Is it unique?
If not, who else uses this sound? If yes, what’s the history and origin of it?
It’s the alveolar approximant, denoted in IPA by an upside down “r”.
According to Wikipedia, it occurs in at least some dialects of Armenian, Burmese, Chukchi, Faroese, German, Igbo, Protugese, Spanish, Swedish, Vietnamese, and Zapotec. I’ll leave it up to you to go here and look at the specific dialects listed.
It’s a relatively rare sound because it and its cousin “l” (the alveolar lateral approximant) are somewhat difficult – being (from what I understand) one of the last sounds a human baby learns to make (there’s a reason you hear “wabbit” and “wove” for “rabbit” and “love”). This is also on the Wikipedia page, but this information is consistent with Linguistics courses I’ve taken.
One of the rules in my linguistics classes was that none of the people in the classes may ever again make fun of a foreigner for mixing up “r” and “l”, because there’s a damn good reason a lot of foreigners have trouble with them – it’s an uncommon, difficult to make sound and even if you can make it, phonetically “l” and “r” are almost identical.
Can you be more specific? How does the American “r” in “pronunciation” differ from the British “r” in that word? I’m not talk about the “plumb in mouth” pronunciation, but BBC English.
Which American R? Is the OP talking about the alveolar approximant discussed by Jragon, generally found at the start of syllables, e.g., in “red”? Or is it the rhotic r at the end of syllables, as in “bird” and “mother”?
I always thought it was Irish in origin. Irish English-speakers do use a more noticeable rhotic r than, say, English English-speakers.
Or the (now fading) New England (but also some dialects of British) disappearing ‘r’ at the end of words? (“Pahk the cah…” )
Or the (fading even more) New England (but also some dialects of British) additional ‘r’ added at the end of words where a short ‘a’ becomes a short ‘e’ (“Maria” pronounced Ma-ree-er)
Which one? We’re on the edge of our seats, wanting to know?
If you’re going to ask questions in writing about pronunciation, you’re going to have to educate yourself on how to describe sounds. Learn about IPA (not the beer), because ‘the American R’ won’t do as a description.
You might find this thread (“British add an ‘r’ sound”) interesting and somewhat topical
My apologies. It’s hard to describe.
And I thought it was well known. People I know who speak other languages like to be cute by overdoing it when speaking English words. And I’ve not heard it in other languages.
In thinking about it a bit, ISTM that the other languages pronounce the R sound with the tip of the tongue closer to the roof of the mouth and the lips further apart. (Some of the Rs in Spanish & other languages are trilled by flipping the tongue while pronouncing it, but the tongue is in roughly the same position even for the non-trilled Rs.) The American R is pronounced with the tip of the tongue further from the roof of the mouth, and with the lips closer together.
Ok, so you’re talking about English, in general, not American English?
If so, then now I’m with you. It’s one thing we English speakers struggle with when learning most foreign languages-- most have a funny “r” sound. Well, funny to us, that is.
No, I don’t think British people pronounce it that way. (At least not the British people I know.)
I think you’re describing the difference between the alveolar tap, ɾ, and the alveolar approximant discussed above. Believe it or not (at least some dialects and idiolects of) English have an alveolar tap/flap. Commonly the “t” in the name Katy is reduced to a flap (IPA [keɾi]), another example is kitty [kɪɾi].
If you want to better express what sounds you’re looking for, this chart, is invaluable – you can click on an IPA character and hear how it’s pronounced.
Again, no clue on the origins of the sound in English, if such a history is even known.
You’re describing the syllable-initial /r/ in North American English, British English, Australian English, and Irish English. To build a little more on **Jragon’s **post above, the sound in question can be described as a *laminal *aveolar approximant, which indicates that the tip of the tongue is typically down below the lower front teeth when the sound is produced. The tongue’s curved blade (part directly behind the tip) raises toward the palate and forms something of a bowl-shaped resonant chamber behind it. For most English speakers, the lips will also round when pronouncing syllable-initial /r/.
This syllable-initial /r/ is related phonotactically to the r-colored vowels of North American English (bard, board, beard, bird). The tongue assumes pretty much the same position described above at the the tail end of these vowels’ pronunciation.
The sound is not particularly common among the world’s languages, but a close variant (apical [with tongue tip raised], not laminal) is common in indigenous Australian languages.
I don’t know what an “American R” is vs a British R. I know that there are British dialects (and a few American ones) that turn trailing r’s into a vowel (mother), and dialects that insert an r as a linking sound between a trailing vowel and the next word starting with a vowel (Champaigne supernover in the sky).
I have noticed listening to Spanish that often the r sound will sound like a d to me. This is the alveolar tap being described. My r’s don’t alveolar tap, they are what is described as alveolar approximates. That sound file says “rah, arrah”. There are no trills. (Incidentally, I can’t trill. Never been able to. Tried to in Spanish, no dice.)
Whether it’s a leading r (rake, road), a trailing r (banker, mother), an ar sound (farm, park, jar), it’s all the same r to me. And I don’t use a linking r.
Sometimes when non-rhotic Brits try to fake American accents, they also emphasize linking r’s. That stands out as phony. Rhotics don’t use linking r’s.
ETA bordelond nailed it.
Obligatory Buffy quote:
Spike: “I’m just a friend of Xandurrrrs…”
I disagree that it would be helpful here, as it’s describing more than one sound. In general, if you were talking about, the only difference is that you would call it the American /r/.
It’s also a term most language experts, i.e., the people who could help answer the question, are quite familiar with.
That’s one of the coolest pages I’ve ever seen.
Try as I might, I cannot see how my production of the r in red differs from that of mother. Of course, bird is a bit different since the tongue is gliding towards the roof of the mouth (I guess that’s the alveola). I definitely have two different l sounds. I once read in a "phonetics of English: books that in all dialects of English, the l is lateral. That is fatuous. The initial l of lateral, of all words, is lateral and final one is not. I grew up in Philadelphia, BTW, which is doubtless relevant.
My client that I am working with currently has articulation problems with /r/ and /l/ and man, it’s been quite the experience!
From what I’ve read, American /r/ is bunched; the tongue is pull back and the back of the tongue raises towards the velum. In most other languages the /r/ is retroflex- the tip of the tongue raises towards the roof of the hard palate.
Start in the /l/ position and make the “LAAAA” noise. Slowly drag your tongue back until it hovers around the hard palate area of the roof. By then, you should be able to hear the “LAAAA” gradually change into a “RAAA.” That is the retroflex /r/.
This is the one I am currently teaching my client. The difference in positions produces no noticible difference in making a /r/ sound. I chose this one for him because he is having a lot of difficulty with the bunched /r/ and making a retroflex /r/, although not as common in American English, is better than making no /r/ sound at all.
As someone above mentioned, the /r/ sound should have the “r” flipped upside-down. The current /r/ represents a trilled r. However, since there is no trilled r in English, people are pretty relaxed about using /r/ to rerepresent the R we use in English. I have no clue if production of the /r/ phoneme varies at all throughout different English dialects, but I doubt it.
Hope that helps!
And Bordelond’s post is spot on. I’m still a newbie in training.
I don’t think it does. The point is that rhotics pronounce the r sound in bird and mother, whereas non-rhotics treat it like a vowel and say “buhd” and “mothuh”.
I don’t know what lateral means in this context. Saying the word carefully, there is a slight different feel in the shape of the tongue on l that I attribute to the different vowel connections.
I’ve tried this very carefully and for the life of me I can’t make that turn into an r sound. My r only comes out in the bunched shape, with the back of the tongue high and the tip low. Raising the tip makes it an l, and moving the tip back bunches the tongue in the throat and just leads to choking.