Voiced uvular fricative

The voiced uvular fricative or approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʁ⟩, a rotated small uppercase letter ⟨R⟩, or in broad transcription ⟨ɣ⟩ or (if rhotic) ⟨r⟩. This consonant is one of several collectively called guttural R when found in European languages.

Because the IPA symbol stands for both the uvular fricative and the uvular approximant, the fricative nature of this sound may be specified by adding the uptack to the letter: ⟨ʁ̝⟩. The approximant can be specified by adding the downtack: ⟨ʁ̞⟩.

Features

Features of the voiced uvular fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence. In many languages it is closer to an approximant, however, and no language distinguishes the two at the uvular articulation.
• Its place of articulation is uvular, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) at the uvula.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

In Western Europe, a uvular trill pronunciation of rhotic consonants spread from northern French to several dialects and registers of Danish, Dutch, German, Hebrew, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Swedish. However, not all of these remain a uvular trill today. In Danish, the r is a pharyngeal approximant in all but the most conservative speech. In Brazilian Portuguese, it is usually a voiceless velar fricative [x], voiceless uvular fricative [χ], or a voiceless glottal fricative [h]. Because such uvular rhotics often do not contrast with alveolar ones, <r> may often be used to represent them for ease of typesetting. For more information, see guttural R.

See also

• List of phonetics topics

References

Bibliography

• Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 25 (2): 90–94 
• Hall, Tracy Alan (1993), "The phonology of German /ʀ/", Phonology 10 (1): 83–105