Voiced uvular fricative

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IPA – number	143
IPA – text	ʁ
IPA – image
Entity	ʁ
X-SAMPA	R
Kirshenbaum	g"
Sound sample (help·info)

The voiced uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ʁ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is 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.
• Its place of articulation is uvular which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) against or near the palatine uvula.
• Its phonation type is voiced, which means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

Occurrence

In Western Europe, a uvular trill pronunciation of rhotic consonants spread from northern French^{[citation needed]} 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 don't often 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
• Wiese, Richard (1996), Phonology of German, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-824040-6