Home > Uvular R
In linguistics, uvular R (also guttural R, throaty R or French R) refers to pronunciation of the phoneme R as a uvular consonant. These consonants are usually found as a uvular trill ( IPA /ʀ/), a voiced uvular fricative (IPA /ʁ/), or a voiceless uvular fricative (IPA /χ/). Speakers of some languages regard alveolar and uvular /r/ to be alternative pronunciations of the same phoneme. This is remarkable in light of how different these sounds are in terms of their articulation.1 Uvular R languages
The uvular R is common in northern Europe, and is the usual form of the consonant R in most of what is now France, Belgium, NetherlandsDutch redirects here. For other uses, see Dutch (disambiguation). The Netherlands ( Dutch: Nederland is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, a constitutional monarchy. It is located in northwestern Europe and borders the North Sea, Belgium, northern GermanyThe Federal Republic of Germany ( German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the middle of the European Union. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark and the Baltic Sea, to the east and DenmarkKongeriget Danmark ( In Detail) Motto of the Queen: Guds hjaelp, Folkets kaerlighed, Danmarks styrke (English: God's help, the love of the people, Denmark's strength) Official language Danish Capital Copenhagen Kobenhavn Monarch Margrethe II Prime Ministe. The consonant is also found other parts of the world, but in most other places it has little or no cultural association nor interchangeability with the more common alveolar and retroflex /r/.
1.1 Romance languages
1.1.1 French
The French language is perhaps the most well-known example of a uvular R language, to the extent that this pronunciation is widely stereotypeOriginally a stereotype was an impression taken from a form of movable lead type and used for printing instead of the original type. This was generalized into a metaphor for repeating a set of ideas identically with no changes (as would have been possibled. In the standard dialect of ParisEiffel Tower has become the symbol of Paris throughout the world. Paris is the capital and largest city of France. The city is built on an arc of the River Seine, and is thus divided into two parts: the Right Bank to the north and the smaller Left Bank to, 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 non-uvular, possibly under Provencal influence.
The nearby Breton language in Brittany, which is not a Romance language but is heavily influenced by French, retains an alveolar R.
1.1.2 Portuguese
Portuguese has three distinct pronunciations for "r". One of these is uvular, the other two being voiced alveolar tap and alveolar trill. All three sounds are widely used. The uvular R occurs when a word starts with "r", like "rato" (mouse; IPA /ʁatu/). It is also applied in the midlle of a word, written has "rr", such as, "carro" (car; IPA /kɑʁu/).
