Uvular R

In linguistics, the uvular R (also guttural R, throaty R or French R) is the concept of the phoneme R as being pronounced 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/). This concept is especially prominent where speakers of languages traditionally regard alveolar and uvular /r/ to be interchangeable pronunciations of the same phoneme. This is remarkable considering how mutually distant these sounds are as articulated inside the mouth.

=Uvular R languages=

The uvular R is common in northern Europe, and is the native form of the consonant R as spoken in most of what is now France, Belgium, Netherlands, northern Germany and Denmark. 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/.

Table of contents

1 Indo-European languages 1.1 French 1.1.1 Québec 1.2 Portuguese 1.3 Continental West Germanic 1.3.2 Dutch, Flemish and Afrikaans 1.3.3 Standard German 1.3.4 Yiddish 1.4 Danish and Swedish 2 Semitic languages 2.5 Arabic 2.6 Hebrew 2.6.5 Yiddish Influence 2.6.6 Israeli Hebrew 3 Inuktitut

Indo-European languages

French

The French language is perhaps the most famous example of a uvular R language, so much so that this distinction is widely stereotyped. 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.

Québec

It is interesting to note that the traditional pronunciation of French as spoken in Québec is not uvular, though it is currently changing to a uvular consonant under influence from European French.

Portuguese

Portuguese language has three distinct pronunciations for "r". One of which is uvular, the other two being voiced alveolar tap and alveolar trill, all three sounds are widely used. The uvular R happens when a word starts with "r", like "rato" (X-SAMPA: \\Ratu\\). It is also applied in the midlle of a word, written has "rr", such as, "carro" (X-SAMPA: kARu). Rato and carro, means 'mouse' and 'car', respectively.

Continental West Germanic

Traditionally, the languages of what are now the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Austria were split between language families of the Lower, Middle and Upper Rhine River. The Lower dialects evolved into Dutch and Low German dialects, evolving a uvular R. The dialects upriver underwent a consonant shift, thereafter distinguishing them as the High German languages, which further subdivided into the Middle and Upper dialects. While the Upper dialects spoken in Switzerland in Austria maintained an alveolar trill (IPA /r/), the Middle dialects of central Germany also developed a uvular R. The development of a uvular R in these regions is not entirely understood, but a popular theory is that these languages adopted a uvular R because of French influence, though the reason for uvular R in modern European French is not well understood either.

Dutch, Flemish and Afrikaans

The modern Dutch and Flemish have a uvular R, but the Afrikaans language of South Africa uses an alveolar flap R.

Standard German

Standard German is based on the Middle dialect as spoken in Berlin, and was originally spoken with a uvular R. However, as the language was standardized and promoted as the official language of Germany, Switzerland and Austria, local versions of Standard German pronounced the R as either alveolar or uvular, depending on the preexisting pronunciations of R in each region's native dialect. This reinforces the interchangeable nature between alveolar and uvular R.

Yiddish

The upper/lower distinction also historically influenced the development of upper and lower dialects of Yiddish, the particular High German dialect originally spoken by Ashkenazi Jews along the Rhine. As these Jews migrated to other lands such as the United States and Russia, they brought their particular pronunciations with them.

Danish and Swedish

The alveolar pronunciation of R predominates in most of Scandinavia, with additional retroflex pronunciations of consonant clusters /rd/, /rl/, /rn/, /rs/ and /rt/ in Norway and most of Sweden. However, Denmark proper and the Swedish region of Skåne speak with an entirely uvular R. The Swedish as spoken in Skåne is considered a dialect of Swedish, though for historical reasons it is also largely intelligible with the Danish spoken across the strait in Denmark. This is because Skåne was once part of Denmark, and the language was Danish with a uvular R; when Sweden gained control, Skåne gradually spoke Swedish, but retained their uvular Danish pronunciation.

Semitic languages

Arabic

While most dialects of Arabic retain the Classical pronunciation of ر rā as an alveolar trill (IPA /r/) or flap in some cases (IPA /ɾ/), several dialects convert it to a uvular trill (IPA /ʀ/). These include:

• Mosul dialect, in Iraq
• The Christian dialect in Baghdad
• The Jewish dialect in Algiers

Hebrew

In Hebrew, the classical pronunciation of the consonant ר rêš was an alveolar flap (IPA /ɾ/), and was grammatically treated as an ungeminable phoneme of the language. In most dialects of Hebrew among the Jewish diaspora, it remained a flap or a trill (IPA /r/). However, the Ashkenazi dialects as preserved among Jews in northern Europe carried a uvular R, either as a trill (IPA /ʀ/) or fricative (IPA /ʁ/). This was because their native dialects of Yiddish were spoken that way, and their liturgical Hebrew carried the same pronunciation.

Yiddish Influence

Though an Ashkenazi Jew in Czarist Russia, the Zionist Eliezer ben Yehuda based his Standard Hebrew on the Sephardic dialect originally spoken Spain, using an alveolar R. But as the first waves of Jews to resettle in the Holy Land were northern Ashkenazi, they came to speak Standard Hebrew with their preferred uvular articulation as from Yiddish, and it gradually became the most prestigious pronunciation for the language. The modern State of Israel has Jews whose ancestors came from all over the world, but nearly all of them today speak Hebrew with a uvular R because of its modern prestige and historical elite status.

Israeli Hebrew

Many Jewish immigrants to Israel spoke Arabic in their countries of origin, and pronounced Hebrew R as an alveolar trill identical to Arabic ر rā. Under pressure to integrate, many of them compensated by pronouncing their Hebrew R as Arabic غ ghayn, which is itself usually pronounced as a voiced uvular fricative.

=Uvular Pseudo-R=

Some languages have a uvular consonant spelled as R, but mostly for associative convenience without any historical association with an alveolar /r/ phoneme.

Inuktitut

The dialects of Inuktitut transliterate their voiced uvular fricative in Latin script as R. Inuktitut R is the fricative counterpart of Q, a voiceless uvular plosive. The choice to use R was simply a convenience for the language's orthographers, drawing on uvular association with R in continental northern European languages.

=J.R.R. Tolkien=

The fantasy novels of J.R.R. Tolkien contained heavy linguistic detail, along with philosophical ideals of what constituted notions of beautiful and ugly language. Tolkien personally loathed "guttural" consonants, so in his fictional "fair" languages, he completely omitted uvular consonants and the voiced velar fricative (IPA /ɣ/), but kept other velar consonants intact. He further demonized the uvular R, using it only in his fictional "black" languages such as the Black Speech along with the native languages spoken by the Orcss. In contrast, the Elves spoke R as a "fair" alveolar trill at all times.

Warning: Plot details follow.

These conventions were not as strictly adhered to in the various film and animation versions of Tolkien's works. In particular, the Rankin-Bass animated adaptation of The Hobbit has the Elves of Mirkwood speaking with a voiced uvular fricative. In contrast, in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, the orcs and Uruk-hai speak in Cockney-style accents with alveolar and retroflex approximants.