Voiced alveolar and postalveolar approximants

The voiced alveolar and postalveolar approximants are types of consonantal sounds used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the alveolar and postalveolar approximants is Template:Angbr IPA, a lowercase letter r rotated 180 degrees. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r\.

The most common sound represented by the letter r in English is the voiced postalveolar approximant, pronounced a little more back and transcribed more precisely in IPA as Template:Angbr IPA, but Template:Angbr IPA is often used for convenience in its place. For further ease of typesetting, English phonemic transcriptions might use the symbol Template:Angbr IPA even though this symbol represents the alveolar trill in phonetic transcription.

The bunched or molar r sounds remarkably similar to the postalveolar approximant and can be described as a voiced labial pre-velar approximant with tongue-tip retraction. It can be transcribed in IPA as Template:Angbr IPA or Template:Angbr IPA.

Features

File:Voiced alveolar approximant.svg

A schematic mid-sagittal section of an articulation of a voiced alveolar approximant [ɹ].

File:Voiced postalveolar approximant.svg

A schematic mid-sagittal section of an articulation of a voiced postalveolar approximant [ɹ̠].

Features of the voiced alveolar approximant:

Occurrence

Alveolar

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Albanian	unknown	gjelbër		'green'
Armenian	Classical			'coffee'
Assamese		ৰঙা (rônga)		'red'
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic	Alqosh dialect	ܪܒ		'many'	Corresponds to Template:IPAslink in most other Assyrian dialects.
	Tyari dialect
BengaliTemplate:Sfnp				'again'	Phonetic realisation of /r/, especially in some Eastern Dialects and sometimes in conjunct before consonants. Corresponds to [[[:Template:IPA link]] ~ Template:IPA link] in others. See Bengali phonology
Burmese				'furniture'	Occurs only in loanwords, mostly from Pali or English.
Chukchi		ңирэк		'two'
Dahalo				'work'	Apical. It is a common intervocalic allophone of , and may be a weak fricative Template:IPAblink or simply a plosive Template:IPAblink instead.
Danish	Standard			'at'	Velarized and laminal; allophone of in the syllable coda. For a minority of speakers, it may be a non-sibilant fricative instead. See Danish phonology.
Dutch	Central Netherlandic			'through'	Allophone of in the syllable coda for some speakers. See Dutch phonology.
	Western Netherlandic
	Leiden			'rat'	Corresponds to in other dialects.
Faroese				'rudder'	See Faroese phonology.
German	Moselle Franconian (Siegerland and Westerwald dialects)			'vine'	Most other dialects use a voiced uvular fricative Template:IPAblink, a uvular trill Template:IPAblink or an alveolar trill Template:IPAblink. See Standard German phonology.
	Silesian
	Upper Lusatian
Greek		méra		'day'	Allophone of Template:IPAslink in rapid or casual speech and between vowels. See Modern Greek phonology.
Icelandic				'brother'	Usually apical. See Icelandic phonology.
Limburgish	Montfortian dialect			'now'
Persian		فارسی		'Persian'	Allophone of before /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, and /l/. See Persian phonology.
Portuguese	Multiple Brazilian dialects, mostly inland Centro-Sul			'love'	Allophone of in the syllable coda. Velarized, may also be retroflex, post-alveolar and/or a rhotic vowel. See Portuguese phonology.
Spanish	Andalusian	doscientos		'two hundred'	Allophone of before [θ]. See Spanish phonology.
	Belizean	invierno		'winter'	Possible realization of in the syllable coda due to English influence.
	Caribbean Colombian
	Puerto Rican
	Costa Rican	carro		'car'	Allophone of , and of before . See Costa Rican Spanish.
Swedish	Central Standard			'strongest'	Allophone of . Some speakers have Template:IPAblink (Template:IPAblink when geminated) in all positions. See Swedish phonology.
Tagalog				'like-'	Allophone of the more usual and traditional flap or trill and is sometimes thus pronounced by some younger speakers due to exposure to mainstream English.
Turkish	Marmara Region			'excess, surplus'	Occurs as an allophone of Template:IPAblink in syllable coda, in free variation with post-alveolar Template:IPAblink. See Turkish phonology.
Vietnamese	Saigon			'go out'	In free variation with Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink. See Vietnamese phonology.
Zapotec	Tilquiapan	rdɨ		'pass'	Allophone of before consonants.

Postalveolar

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
English	Australian	red		'red'	Often labialized. May also be a labialized retroflex approximant. For convenience it is often transcribed Template:Angbr. See Australian English phonology, English phonology, Rhoticity in English and Pronunciation of English /r/.
	Most American dialects		{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "En-us-red.ogg" not found}}Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler
	Received Pronunciation
Igbo				'eat'
Malay		راتوس / ratus		'hundred'	More commonly trill [] or flap []. See Malay phonology
Maltese	Some dialects			'quickly'	Corresponds to in other dialects.
Shipibo		roro		'to break into pieces'	Pre-stopped. Possible word-initial realization of .

As an allophone of other rhotic sounds, occurs in Edo, Fula, Murrinh-patha, and Palauan.

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

References

• Template:SOWL

External links

• Template:Phoible