Alveolar trill

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IPA – number 122
IPA – text r
IPA – image {{{imagesize}}}
Entity r
X-SAMPA r
Kirshenbaum r<trl>
Sound sample (help·info)

The alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages (such as Russian, Spanish, Italian, Armenian, Slovenian and Polish). The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is r, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. It is informally called the rolling R or rolled R.

Contents

[edit] Features

Features of the alveolar trill:

[edit] Occurence

[edit] English

Most dialects of English lack an alveolar trill. The most notable exception is the Scottish dialect. This particular sound may be challenging for people without it in their native language.

[edit] Other languages

Alveolar trills are common in Uralic languages, most Slavic languages and Romance languages such as Spanish (written rr, or r on word onset), Catalan, Occitan, and Italian. It also figures prominently in the Basque language. Standard varieties of German and Parisian French use the uvular trill. However, the alveolar trill may exist in the southern dialects of both languages. The trill is also found in colloquial and standard Arabic where it is represented by the letter ر. All Indo-European languages, including English and French, are believed to originally have featured this sound.[citation needed]

In some languages (such as, Czech, Slovak and Serbo-Croatian) the alveolar trill can be syllabic [r̩] as in Czech krk (neck) or Serbo-Croatian rt (cape). Syllabic [r̩] can be long in Slovak (denoted by an acute /ŕ/) and in Serbo-Croatian, as in sŕna [sr̩:na] (roe-doe). Giving rise to a jest Czechs may use to demonstrate Czech has no vowels: "Strč prst skrz krk," or stick your finger through your neck. The only vowel in the sentence is [r̩].

A voiceless version of this sound — [r̥] — occurs in Welsh (written rh) and Breton has retained its alveolar trill. While the trill may occur in some dialects of Scottish Gaelic and Irish, the alveolar flap is generally more common. It also occurs at the end of a syllable in Icelandic. The voiceless alveolar trill may have been allophonic to its voiced counterpart in Ancient Greek.

Some Malayalam speakers may pronounce both their language's rhotics as trills. They contrast a prealveolar (~ dental) and a postalveolar trill: [r̟] vs. [r̠].

All Northwest Caucasian languages exhibit the alveolar trill: Ubykh /rakʷʼa/ vine tendril, Abkhaz ашəара /a-ʃʷa-ra/ to measure. In Ubykh, the phoneme carries a phonaesthetic concept of rolling or a repeated action in some verbs, notably /bəqˁʼəda/ ~ /bəqˁʼərda/ to roll around and /χʷˁəχʷˁəda/ ~ /χʷˁəχʷˁərda/ to slither.

J. R. R. Tolkien intended for his Elvish languages to feature the alveolar trill, and this is evident in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

[edit] Notes on phonetic transcription

In English and German dictionaries, the symbol [r] is usually used as a unified symbol for rhotics in those languages, such as the alveolar or retroflex approximant in English (IPA symbols: [ɹ] and [ɻ]) or the uvular trill in German (IPA symbol: [ʀ]).

[edit] Raised alveolar non-sonorant trill

There is a phoneme (different from [r]) which is exclusively used in the Czech language. Its manner of articulation is similar but the tongue is raised; it is partially fricative. It is orthographically represented by the letter <ř>, and in IPA symbols [r̝]. The basic manner of pronunciation is voiced but there is also a voiceless counterpart [r̝˚] which is not an individual phoneme but an allophone. E.g. it is voiceless in the word rybář (fisherman) but it is voiced in rybáři (fishermen).

Unlike [r], it is non-sonorant, i.e. [r̝] cannot be a nucleus of a syllable.

[edit] Allophones

In the majority of Indo-European languages this sound is at least occasionally allophonic with a voiced alveolar tap [ɾ], particularly in unstressed positions. Exceptions to this include Spanish and Albanian, which treat them as separate phonemes (note the Spanish minimal pair [ˈpeɾo] pero "but" versus [ˈpero] perro "dog").

In Swedish this sound is frequently allophonic with a voiced alveolar approximant [ɹ].

[edit] See also

  Consonants (List, table) See also: IPA, Vowels  
Pulmonics Bilabial Lab'den. Dental Alveolar Postalv. Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn. Epiglottal Glottal Non-pulmonics and other symbols
Nasals m ɱ n̪ n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ Clicks  ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ
Plosives p b p̪ b̪ t̪ d̪ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Implo­­sives  ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ ʛ
Fricatives  ɸ β f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Ejec­­tives  pʼ tʼ kʼ qʼ sʼ
Approximants  β̞ ʋ ð̞ ɹ ɻ j ɰ Other laterals  ɺ ɫ
Trills ʙ r • ʀ • Co-articulated approximants ʍ w ɥ
Flaps & Taps ѵ̟ ѵ ɾ ɽ • Co-articulated fricatives ɕ ʑ ɧ
Lat. Fricatives ɬ ɮ • • • Affricates  ʦ ʣ ʧ ʤ
Lat. Appr'mants l ɭ ʎ ʟ Co-articulated stops  k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m
This page contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help]
Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged impossible.

The Letter "R"
General: The letter R · Rhotic consonants (R-like sounds) · Rhotic and non-rhotic accents · R-colored vowels · Guttural R · Linking R and Intrusive R
Pronunciations: Alveolar trill [r] · Alveolar approximant [ɹ] · Alveolar flap / Alveolar tap [ɾ] · Alveolar lateral flap [ɺ] ·Retroflex approximant [ɻ] · Retroflex flap [ɽ] ·Uvular trill [ʀ] ·Voiced uvular fricative [ʁ]
Variations: (R rotunda) · Ɍɍ (R with stroke) · Ʀʀ · Ȑȑ · Ŕŕ · Ŗŗ · Řř · Ȓȓ · Ṙṙ · Ṛṛ · Ṝṝ · Ṟṟ · Rd · Rh · Rl · Rn · Rr · Rt · Rnd · ᚱ (Raidô) · ℛ (Riemann integral) · ℜ (Real part) · ℝ (Real number) · ® (Registered trademark) · Ⓡ (Enclosed R)
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