Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:More citations needed
Template:IPA notice Guttural R is the phenomenon whereby a rhotic consonant (an "R-like" sound) is produced in the back of the vocal tract (usually with the uvula) rather than in the front portion thereof and thus as a guttural consonant. Speakers of languages with guttural R typically regard guttural and coronal rhotics (throat-back-R and tongue-tip-R) to be alternative pronunciations of the same phoneme (conceptual sound), despite articulatory 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 Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink, and Template:IPAblink) and are (perhaps) not rhotics at all.
The guttural realization of a lone rhotic consonant is typical in most of what is now France, French-speaking Belgium, most of Germany, large parts of the Netherlands, Denmark, the southern parts of Sweden and southwestern parts of Norway. It is also frequent in Flanders, eastern Austria, Yiddish (and hence Ashkenazi Hebrew), Luxembourgish, and among all French and some German speakers in Switzerland.
Outside of central Europe, it also occurs as the normal pronunciation of one of two rhotic phonemes (usually replacing an older alveolar trill) in standard European Portuguese and in other parts of Portugal, particularly the Azores, various parts of Brazil, among minorities of other Portuguese-speaking regions, and in parts of Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
Romance languagesEdit
FrenchEdit
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, the alveolar trill was gradually replaced with the uvular trill from the end of the 17th century.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Molière's Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, published in 1670, has a professor describe the sound of {{#invoke:IPA|main}} as an alveolar trill (Act II, Scene IV).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It has since evolved, in Paris, to a voiced uvular fricative or approximant {{#invoke:IPA|main}}.
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.Template: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.
PortugueseEdit
Standard versions of Portuguese have two rhotic phonemes, which contrast only between vowels. In older Portuguese, these were the alveolar flap {{#invoke:IPA|main}} (written Template:Angbr) and the alveolar trill {{#invoke:IPA|main}} (written Template:Angbr). In other positions, only Template:Angbr 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.:
- Template:Angbr represents a trill when written Template:Angbr between vowels; at the beginning of a word; or following {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, or Template:Angbr. Examples: carro, rua, Israel, honrar. Note that Template:Angbr does not represent {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, but a nasalized vowel.
- Template:Angbr represents a flap elsewhere, i.e. following a vowel or following any consonant other than {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, or {{#invoke:IPA|main}}. Examples: caro, quatro, quarto, mar.
In the 19th century, the uvular trill {{#invoke:IPA|main}} 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 the voiced uvular fricative {{#invoke:IPA|main}}. Many northern dialects, like Transmontano, Portuese (which is heard in parts of Aveiro), Minhoto, and much of Beirão 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 {{#invoke:IPA|main}} is now dominant in Portugal.
A common realization of the word-initial {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in the Lisbon accent is a voiced uvular fricative trill Template:IPAblink.<ref>Template:Harvcoltxt</ref>
The dialect of the fishermen of Setúbal used the voiced uvular fricative {{#invoke:IPA|main}} for all instances of "r" – word start, intervocalic, postconsonantal and syllable ending. This same pronunciation is attested in people with rhotacism, in a new developing variety of young people in São Tomean Portuguese,<ref>Template:Cite thesis</ref> 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 Template:Angle bracket is voiceless, either as a voiceless velar fricative {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, voiceless uvular fricative {{#invoke:IPA|main}} or a voiceless glottal fricative {{#invoke:IPA|main}}.<ref>Mateus, Maria Helena & d'Andrade, Ernesto (2000). The Phonology of Portuguese Template:ISBN (Excerpt from Google Books) Template:Webarchive</ref> In many dialects, this voiceless sound not only replaces all occurrences of the traditional trill, but is also used for all Template:Angle bracket that is not 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:
- A flap {{#invoke:IPA|main}} only for single Template:Angle bracket and only when it occurs either between vowels or between a preceding consonant (other than {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, or {{#invoke:IPA|main}}) and a following vowel. Examples: caro, quatro.
- A voiceless fricative {{#invoke:IPA|main}} {{#invoke:IPA|main}} or {{#invoke:IPA|main}} everywhere else: when written Template:Angle bracket; at the beginning of a word; at the end of a word; before a consonant; after {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, or {{#invoke:IPA|main}}. Examples: carro, rua, honrar, Israel, quarto, mar.
In the three southernmost states, however, the alveolar trill {{#invoke:IPA|main}} 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 {{#invoke:IPA|main}} before consonants (e.g. in quarto) and between vowels (e.g. in caro). Among others, this includes many speakers in the city of São Paulo and some neighboring cities, though an alveolar approximant {{#invoke:IPA|main}} is also common, not only in the city, but the approximant is the dominant articulation in the São Paulo state, outside the capital, the most populous state in Brazil. The caipira dialect has the alveolar approximant {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in the same position.
In areas where Template:Angle bracket 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 Template:Angle bracket (mar "sea", mulher "woman", amor "love"). Speakers in Rio often resist this tendency, pronouncing a strong fricative {{#invoke:IPA|main}} or {{#invoke:IPA|main}} at the end of such words. Template: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 {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, which is normally voiced to {{#invoke:IPA|main}}. For example, a speaker whose Template:Angbr sounds like {{#invoke:IPA|main}} will often pronounce surdo "deaf" as {{#invoke:IPA|main}} or even {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, with a short epenthetic vowel that mimics the preceding vowel.
SpanishEdit
In most Spanish-speaking territories and regions, guttural or uvular realizations of {{#invoke:IPA|main}} are considered a speech defect. Generally the single flap {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, spelled r as in cara, undergoes no defective pronunciations, but the alveolar trill in rata or perro is one of the last sounds learned by children and uvularization is likely among individuals who fail to achieve the alveolar articulation. This said, back variants for {{#invoke:IPA|main}} ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}, {{#invoke:IPA|main}} or {{#invoke:IPA|main}}) are widespread in rural Puerto Rican Spanish and in the dialect of Ponce,<ref>Navarro-Tomás, T. (1948). "El español en Puerto Rico". Contribución a la geografía lingüística latinoamericana. Río Piedras: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, pp. 91-93.</ref> whereas they are heavily stigmatized in the dialect of the capital.<ref>López-Morales, H. (1983). Estratificación social del español de San Juan de Puerto Rico. México: UNAM.</ref> To a lesser extent, velar variants of {{#invoke:IPA|main}} are found in some rural Cuban (Yateras, Guantánamo Province)<ref>López-Morales, H. (1992). El español del Caribe. Madrid: MAPFRE, p. 61.</ref> and Dominican vernaculars (Cibao, eastern rural regions of the country)<ref>Jiménez-Sabater, M. (1984). Más datos sobre el español de la República Dominicana. Santo Domingo: Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, p. 87.</ref> In the 1937 Parsley Massacre, Dominican troops attacked Haitians in Cibao and the northwestern border. The popular name of the massacre comes from the shibboleth applied to distinguish Dominicans from Haitians: the suspects were ordered to name some parsley (Template:Langx). If they used a French or Haitian Creole pronunciation for {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} or {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, they would be executed.
In the Basque-speaking areas of Spain, the uvular articulation {{#invoke:IPA|main}} has a higher prevalence among bilinguals than among Spanish monolinguals.<ref name="Basque"/>
ItalianEdit
Guttural realization of {{#invoke:IPA|main}} is mostly considered a speech defect in Italian (cf. rotacismo), but the so-called r moscia ('limp' or 'lifeless r', an umbrella term for realizations of {{#invoke:IPA|main}} considered defective), which is sometimes uvular, is quite common in areas of Northwest Italy, i.e. Aosta Valley, Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna.<ref>Romano A. (2013). "A preliminary contribution to the study of phonetic variation of {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in Italian and Italo-Romance". In: L. Spreafico & A. Vietti (eds.), Rhotics. New data and perspectives. Bolzano/Bozen: BU Press, 209–225 [1] Template:Webarchive</ref>
OccitanEdit
As with all other Romance languages, the alveolar trill {{#invoke:IPA|main}} is the original way to pronounce the letter r in Occitan, as it was in Latin. Nowadays, the uvular trill {{#invoke:IPA|main}} and the Voiced uvular fricative or approximant {{#invoke:IPA|main}} are common in some Occitan dialects (Provence, Auvergne, Alps, Limousin). The dialects of Languedoc and Gascony also have these realizations, but it is generally considered to be influence from French and therefore rejected from the standard versions of these dialects.Template:Citation needed
BretonEdit
Breton, spoken in Brittany (France), is a Celtic rather than Romance language, but is heavily influenced by French. It retains an alveolar trill in some dialects, like in Léon and Morbihan, but most dialects now have the same rhotic as French, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}.
Continental West GermanicEdit
The uvular rhotic is most common in Central German dialects and in Standard German. Many Low Franconian, Low Saxon, and Upper German varieties have also adopted it with others maintaining the alveolar trill ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}). 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).
The Frisian languages usually retain an alveolar rhotic.Template:Citation needed
Dutch and AfrikaansEdit
In modern Dutch, quite a few different rhotic sounds are used. In Flanders, the usual rhotic is an alveolar trill, but the uvular rhotic {{#invoke:IPA|main}} does occur, mostly in the province of Limburg, in Ghent and in Brussels. In the Netherlands, the uvular rhotic is the dominant rhotic in the southern provinces of North Brabant and Limburg, 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 agglomeration Randstad, including cities like Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht (the dialect of Amsterdam 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 as Leeuwarden (Stadsfries). Outside of these uvular rhotic core areas, the alveolar trill is common. People learning Dutch as a foreign language also tend to use the alveolar trill because it contrasts better with the voiceless velar fricative {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in Dutch.Template:Citation needed The Afrikaans language of South Africa also uses an alveolar trill for its rhotic, except in the non-urban rural regions around Cape Town, chiefly in the town of Malmesbury, 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.
Low SaxonEdit
In the Dutch Low Saxon area there are several cities which have the uvular rhotic: Zutphen, Steenwijk,<ref>De Taal van Overijssel. Over de taal van Steenwijk.</ref> Kampen,<ref>De Taal van Overijssel. Over de taal van Kampen.</ref> Zwolle<ref>De Taal van Overijssel. Over de taal van Zwolle.</ref> and Deventer.<ref>De Taal van Overijssel. Over de taal van Deventer</ref> In IJsselmuiden near Kampen the uvular r can also be heard.<ref>Ph Bloemhoff-de Bruijn, Anderhalve Eeuw Zwols Vocaalveranderingsprocessen in de periode 1838–1972. IJsselacademie (2012). Template:ISBN</ref> In the countryside the alveolar trill is common.<ref>Ph Bloemhoff-de Bruijn, Anderhalve Eeuw Zwols Vocaalveranderingsprocessen in de periode 1838–1972. IJsselacademie (2012). Template:ISBN.</ref>
Standard GermanEdit
Although the first standardized pronunciation dictionary by Theodor Siebs prescribed an alveolar pronunciation, most varieties of German are now spoken with a uvular rhotic, usually a fricative or approximant Template:IPAblink, rather than a trill Template:IPAblink. The alveolar pronunciation {{#invoke:IPA|main}} 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 (see {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}).
In German dialects, the alveolar has survived somewhat more widely than in the standard language, though there are several regions, especially in Central German, where even the broadest rural dialects use a uvular R.Template:Citation needed
Regardless of whether a uvular or an alveolar pronunciation is used, German post-vocalic "r" is often vocalized to Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink, or a simple lengthening Template:IPAblink. This is most common in the syllable coda, as in non-rhotic English, but sometimes occurs before an underlying schwa, too. Vocalization of "r" is rare only in Alemannic (velar) and Swabian (uvular) German.
YiddishEdit
Yiddish, the traditional language of Ashkenazi Jews in central and eastern Europe, is derived from Middle High German. As such it presumably used the alveolar R at first, but the uvular R then became predominant in many Yiddish 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).
Insular West GermanicEdit
EnglishEdit
Speakers of the traditional English dialect of Northumberland and northern County Durham use a uvular rhotic, known as the "Northumbrian Burr".<ref>Wells, J.C. 1982. Accents of English 2: The British Isles. Cambridge University Press. Page 368</ref><ref>Survey of English Dialects, Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland</ref><ref>Survey of English Dialects, Ebchester, County Durham</ref> However, it is no longer used by most contemporary speakers, who generally realize {{#invoke:IPA|main}} as an alveolar approximant, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, in common with other varieties spoken in the English-speaking world.<ref>Millennium Memory Bank, Alnwick, Northumberland</ref><ref>Millennium Memory Bank, Butterknowle, County Durham</ref>
The Hiberno-English of northeastern Leinster in Ireland also uses a uvular {{#invoke:IPA|main}}.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
North GermanicEdit
Alveolar rhotics predominate in northern Scandinavia. Where they occur, they affect the succeeding alveolars, turning the clusters {{#invoke:IPA|main}} and {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, {{#invoke:IPA|main}} retroflex: {{#invoke:IPA|main}}. Thus the Norwegian word "norsk" is pronounced {{#invoke:IPA|main}} by speakers with an alveolar flap. This effect is rare in the speech of those using a uvular R ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}).
Danish and SwedishEdit
The rhotic used in Denmark is a voiced uvular approximant, and the nearby Swedish ex-Danish regions of Scania, Blekinge, southern Halland as well as a large part of Småland and on the Öland island, use a uvular trill or a uvular fricative.
To some extent in Östergötland and still quite commonly in Västergötland, a mixture of guttural and rolling rhotic consonants (e.g. {{#invoke:IPA|main}} and {{#invoke:IPA|main}} 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 is geminated. 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 {{#invoke:IPA|main}} and in Västergötland the realization is commonly voiced. Common from the time of Gustav 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 of Stockholm. 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, was Anders Gernandt, a popular equitation commentator on TV.
NorwegianEdit
Most of Norway uses an alveolar 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 of South Norway, the uvular rhotic is still spreading and includes all towns and coastal areas of Agder, most of Rogaland, large parts of Hordaland, and Sogn og Fjordane in and around Florø. The origin was the city of Bergen as well as Kristiansand in the 18th century.<ref>Chambers, J.K. and Trudgill, P. (1998): Dialectology. Cambridge University Press, p. 173f.</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Because retroflex consonants are mutations of {{#invoke:IPA|main}} and other alveolar or dental consonants, the use of a uvular rhotic means an absence of most retroflex consonants.
IcelandicEdit
In Icelandic, the uvular rhotic-like {{#invoke:IPA|main}} or {{#invoke:IPA|main}}<ref name=framburdur>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> is an uncommon<ref name=framburdur/> deviation from the normal alveolar trill or flap, and is considered a speech disorder.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Slavic languagesEdit
In Slavic languages, the alveolar trill predominates, with the use of guttural rhotics seen as defective pronunciation.Template:Citation needed However, the uvular trill is common among the languages of the Sorbian minority in Saxony, eastern Germany, likely due to German influence. The uvular rhotic may also be found in a small minority in Silesia and other German-influenced regions of Poland and also Slovenia, but is overall quite rare even in these regions. It can also be perceived as an ethnic marker of Jewishness, particularly in Russian where Eastern European Jews often carried the uvular rhotic from their native Yiddish into their pronunciation of Russian.
Semitic languagesEdit
HebrewEdit
In most forms of Hebrew, the classical pronunciation of Template:Transliteration ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) was a flapped Template:IPAblink, and was grammatically treated as an ungeminable phoneme of the language. In most dialects of Hebrew among the Jewish diaspora, it remained a flap Template:IPAblink or a trill Template:IPAblink. However, in some Ashkenazi dialects as preserved among Jews in northern Europe it was a uvular rhotic, either a trill Template:IPAblink or a fricative Template:IPAblink. This was because many (but not all) native dialects of Yiddish were spoken that way, and their liturgical Hebrew carried the same pronunciation.Template:Citation needed
An apparently unrelated uvular rhotic is believed to have appeared in the Tiberian vocalization of Hebrew, where it is believed to have coexisted with additional non-guttural, emphatic articulations of {{#invoke:IPA|main}} depending on circumstances.<ref>Khan, Geoffrey (1995), The Pronunciation of reš in the Tiberian Tradition of Biblical Hebrew, in: Hebrew Union College Annual, Vol.66, p.67-88.</ref>
Yiddish influenceEdit
Although an Ashkenazi Jew in the Russian Empire, the Zionist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda based his Standard Hebrew on Sephardi Hebrew, originally spoken in Spain, and therefore recommended an alveolar Template:IPAblink.Template:Citation needed However, just like him, the first waves of Jews to resettle in the Holy Land were Ashkenazi, and Standard Hebrew would come to be spoken with their native pronunciation. Consequently, by now nearly all Israeli Jews pronounce the consonant rêš (Template:Script) as a uvular approximant Template:IPAblink,<ref name="Zuckermann">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp which also exists in Yiddish.<ref name="Zuckermann"/>Template:Rp
Sephardic HebrewEdit
Many Jewish immigrants to Israel were Mizrahi Jews who spoke a variety of Arabic in their countries of origin and pronounced the Hebrew rhotic as an alveolar flap Template:IPAblink, similar to Arabic Template:Transliteration ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}). Gradually, many of them began pronouncing their Hebrew rhotic as a voiced uvular fricative Template:IPAblink, a sound similar or (depending on the Arabic dialect) identical to Arabic Template:Transliteration ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}).<ref>https://forward.com/news/5461/the-three-e2-80-98r-e2-80-99s/</ref>
ArabicEdit
While most varieties of Arabic retain the classical pronunciation of Template:Transliteration ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) as an alveolar trill Template:IPAblink or flap Template:IPAblink, a few varieties use a uvular trill Template:IPAblink. These include:
- pre-modern Baghdadi Arabic
- The Tigris varieties, a group among the Mesopotamian Arabic in Iraq, for instance in Mosul<ref>Otto Jastrow (2007), Iraq, in: The Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, Vol. 2, p.414-416</ref>
- The Jewish and Christian varieties in Baghdad
- The Jewish variety in Algiers
- The variety of Jijel in Algeria<ref>Philippe Marçais (1956), Le Parler Arabe de Djidjelli (Nord Constantinois, Algérie), Paris, 16–17; cf. also Marcel Cohen (1912), Le Parler Arabe des Juifs d’Alger (= Collection linguistique 4), Paris, p.27</ref>
- Some Muslim-urban varieties of Morocco (e.g. in Fes)<ref>Georges-Séraphin Colin (1987), Morocco (The Arabic Dialects), in: E. J. Brill’s First Encyclopaedia of Islam: 1913–1936, Vol. 6, Leiden, 599</ref>
- Some Jewish varieties in Morocco
The uvular {{#invoke:IPA|main}} was attested already in vernacular Arabic of the Abbasid period. Nowadays Christian Arabic of Baghdad exhibits also an alveolar trill in very few lexemes, but primarily used in loanwords from Modern Standard Arabic. Native words with an alveolar trill are rare.<ref>Farida Abu-Haidar (1991), Christian Arabic of Baghdad (= Semitica Viva 7), Wiesbaden, p.9-10.</ref> Moreover, Mosul Arabic commonly has the voiced alveolar trill instead of a uvular fricative in numbers (e.g. {{#invoke:IPA|main}} "forty").<ref>Otto Jastrow (1979), Zur arabischen Mundart von Mosul, in: Zeitschrift für arabische Linguistik, Vol. 2., p.38.</ref> Although this guttural rhotic is rare in Arabic, uvular and velar sounds are common in this language. The uvular or velar fricative Template:IPAblink~Template:IPAblink is a common standard pronunciation of the letter Template:Transliteration ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), and the uvular plosive Template:IPAblink is a standard pronunciation of the letter Template:Transliteration ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}).
EthiopicEdit
In Amharic the alveolar trill Template:IPAblink is the usual pronunciation of {{#invoke:IPA|main}}. But there are also assertions that around Addis Abeba some dialects exhibit a uvular r. Note that this information is not very well supported among Semitists.<ref>Edward Ullendorf (1955), The Semitic Languages of Ethiopia, London, p.124-125.</ref> Also in Gafat (extinct since the 1950s) a uvular fricative or trill might have existed.<ref>Edward Lipiński (1997), Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar (= Orientalia Lovaniensa Analecta 80), Leuven, p.132-133.</ref>
AkkadianEdit
The majority of Assyriologists deem an alveolar trill or flap the most likely pronunciation of Akkadian {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in most dialects. However, there are several indications toward a velar or uvular fricative Template:IPAblink~Template:IPAblink particularly supported by John Huehnergard.<ref>John Huehnergard and Christopher Woods (2004), Akkadian and Eblaite, in: Roger D. Woodard Roger (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages, Cambridge, p.230-231.</ref> The main arguments constitute alternations with the voiceless uvular fricative {{#invoke:IPA|main}} (e.g. ruššû/ḫuššû "red"; barmātu "multicolored" (fem. pl.), the spelling ba-aḫ-ma-a-tù is attested).<ref>Wolfram von Soden (1995), Grundriß der akkadischen Grammatik (= Analecta Orientalia 33), Rom, p.44 (§ 35); see also Benno Landsberger (1964), Einige unerkannt gebliebene oder verkannte Nomina des Akkadischen, in: Die Welt des Orients 3/1, p.54.</ref> Besides {{#invoke:IPA|main}} shows certain phonological parallelisms with {{#invoke:IPA|main}} and other gutturals (especially the glottal stop Template:IPAblink).<ref>John Huehnergard (2013), Akkadian e and Semitic Root Integrity, in: Babel und Bibel 7: Annual of Ancient Near Eastern, Old Testament and Semitic Studies (= Orientalia et Classica 47), p.457 (note 45); see also Edward L. Greenstein (1984), The Phonology of Akkadian Syllable Structure, in: Afroasiatic Linguistics 9/1, p.30.</ref>
AustronesianEdit
Malayic languagesEdit
Guttural R exists among several Malay dialects. While standard Malay commonly uses coronal r (Template:IPA link,Template:IPA link,Template:IPA link), the guttural fricative (Template:IPA link~Template:IPA link) are more prominently used in many dialects in Malay Peninsula as well as some parts of Sumatra and Borneo. These dialects include:
- Pahang Malay
- Kedah Malay
- Kelantan-Pattani Malay
- Minangkabau (closely related to Malay that it might be dialects of the same language, only in some dialects)
- Negeri Sembilan Malay
- Sarawak Malay
- Terengganu Malay
- Perak Malay
- Tamiang Malay
- Pontianak Malay
- Palembang Malay
~ Perak Malay and Kedah Malay are the most notable examples.
These dialects mainly use the guttural fricative (Template:IPA link~Template:IPA link) for both /r/ and /gh/. Standard Malay includes both coronal r (Template:IPA link,Template:IPA link,Template:IPA link) and voiced guttural fricative /gh/ (Template:IPA link~Template:IPA link) 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 Template:Citation needed. Standard Malay words with voiced velar fricative (Template:IPA link), such as loghat (dialect) and ghaib (invisible, mystical) are mostly Arabic loanwords spelled in their origin language with the letter {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in the Jawi alphabet.
Other Austronesian languagesEdit
Other Austronesian languages with similar features are:
Other language familiesEdit
BasqueEdit
Standard Basque uses a trill for {{#invoke:IPA|main}} (written as r-, -rr-, -r), but most speakers of the Lapurdian and Low Navarrese dialects use a voiced uvular fricative as in French. In the Southern Basque Country, the uvular articulation is seen as a speech defect, but the prevalence is higher among bilinguals than among Spanish monolinguals. Recently, speakers of Lapurdian and Low Navarrese are uvularizing the tap (-r-) as well, thus neutralizing both rhotics.<ref name="Basque">Grammar of Basque, page 30, José Ignacio Hualde, Jon Ortiz De Urbina, Walter de Gruyter, 2003</ref>
KhmerEdit
Whereas standard Khmer uses an alveolar trill for {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, the colloquial Phnom Penh dialect uses a uvular pronunciation for the phoneme, which may be elided and leave behind a residual tonal or register contrast.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
BantuEdit
Sesotho originally used an alveolar trill {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, which has shifted to uvular {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in modern times.Template:Citation needed
Hill-MaṛiaEdit
Hill-Maṛia (sometimes considered a dialect of Gondi) has a {{#invoke:IPA|main}} corresponding to {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in other related languages or *t̠ from proto Dravidian.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Rhotic-agnostic guttural consonants written as rhoticsEdit
{{ safesubst:#invoke:Unsubst||date=__DATE__ |$B= {{ safesubst:#invoke:Unsubst||date=__DATE__ |$B= Template:Ambox }} }} 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 true rhotic consonants.
Inuit languagesEdit
The Inuit languages Greenlandic and Inuktitut either orthographize or transliterate their voiced uvular obstruent as Template:Angle bracket. In Greenlandic, this phoneme is {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, while in Inuktitut it is {{#invoke:IPA|main}}. This spelling was convenient because these languages do not have non-lateral liquid consonants, and guttural realizations of Template:Angbr are common in various languages, particularly the colonial languages Danish and French. But the Alaskan Inupiat language writes its {{#invoke:IPA|main}} phoneme instead as Template:Angbr, reserving Template:Angbr for its retroflex {{#invoke:IPA|main}} phoneme, which Greenlandic and Inuktitut do not have.