Voiced uvular fricative

A 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 Template:Angbr IPA, an inverted small uppercase letter Template:Angbr IPA, or in broad transcription Template:Angbr IPA if rhotic. This consonant is one of the several collectively called guttural R when found in European languages.

A voiced uvular approximant is also found interchangeably with the fricative, and may also be transcribed as Template:Angbr IPA. Because the IPA symbol stands for the uvular fricative, the approximant may be specified by adding the downtack: Template:Angbr IPA, though some writings use a superscript Template:Angbr IPA, which is not an official IPA practice.

For a voiced pre-uvular fricative (also called post-velar), see voiced velar fricative.

Features

Features of a voiced uvular fricative:

Template:Fricative In many languages it is closer to an approximant, however, and no language distinguishes the two at the uvular articulation. Template:Uvular Template:Voiced Template:Oral Template:Median articulation Template:Pulmonic

Occurrence

In Western Europe, a uvular trill pronunciation of rhotic consonants spread from northern French to several dialects and registers of Basque, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, German, Judaeo-Spanish, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Swedish, some variants of Low Saxon, and Yiddish. However, not all of them remain a uvular trill today. In Brazilian Portuguese, it is usually a velar fricative (Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink), voiceless uvular fricative , or glottal transition (Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink), except in southern Brazil, where alveolar and uvular trills as well as the voiced uvular fricative predominate. Because such uvular rhotics often do not contrast with alveolar ones, IPA transcriptions may often use Template:Angbr to represent them for ease of typesetting. For more information, see guttural R.

Template:Harvcoltxt note, "There is... a complication in the case of uvular fricatives in that the shape of the vocal tract may be such that the uvula vibrates."

It is also present in most Turkic languages, except for Turkish, and in Caucasian languages. It may also occur as ɣ.

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Abkhaz				'marten'	See Abkhaz phonology
Adyghe		/ /	Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'sun'
Afrikaans	Parts of the former Cape ProvinceTemplate:Sfnp			'red'	May be a trill Template:IPAblink instead.Template:Sfnp See Afrikaans phonology
Albanian	Arbëresh Some Moresian accents	vëlla	[vʁa]	'brother'	May be pronounced as a normal double l. Sometimes, the guttural r is present in words starting with g in some dialects.
Aleut	Atkan dialect			'to wash'
Arabic	Modern StandardTemplate:Sfnp		Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'room'	Mostly transcribed as , may be velar, post-velar or uvular, depending on dialect.Template:Sfnp See Arabic phonology
Archi				'croak'	Pharyngealized.
Armenian			Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'rudder'
Asturian			Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'cat'	Allophone of . May be an approximant. See IPA/Astur-Leonese
Avar		/ /		'cap'
Azerbaijani	Southern dialects such as in Maragha, Malekan, Binab, Ajab shir and Leylan counties of East Azerbaijan, and Chaharburj, Miyandoab alongside Baruq in West Azerbaijan	yeralma/یئرآلما	[jeʁɑlma]	'potato'	Unlike many of Turkic dialects that have solely adapted the pronunciation of <r> into a voiced alveolar trill, these dialects often use voiced uvular fricative or they might use close-mid back unrounded vowel almost entirely in their speeches as an equivalent of r. it also has to be noted that this is not the same as voiced velar fricative which is to be resembled with ğ .
Bashkir		/ /	Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'nine'
Basque	Northern dialects			'gold'
Chilcotin				'he walks'
Danish	Standard			'red'	Most often an approximant when initial. In other positions, it can be either a fricative (also described as voiceless Template:IPAblink) or an approximant. Also described as pharyngeal Template:IPAblink. It can be a fricative trill in word-initial positions when emphasizing a word.Template:Sfnp See Danish phonology
Dutch	Belgian Limburg			'wheel'	Either a fricative or an approximant. Realization of varies considerably among dialects. See Dutch phonology
	Central Netherlands
	East Flanders
	Northern Netherlands
	Randstad
	Southern Netherlands
English	Dyfed			'red'	Not all speakers. Alveolar in other Welsh accents.
	Gwynedd
	North-east Leinster				Corresponds to in other dialects of English in Ireland.
	Northumbrian				Described both as a fricative and an approximant. More rarely it is a trill Template:IPAblink. Mostly found in rural areas of Northumberland and northern County Durham, declining. See English phonology and Northumbrian Burr.
	Sierra Leonean				More rarely a trill Template:IPAblink.
French			Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'to stay'	See French phonology
German	Standard			'rust'	Either a fricative or, more often, an approximant. In free variation with a uvular trill. See Standard German phonology
	Lower Rhine
	Swabian				An approximant. It is the realization of in onsets, otherwise it is an epiglottal approximant.
Gondi	Hill-Maṛia			'to sing'	Corresponds to /r/ or /ɾ/ in other Gondi dialects.
Hebrew	Modern			'crow'	See Modern Hebrew phonology.
Inuktitut	East Inuktitut dialect			'two'
Italian	Some speakersTemplate:Sfnp			'rare'	Rendition alternative to the standard Italian alveolar trill Template:IPAblink, due to individual orthoepic defects and/or regional variations that make the alternative sound more prevalent, notably in Alto Adige (bordering with German-speaking Austria), Val d'Aosta (bordering with France) and in parts of the Parma province, more markedly around Fidenza. Other alternative sounds may be a uvular trill Template:IPAblink or a labiodental approximant Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfnp See Italian phonology.
Kabardian		/ /	Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'eagle'
Kabyle				'to dive'
Kazakh		/ /		'to you'
Kyrgyz		/ /		'rain'
Lakota				'bread'
LuxembourgishTemplate:Sfnp				'Parmesan'	Appears as an allophone of between a vowel and a voiced consonant and as an allophone of between a back vowel and another vowel (back or otherwise). A minority of speakers use it as the only consonantal variety of (in a complementary distribution with Template:IPAblink), also where it is trilled in the standard language.Template:Sfnp See Luxembourgish phonology
Malay	Kedah	ramai		'many'	Corresponds to prevocalic and intervocalic Standard Malay . Word-finally, Standard Malay corresponds to Template:IPAslink in Kedah Malay. See Kedah Malay
	Perak	Perak		'Perak'	See Malay phonology
MaltoTemplate:Sfnp		पोग़े		'smoke'	May be a stop instead.
Minangkabau	Kampar dialect	boghe		'rice'
Norwegian	Southern dialects			'strange'	Either an approximant or a fricative. See Norwegian phonology
	Southwestern dialects
Toba qom	Takshek dialect	Awogoyk		'moon'
Tundra Nenets	Some speakers	вара		'goose'
Ossetic	Iron	æгъгъæд æğğæd		'enough'
Portuguese	European			'car'	Word-initial is commonly realized as a uvular trill [ʀ] in Lisbon.Template:Sfnp See Portuguese phonology
	Setubalense			'to ruralize'	Outcome of a merger of with , which is unique in the Lusophone world. Often trilled instead.
	Fluminense			'burning feeling'	Due to 19th century Portuguese influence, Rio de Janeiro's dialect merged coda Template:IPAslink into . Often trilled. In free variation with Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink before voiced sounds, Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink before voiceless consonants
	Sulista			'rice'
Spanish	Puerto Rican			'car'	Word-initial, and inter-vocallic double r ('rr') are commonly realized as a fricative trill in rural sectors and generally (but not exclusively) lower socioeconomic strata among Puerto Ricans. Template:IPAblink.
	As spoken in Asturias			'worm'	Most common allophone of . May also be an approximant.
Swedish	Southern dialects			'pipe(s)'	See Swedish phonology
Tatar		, ,		'rain'
Turkmen		/		'heavy'	An allophone of /ɣ/ next to back vowels
Tsez		агъи aɣi		'bird'
Ubykh				'his'	Ubykh has ten different uvular fricatives. See Ubykh phonology
Uyghur		ئۇيغۇر /		'Uyghur'
Uzbek		/ /		'heavy'
Yakut				'nine'
Yi				'twenty'	A fricative or approximant.
Yiddish		רעגן		'rain'	See Yiddish phonology
Zhuang		roek		'six'

See also

• Index of phonetics articles
• Guttural

References

• Template:SOWL

External links

• Template:Phoible