: 262
Many Jewish immigrants to Israel wereMizrahi Jews who spoke avariety of Arabic in their countries of origin and pronounced the Hebrew rhotic as an alveolar flap[ɾ], similar to Arabicrāʾ (ر). Gradually, many of them began pronouncing their Hebrew rhotic as a voiced uvular fricative[ʁ], a sound similar or (depending on the Arabic dialect) identical to Arabicġayn (غ).[31]
While mostvarieties of Arabic retain the classical pronunciation ofrāʾ (ر) as analveolar trill[r] orflap[ɾ], a few varieties use auvular trill[ʀ]. These include:
The uvular/r/ was attested already in vernacular Arabic of theAbbasid period. Nowadays Christian Arabic of Baghdad exhibits also an alveolar trill in very few lexemes, but primarily used in loanwords fromModern Standard Arabic. Native words with an alveolar trill are rare.[35] Moreover, Mosul Arabic commonly has the voiced alveolar trill instead of a uvular fricative in numbers (e.g./arbaʕiːn/ "forty").[36] Although this guttural rhotic is rare in Arabic, uvular and velar sounds are common in this language. The uvular or velar fricative[ʁ]~[ɣ] is a common standard pronunciation of the letterġayn (غ), and the uvular plosive[q] is a standard pronunciation of the letterqāf (ق).
InAmharic the alveolar trill[r] is the usual pronunciation of/r/. But there are also assertions that aroundAddis Abeba some dialects exhibit a uvular r. Note that this information is not very well supported among Semitists.[37] Also inGafat (extinct since the 1950s) a uvular fricative or trill might have existed.[38]
The majority of Assyriologists deem an alveolar trill or flap the most likely pronunciation of Akkadian/r/ in most dialects. However, there are several indications toward a velar or uvular fricative[ɣ]~[ʁ] particularly supported byJohn Huehnergard.[39] The main arguments constitute alternations with the voiceless uvular fricative/χ/ (e.g.ruššû/ḫuššû "red";barmātu "multicolored" (fem. pl.), the spellingba-aḫ-ma-a-tù is attested).[40] Besides/r/ shows certain phonological parallelisms with/χ/ and other gutturals (especially the glottal stop[ʔ]).[41]
Guttural R exists among several Malay dialects. Whilestandard Malay commonly uses coronal r (ɹ,r,ɾ), the guttural fricative (ɣ~ʁ) are more prominently used in many dialects inMalay Peninsula as well as some parts ofSumatra andBorneo. These dialects include:
~ Perak Malay and Kedah Malay are the most notable examples.
These dialects mainly use the guttural fricative (ɣ~ʁ) for both /r/ and /gh/.Standard Malay includes both coronal r (ɹ,r,ɾ) and voiced guttural fricative /gh/ (ɣ~ʁ) as two different phonemes. To denote the guttural r in the dialects, the letter "r" is often replaced by "gh" or "q" in informal writing[citation needed].Standard Malay words withvoiced velar fricative (ɣ), such asloghat (dialect) andghaib (invisible, mystical) are mostlyArabic loanwords spelled in their origin language with the letterغ in theJawi alphabet.
Other Austronesian languages with similar features are:
Standard Basque uses a trill for/r/ (written asr-,-rr-,-r), but most speakers of theLapurdian andLow Navarrese dialects use avoiced uvular fricative as in French. In theSouthern Basque Country, the uvular articulation is seen as aspeech defect, but the prevalence is higher among bilinguals than among Spanish monolinguals. Recently, speakers of Lapurdian and Low Navarrese are uvularizing thetap (-r-) as well, thus neutralizing both rhotics.[11]
Whereas standardKhmer uses an alveolar trill for/r/, the colloquialPhnom Penh dialect uses a uvular pronunciation for the phoneme, which may be elided and leave behind a residual tonal or register contrast.[42]
Sesotho originally used an alveolar trill/r/, which has shifted to uvular/ʀ/ in modern times.[citation needed]
Hill-Maṛia (sometimes considered a dialect ofGondi) has a/ʁ/ corresponding to/r/ in other related languages or *t̠ from proto Dravidian.[43]
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There are languages where certain indigenous guttural consonants came to be written with symbols used in other languages to represent rhotics, thereby giving the superficial appearance of a guttural R without actually functioning as truerhotic consonants.
TheInuit languagesGreenlandic andInuktitut eitherorthographize ortransliterate theirvoiced uvularobstruent as⟨r⟩. In Greenlandic, this phoneme is[ʁ], while in Inuktitut it is[ɢ]. This spelling was convenient because these languages do not have non-lateralliquid consonants, and guttural realizations of⟨r⟩ are common in various languages, particularly the colonial languagesDanish and French. But theAlaskanInupiat language writes its[ʁ] phoneme instead as⟨ġ⟩, reserving⟨r⟩ for itsretroflex[ʐ] phoneme, which Greenlandic and Inuktitut do not have.
Et l'R, en portant le bout de la langue jusqu'au haut du palais, de sorte qu'étant frôlée par l'air qui sort avec force, elle lui cède, et revient toujours au même endroit, faisant une manière de tremblement : Rra. [And the R, placing the tip of the tongue to the height of the palate so that, when it is grazed by air leaving the mouth with force, it [the tip of the tongue] falls down and always comes back to the same place, making a kind trembling.]