From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

IPA – number	123
IPA – text	ʀ
IPA – image
Entity	ʀ
X-SAMPA	R\
Kirshenbaum	r"
Sound sample (help·info)

The uvular trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ʀ, a small capital R. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is R\. This consonant is one of several collectively called guttural R.

Features of the uvular trill:

• Its manner of articulation is trill, which means it is produced by vibrations of the articulator (in this case, the uvula).
• Its place of articulation is uvular, which means that it is the uvula which does the vibrating.
• 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.

The uvular trill is rare outside Europe. It occurs in some varieties of Abkhaz and in Ashkenazic Hebrew. In Lakhota the uvular trill is an allophone of the voiced uvular fricative, used in front of /i/.

Within Europe it seems to have originated in French, from where it spread to modern Standard German, most German dialects, some Dutch dialects, some northern Italian dialects, and the southern dialects of Swedish and Norwegian. In part of this area it has since acquired a uvular fricative allophone, which has taken over completely in Standard Dutch and Danish. It also occurs among speakers of other languages, when individuals have speech impediments that make pronouncing the preferred alveolar trill difficult or impossible (although this is often corrected with minor surgery or an effort in practicing). Lenin is probably the most famous Russian to use uvular trills. It is also a common pronunciation of Puerto Rican Spanish /rr/.

Few languages contrast more than one trill. However, older speakers of eastern dialects of Occitan contrast uvular and alveolar trills, as for example in /ɡari/ cured and /ɡaʀi/ oak.

• List of phonetics topics