Uvular Approximant

The voiced uvular fricative is a type of Consonant al sound, used in some Spoken Language s. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , 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, . (The approximant can be specified by adding the Downtack , .)

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 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 Lung s and through the vocal tract, rather than from the Glottis or the mouth.

OCCURS IN

In Western Europe, a voiced uvular trill or fricative pronunciation of orthographic ''r'' spread from northern French to several dialects and Register s of German , Dutch , Norwegian , Danish , Swedish , and Hebrew . However, not all of these are either uvular or fricative today. In Standard German, ''r'' tends to be a uvular fricative or trill initially, but an Uvular Approximant between vowels, as in ''Ehre'' 'honour'; while in Danish the ''r'' is a Pharyngeal Approximant in all but the most conservative speech.

A voiced uvular fricative is also found in many varieties of European Portuguese for orthographic ''rr'' or initial ''r,'' as in the name of the city Rio De Janeiro .

It is used in some very rare dialects of Bengali as a version of the /r/ phoneme which occurs before Velar Consonant s.

Armenian has a specific letter for this sound: 'Ր'.

Some phonemic transcriptions use the /r/ symbol instead of // for the 'r' sound for ease of typesetting.

SEE ALSO

List Of Phonetics Topics

Information About ™

Uvular Approximant

Information About ^{^™}