Talk:Guttural R

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[edit] Unfaithfulness of Jackson's movie

It's unfair to say Gandalf's trilled r is unfaithful, as tolkien merely says that uvular vs alveolar R is more a manner of the race of the person speaking it, rather than the language being spoken.

You raise a good point. I'll try to change the wording of the paragraph, or consider its removal. - Gilgamesh 11:15, 22 July 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

It would be nice to have some sound files containing examples of the uvular R ... --zeno 15:08, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming?

A user in Category talk:Uvular R pointed out that one of the guttural Rs (in Brazilian Portuguese) isn't even uvular. Would it be better to rename this to Guttural R? - Gilgamesh 01:16, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Is Category:Uvular R necessary?

This category strikes me as quite superfluous. It's intended to be phonetic, but it doesn't describe just one particular sound, but rather four (and one of those isn't even uvular!) which is really just a feature of orthography. It's basically Western European language cruft, since this is nothing particularly unique and really not more interesting than any other any other sounds of language.

Couldn't we just settle for listing of the articles where this is featured in uvular R instead? What's to stop people from adding a seperate category for every imaginable layman's term for sounds?

Peter Isotalo 12:24, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

This category exists because it's a remarkable linguistic phenomenon that continues to influence European and Middle Eastern linguistics to this day. The alveolar and uvular R are phonetically in very distant parts of the throat, and the difference between them has even influenced cultural politics. They most certainly are more than phonetic differences, but a study in culture itself. - Gilgamesh 01:12, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

There are at least a dozen different realizations of /r/ (or one os the allophones) in many different languages, and they are not at all restricted to just the alveolar/uvular dichotomy. There are a whole slew of approximants, including [l], [w], [ɹ] andd [ɻ] as well as taps and flaps ([ɾ], [ɽ], which can be said to be just as unique as the uvular realizations. There are even vowel realizations, like the rhotic vowels in American English ("fur", "father") or the [ɐ] of northern German as ("der"). If "uvular R" is enough for a seperate category, than "approximant R", "flap and tap R" or "vowel R" is just as valid.
As for "a study of culture itself", this sounds like systematic bias even moreso than just the linguistic category of uvular R. The point is that there is little or nothing that actually connects one language or dialect featuring uvular R to another. It's a feature that has appeared in such widely different contexts without any connection to other languages that it must be considered to be something fairly universal. It is simply a perceptory feature of human linguistics that has to do with all manners of /r/-realizations and is not unique.
Peter Isotalo 06:37, May 9, 2005 (UTC)
I think you're missing the point. Alveolar and retroflex flaps, trills, approximants, etc. are all in close proximity to each other in the mouth. Guttural Rs, however, jump to the throat, a radically distant location in the mouth. This phenomenon appeared mysteriously in parts of northern Europe, and spread from there. It is not a common feature anywhere else on earth except when influenced ultimately by the original uvular R zones in European languages, chiefly northern France, northern Germany and Denmark. It is true that other languages have phonemes that correspond roughly to R or to uvular consonants, but none of them are so radical as to associate alveolar, retroflex and distant uvular Rs as different realizations of the same phoneme. If you have any more comments, I suggest we take this to Talk:Uvular R. I will copy this thread there. - Gilgamesh 08:03, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
This is not a discussion about the merits of this article, but of the category. The discussion belongs on that talk page.
Peter Isotalo 09:08, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comments on the uvular r

A few remarks on the "uvular r" article prompted by my ongoing research on the subject:

1) Regarding southern Sweden, it is said that "after Sweden gained control, the people of Skåne gradually began to speak Swedish, but retained their uvular Danish pronunciation". I think this misses an important point, namely that at the time of the Swedish takeover, in all likelihood both Danish and southern Swedish had an apical r. The new pronunciation in southern Sweden is no doubt due to Danish influence, but one which postdates the Swedish conquest. 2) Similarly, the mention of apical r in southern France as possibly being due to under Provençal influence is somewhat misleading -- apical r being the original one in French, it would make more sense to say that southern French has retained this. As it now stands, it gives the reader the impression that apical r has been _introduced_ due to Provençal influence. In relation to French, it might also be worth mentioning that the dialects of Acadia and Louisiana, as well as some varieties in Canada proper also retainthe apical r. 3) Less importantly, but perhaps somewhat interesting: a) uvular r nowadays exists in Breton, and b) dialects of Afrikaans around Cape Town (but not in the city itself!) also have a uvular r, for reasons yet to be determined (though _possibly_ due to Huguenot immigration in the 17th century).

As for references, I don't have them at hand when writing this, but can supply them to anyone interested.

Best,

Mikael Parkvall Department of linguistics, Stockholm University

[edit] Renaming

If no one objects, I'm going to rename this to Guttural R, and the category to Category:Guttural R, seen as there are an increasing number of examples in similar regions of the throat that aren't exactly uvular. - Gilgamesh 08:49, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

This was a very inappropriate move. You're supposed to give people a reasonanle chance to object before actually moving an article. Waiting just under two hours isn't exactly giving people that chance. A week, or at least a few days, is appropriate.
And I do object, because this article is confused enough as it is. Here are my objections:
  • There are no references anywhere. Not even on the talk page.
  • The general layout and terms like "Guttural pseudo-R" are pure original research (and most of the article is getting awfully close to deserving a VfD).
  • The mention of Tolkien's constructed languages and his POV of which type of "r"-pronunciation he himself prefered does not seem to me to be in the least encyclopedic.
  • The scope of this article is simply not reasonable any more. The various realizations of /r/ or phonemes that are audibly similar to /r/ are indeed an intresting subject, but seperating the fronal realizations from the "guttural" and granting them a seperate article is not reasonable. The phonetic typology is getting more and more blurred with every new edit. It is also accompanied by the Category "Guttural R"; which if it was applied to all the appropriate languages, would probably include an unreasonably high percentage of the world's languages. This is simply not acceptable linguistic classifications of encyclopedic articles on languages and dialects.
I've put up the factual dispute-sign, and I would like all of these issues to be adressed properly before it is removed.
Peter Isotalo 13:20, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
The fact of the matter is, alveolar R and guttural consonants are not interchangeable in most of the world's languages. Go outside parts of Europe and dots of the Middle East and you just don't find it, except among colonists from those regions. Not in Siberia, not in Central Asia, not in China, not in India, not in Sub-Saharan Africa, not in the Americas. Guttural R is a rare phenomenon that only has so much notoriety because the vast majority of its users are from northern Europe. French, German, and even Portuguese are common today, but originally they were not. Guttural regions have murky but defined boundaries on the geography of parts of Europe, and the phenomenon is extremely rare among native speakers of languages outside those boundaries. Even in Portugal, for instance, guttural R is uncommon outside Lisbon. But with my communication handicap I'm not sure if I'm making enough sense here—could someone help me? - Gilgamesh 13:59, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
Also, I didn't write the entire article alone. I didn't write most of the Portuguese section, nor Arabic section. User:Mustafaa helped a great deal. - Gilgamesh 14:32, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
I do trust Mustafaa a lot in these matters, but I must point out that his edits [1] [2] have not been about these theories about pharyngeal or even glottal "r". Those ideas seem to be almost entirely your work.
I know that part of what you're saying is true, partially because I have myself read about it, and partially because Mikael seems to bring up a lot of valid points. None of it seems to be supportive of your latest claims, though. I'm a bit surprised that you all of a sudden changed the title from "uvular r" to "guttural r" (this is wording you insisted on in previous discussions). Where have you gotten these theories from if you can't show references? Have you come up with this terminology yourself? Please cite your sources or revert to material that is not verifiable.
Peter Isotalo 20:36, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
Well, Danish pharyngeal R evolved under Low German influence. That is known, though we had previously mistakenly labeled it as uvular (and omniglot.com made this mistake too). And Brazilian glottal R and Rio de Janeiro velar R evolved from uvular R in standard Lisbon speech. That is also known. And as for "guttural R", see guttural consonant, and it is a collective term for velar consonants, uvular consonants, pharyngeal consonants, epiglottal consonants and glottal consonants—basically, anything on the hard palate and further back. In this case it is not a social distinction, but merely the fact that guttural consonants include velar and further back. Glottal R isn't originally my work, as I had only documented the velar R section; and pharyngeal R, as I said, was a correction of earlier errors. But all and all, considering that consonants in most languages do not usually "jump" this far in mouth location just for one phoneme between dialects, and that this phenomenon isn't nearly as often encountered outside the uvular R regions of northern Europe and their colonies, this subject is worthy of documentation. I've asked Mustafaa for aid in helping me explain this; he's currently unavailable for most of the month of May, and I'd prefer to wait until he returns. Until then, we can try to cover all our bases here. - Gilgamesh 22:03, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
Ok, since you can't be bothered with verifying your own claims, I looked up "guttural" in The Penguin Dictionary of Language and found the following entry:
guttural A popular impressionistic label for a consonant sound made toward the back of the mouth, or for a low-pitched, throaty voice quality. It is not used in phonetic description, which instead uses terms as velar, uvular, and pharyngeal - notions capable of more precise articulatory location.
That's one of the reasons I'm quite skeptical to using "guttural" in the title of an encyclopedic article about phonetics. It's simply not a term becoming the title of an encyclopedic article and far too general to be used as proper phonetic terminology.
And as examples of other sounds jumping around in the mouth, I would recommend you to read up on the quite jumpy realizations of the Swedish phoneme /ɧ/, which is quite thoroughly described (with references) in voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative and Swedish phonology#Fricatives. This a pretty good example that there are other phonemes than /r/ that are very varied.
Also, why should the guttural realizations of /r/ have their own article if it's so incredibly varied? If anything, it should be discussed in an article concerning the phonetic variety of "r" in general, including the vowel realizations (in all places of articulation).
Unless you cover your bases by referencing questionable edits, I suggest that you revert that which is not verifiable as well as disputed. Others should not be forced to verify your edits for you.
Peter Isotalo 23:31, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

I thought I was citing my sources here. But if I'm not, then I really don't know what to do here now. And yes, I was well aware of the Swedish pronunciation of CH. Since I'm obviously not communicating well, can we get Mustafaa here? He was always so much better at this than I ever was. - Gilgamesh 09:11, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I think you're communicating very well. The problem is that you're just not being forthcoming as to where you've gotten the information from. Have you read Wikipedia:Cite your sources and Wikipedia:Verifiability? What you need to explain is where you've picked up this knowledge and what you base your phonetic analysis on (besides your private opinions). I am not a linguist myself, but what I've learned from even very basic phonetic literature is that making such general statements about sounds just isn't a valid analysis. If anything, my citation from the article in the Penguin dictionary should give you a hint as to the extent of the problem. If this is your own private phonetic analysis, then I strongly suggest you try to read up on the subject.
On a side note: /ɧ/ is usually refered to as "sj" or "sje", not "ch".
Peter Isotalo 23:48, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

I think it may make sense to define this as a page about, not a sound, but a sound-shift: the shift from alveolar trill to back trill/fricative. This sound shift is common enough to be of significant interest, and one particular areal case of it - its spread from France through neighboring countries to Scandinavia - is documented in some detail, as I understand. I'm not sure that "guttural R" is the best title for such a page, but it has the advantage of not excluding clearly related cases like the Danish and French shifts, while excluding shifts of r to a bilabial trill (say) which don't show any particular connection to this sound shift. A bibliography should certainly be added at some stage, but I certainly see the problem: it can sometimes be difficult to track down suitable references for statements that count as "common knowledge", like French using a uvular R. - Mustafaa 18:04, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Glad to see you could join the discussion, Mustafaa. If anything, I would like to hear some proposals form either of you (or anyone else for that matter) about an appropriate title for an artilce on the more general "r"-shift. "Guttral r" is certainly not appropriate since it treats the sounds formed in the back of the mouth as somehow more relevant or canonical than the entire phenomenon. I'd also like some comments about classifying languages according to isolated and very general phonetic shifts.
On a side note, I leafed through Ladefoged's Consonants and Vowels at the book store today, and he claims that the uvular trill is a very rare sound. Personally, I know that it occurs only in some Norwegian and Swedish dialects, High German, Parisian (?) French. I know there's isolated dialects of English ("the Northumbrian burr", I believe) and it does occur in Russian, though it does't seem to belong to any particular dialect, but rather to individual speakers.
Peter Isotalo 21:20, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] rhotic ?

why not rename "rhotic"? peace — ishwar  (SPEAK) 17:56, 2005 Jun 9 (UTC)

Do you mean rhotic r, ish? Personally, I think it might be a good idea to summarize this information in the article rhotic consonant.
Peter Isotalo July 3, 2005 19:39 (UTC)
I think there are two issues here. Phonetically "gutteral" is too imprecise to be a useful term. However, the 'guttural R' is a sociolinguistic phenomenon, and here it is the very imprecision of the word that is so useful: the precise phonetics don't matter, it's the throaty quality that people have in mind when they speak of this. I don't know of any other good word in English. "Whirr" is used for crickets and treefrogs as well as people, so it's not appropriate. "Rhotic" as a phonological term also covers coronal trills, flaps, and approximants, which aren't the point of this article.
Speech registers of various languages are distinguished by the gutteral ar, and therefore a separate article on this subject will be useful for linking from other articles if for nothing else. I came to this article for just that reason: Zamenhof only used a few Slavic words in Esperanto, less than two dozen, but one of the words he thought important enough to bring in was kartavi "to pronounce the letter <r> in the throat" (my translation from the SAT dictionary of 1934).
However, I agree that the phrase "pseudo-ar" is a poor choice. Better to explain that the Inuit sound, while phonetically similar to the gutteral ar, is completely distinct sociolinguistically, and should not be considered a rhotic at all. It's only due to the influence of Danish orthography that the letter R was chosen for it. kwami 00:19, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dutch uvular trill

The section dealing with the pronunciaton of the R-sound in Dutch describes an obsolete situation.

The assertion that the uvular trill (R\) is common in certain parts of the Netherlands, but alveolar trill (r) still prevails, is wrong. It's the other way around: uvular trill is considered the standard R-sound, while alveolar trill has almost become extinct. A great many Dutch wouldn't even be able to produce a correct alveolar trill.

In the southern provinces of Noord-Brabant and Limburg it's the voiced uvular fricative (R) and voiceless uvular fricative (X) that's favored most, not the uvular trill (R\). Although voiceless uvular fricative resembles the velar fricative (x), which is a very common sound in Standard Dutch, this particular sound is replaced by a voiceless palatal fricative (C) in southern dialects, so there's no confusion possible whatsoever.

A development that makes the Dutch situation a bit complicated is that the uvular trill (R\) is ousted by a sound that is most of the time described as an alveolar approximant (r\) - but which I think more resembles a velar approximant (M\) - in syllable-final position. This sound, which has its origins in the western part of the Netherlands, is frowned upon by many but is unmistakably gaining ground rapidly. In certain parts in the West, uvular trill has been replaced by either the alveolar approximant or the velar approximant in all positions. The Leiden area is most notorious for pronouncing the R-sound as 'American r'. It is also named 'Gooise r', because this pronunciation is in the region called 'Het Gooi' very common as well. As all Dutch broadcasting companies operate in this region, the future of alveolar/velar approximant looks extremely promising.

People learning Dutch as a foreign language are not normally taught the alveolar trill, but the uvular trill instead.

I hope an expert in the field of Dutch phonetics will soon rewrite the section about the pronunciation of the R-sound in Dutch, because the information that's currently in Wikipedia is highly misleading.

bkloer 14:25, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

As you can see, the sign about the factual accuracy of the article has been put up for a reason. I encourage and welcome you to correct any information you feel is erroneous. If you don't know how to handle IPA here at Wikipedia, just use X-SAMPA instead and I'll help correct it later. I look forward to seeing your edits.
Peter Isotalo 19:52, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for inviting me to add information or to make amendments. After making my comment I found out that a research project about the realizations of the r-sound in Dutch is going on. A synopsis (in Dutch) can be found on http://www.onderzoekinformatie.nl/nl/oi/nod/onderzoek/OND1276494/. It confirms the rich variety of r-sounds in the Netherlands and Flanders: alveolar/uvular trills, velar/uvular fricatives, alveolar taps, approximants and even retroflex realizations. It also confirms the rapid expansion of the alveolar/velar approximant in the Netherlands ('Gooise r'). Although it is said that detailed research into the social and geographical distribution of r-sounds is needed, I think the contribution I made earlier roughly describes the present situation in the Netherlands. Of course, it would be better if those involved in this research project would review it and add a finishing touch. Their interest can probably be aroused? Otherwise I'd prefer you to edit the text - I'm new to Wikipedia - and touch up my English. What's still needed is an accurate description of the distribution and realizations of the r-sound in Flanders, because developments in that area differ greatly.

bkloer -- 08:51, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Sounds wonderful. I wouldn't be too confident about those responsible for the project to review it and give their professional approval. The way we work here at Wikipedia is by being verifiable through the citing of sources. An approval from a person or even persons doesn't really count for anything except making an article featured. Why not add this information to Dutch language or perhaps creating a separate Dutch phonology if needed. I can also recommend registering so you can customize your account, get a proper talkpage and there by easing communication with other Wikipedians.
Peter Isotalo 09:54, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

The information I added is highly specific and should probably not be part of a Dutch language article. The alternative is indeed creating a separate Dutch phonology section, but writing such an article is quite a job. I'd rather see someone else doing that job, incorporating (part of) my contribution if necessary.

bkloer--benj 08:53, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Research by the university of Brussels has shown that the "French r" is conquering Flanders [3]. According to the research, 66% uses the alveolar R, 28 % uses the guttural R, whereas 5.3 % uses both. Amongst younger people (like me :)), the use of the guttural R is widerspread. MaartenVidal 21:13, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category is wrong

I dont like this category at all. The category Guttural R is NOT a list of languages alone. Therefore it should be removed, or (even better) deleted. -- 84.174.83.186 10:53, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] [R] and [r]

as in dutch, german and german dialects including swiss german dialects have both (or in the case of dutch SEVERAL) types of /r/ (or (r)?), for example, in Basel and St. Gallen [R] is more common, whereas in Chur and Zurich [r] is usually heard (not universally though, at least in Zuerich). the account of [R] and [r] in Germanic seems rather doubtful to me. it is even controversial which type of /r/ was used in (Proto-)Germanic. Wathiik 11:46, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why not a separate section for Breton?

The section on French has the following remark:

The nearby Breton language in Brittany, which is a Celtic language rather than a Romance language, but is heavily influenced by French, retains an alveolar trill in some dialects.

This is rather cryptic, but suggests that the uvular R is also used in other dialects of Breton. Why not expand on that?... FilipeS 10:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] French R

The description of the realisations of the /r/ phoneme in French is outdated. The text says "In the standard dialect of Paris, it is pronounced as a trill (IPA /ʀ/), while in most of the rest of France it is pronounced as a voiced (IPA /ʁ/) or voiceless (IPA /χ/) uvular fricative. However, in much of southern France /r/ remains alveolar rather than uvular." This is incorrect: an alveolar trill (IPA [r]) for /r/ is quite rare nowadays. As to uvular trills ([ʀ]), I don't think I have heard anybody use them, except singers in 1950's recordings (e.g. Brassens). Oh, and the paragraph does not differenciate between phonemic data and phonetic data: the phoneme /r/ may have several realizations in French, [ʁ] being the most common. 84.100.58.8 21:34, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

"Rural Quebecois as well as Quebecois from older generations generally use an alveolar trill, and as such this older pronunciation feature must have been retained after the French colonists in Canada were isolated from "Mother France."

French Canadian broadcasters as well as Quebec Province's urbanites, however, try to mimic the modern guttural rhotic pronunciation of Paris perhaps as the result of influence by modern French media from France.

Generally speaking, classical choral and operatic French pronunciation requires the use of an alveolar trill when singing, since an alveolar trill is easier to project than any guttural sound, be it a uvular trill or a uvular fricative."

Not true, while the western part of Quebec (and probably other French dialects west of Quebec) historically used an alveloar trill while the eastern part of Quebec (Québec City area, BEauce, bas-st-laurent, chaudière-appalaches, etc.) used a guttural R.

It's true though that the "eastern Quebec R" has spread to the western part of Quebec during the last 40-50 years and it might be due in part to French influence.

[edit] Rename

I think that this article should be renamed to Guttural rhotic. This is an article that describes rhotic consonants as they are phonetically, and simply by its scope is very little orthography-oriented. Naturally, a search for and link to Guttural R will be directed to this page still. Anyone oppose? Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 22:28, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I actually would propose renaming it to something more like "Sociolinguistic rhotic consonant variation" or "Sociolinguistic variation in rhotic consonants" and purging the word "Guttural" out of any authoritative part of the text. "Guttural" is not an accepted linguistic term, it is only recognised in its capacity as a vulgate word. Matthew Stuckwisch 23:07, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citation

This article has been tagged for lacking citation for more than half a year! Where are the unsourced statements? A cleanup is required NOW.--Fitzwilliam 05:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Right, before the publication date comes upon us. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 13:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

A search on JSTOR shows up pretty much nothing for searching the term "Guttural R" except in very old linguistics articles. I'll look into doing an overhaul of the article to bring it up to standards.

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