Talk:R-colored vowel

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[edit] Schwer

I've never heard the name "schwer" for this sound and suspect it is a neologism. There is already an article r-colored vowel which describes this sound and its near ally ɝ. There's no need for separate articles, and neologisms in titles are best avoided. Therefore this should be merged with r-colored vowel. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 15:20, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Isn't "schwer" also the word meaning "suffering" in German? Could the Google search be picking that up? --HappyCamper 15:49, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
It's the word for "heavy" in German, and the Google search is picking up a lot of those. Nevertheless there are a few sites using "schwer" as the name of the r-colored schwa. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 16:03, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
schwer. that's funny. on a more serious note, how is the claimed "schwer" here different, from a phonological standpoint, from the ɚ as explained previously in the article? It's not. So why does it have a separate section? Better question, tho, why is there no coverage of the fact that ɚ is a convention used to represent both rhotic and non-rhotic prounciations? In GA, /ɚ/ is actually pronounced /ɹ̩/, as is /ɝ/, whereas in non-rhotic pronunciations /ɚ/ is pronounced /ə/ and /ɝ/ is pronounced /ɜ[:]/. Tomertalk 16:45, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Um, because it isn't. [ɚ] is an r-colored schwa, which in American English (but not necessarily in other languages with the sound) can be interpreted as a syllabic allophone of /ɹ/, though not everyone does interpret it that way. Non-rhotic accents of English don't have [ɚ] or [ɝ]as surface sounds or /ɚ/ or /ɝ/as phonemes. --Angr (tɔk) 17:06, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Hr̩mm. I wonder where I got that idea from then. I guess I need to hear a sound file for /ɚ/ and /ɝ/ vs. /ɹ̩/ then. Tomertalk 17:36, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Using [ɹ̩] or [ɻ̩] for [ɚ] or[ɝ] is like representing [u] as [w̩]. Not as a degree of appropriateness, I just mean the relationship between "schwer" and the approximant [ɻ]. AEuSoes1 03:37, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I think "schwer" might be a typo of "schwar" which is a term I've seen for [ɚ], I guess it's an analogy to Schwa. --Chlämens 18:26, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Singers

Most American singers I hear don't use R-coloured vowels in their singing, even though they do in their speech, so I added a counterexample to Celine Dion. I don't have any good reference for this and welcome an improvement, or someone just striking the whole paragraph.

Perhaps opera. The [æ] sound is another that's discouraged by voice teachers as being cacophonic, and that's probably because Italian is thought of as the language of music, and Italian doen't have [æ]. Or perhaps rhotic vowels were once considered a provincialism compared to prestigeous non-rhotic dialects like RP? kwami 01:43, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, Celine Dion is Canadian, though I don't know if that's really all that important for this article, since a good deal of Canadians speak with the standard American accent. —User:ACupOfCoffee@ 19:41, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Rolled r's

Isn't one the reasons that the r-colored vowels don't happen, in say, Spanish, is because they roll their r's? Cameron Nedland 23:08, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

In standard Spanish, a single r is tapped once /ɾ/ and a double r (rr) (or a word-initial r) is trilled /r/. In practice this isn't always the case, but that's not "why" Spanish doesn't have r-colored vowels. In most pronunciations of American English, the tapped phoneme /ɾ/ occurs quite commonly (as in most Americans' prounciation of words like "ladder" /ˈlæ·ɾɹ̩/) and American English, which pronounces "r" almost exclusively as /ɹ/ and more frequently has r-colored vowels (since most American English speakers speak rhotic dialects) than British and Irish English speakers, yet their [the Brits and Irish] pronunciations also have r-colored vowels (although less frequently, from what I understand). I assume that the original pronunciation of "r" in English was either /ɾ/ or /r/ and that the pronunciation /ɹ/ is an innovation. All of this to say that the probably "reason" that Spanish doesn't normally have r-colored vowels is because standard Spanish doesn't have /ɹ/. I haven't read much about it, but I would guess that Spanish, German and various Slavic languages have palatalized l-colored vowels and that Russian's dark/heavy "l" l-colors vowels as well (albeit not palatally, obviously). In upper Midwestern AmE, I know I frequently hear l-colored vowels (more like the l-coloring in Brazilian Portuguese, oddly enough) that turns some people's pronunciation, e.g., of "Milwaukee" into what sounds very much like /mo·ˈɑ·ki/ (that's a fun example, although I rather strongly suspect that the former /w/ plays a large role in turning /ɪlʷ/ into /o/). Tomertalk 03:53, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portuguese

An anon just added "and some dialects of Portuguese" to the end of the first paragraph. I've never heard of r-colored vowels being present in any dialect of Portuguese, and would like verification of the claim before it is returned to the article. --Angr 19:30, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] R-colored vowels in Dutch???

I am Dutch, but I seldomly hear people talk with rhotic sounds. (Except for some isolated individuals in just a few words.) Moreover it might on occasion be heard in English borrowings, but only by speakers who really proficient in English. Can anyone elaborate the claim of this article that it occurs in Dutch? The above occurrences of a rhotic vowel look insufficient to me to claim that they "occur in Dutch". --JorisvS 18:23, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't have any references right to hand, but I was under the impression that in many dialects of Dutch a word like water is pronounced [ˈʋɑtɚ] with an r-colored schwa in the last syllable. Angr/talk 19:32, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

For now I can tell that some Hollandic dialects of Dutch seem to rhoticize vowel before an r-consonant, but the r-sound is usually still pronounced. This change is dialectal however, since this is not ABN (Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands). --JorisvS 12:35, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I still want to tell you this: In standard Dutch the word water is pronounced [ˈʋatər]. --JorisvS 15:46, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Formant 3

From the image, it seems as though the only difference between regular schwa and r-colored schwa is formant three. Doesn't formant three indicate lip rounding? Considering the English rhotic is labialized, it seems as though the image doesn't indicate the R-coloredness of "schwer" just the lip-rounding aspect. That being the case, the image doesn't seem nearly as relevant. AEuSoes1 17:20, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I think lip rounding is indicated by a lowered F2, not F3. Angr (talk • contribs) 17:29, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that F1 indicates height and F2 indicates backness. I vaguely recall Ladefoged saying something to that effect in vowels and consonants. AEuSoes1 18:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, F2 indicates backness, but it also indicates rounding. The F2s of [y] and [ɨ] are very close. Angr (talk • contribs) 19:30, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Does this mean that languages that distinguish between [y] and [ɨ] are rare if not nonexistant? If F3 doesn't indicate rounding, what does it indicate? AEuSoes1 21:15, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it does mean that such languages are rare (though I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few). I really don't know what else F3 indicates besides rhotacization (and I don't know what F4 indicates at all), and I've taught a class in acoustic phonetics myself! Angr (talk • contribs) 05:21, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
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