# Why isn't the letter 'R' a vowel--seriously?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 7, 2003, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132 "2003-10-07T19:08:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 18\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/21 "2003-10-08T02:17:00Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by leenmi \*  
> **The letter “r” can’t complete a syllable.**

Sure it can: _grr_.

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**Author:** ![leenmi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f1d935/32.png) [@leenmi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leenmi)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/22 "2003-10-08T02:26:27Z")

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see, I knew someone would post word without vowels. Can you find an english word without vowels that isn’t onomonopaeic, or however you spell that thang?

**Websters also states: “Apparently there are many, especially among writers of textbooks on phonics and teachers in the elementary schools, who are of the opinion that there can be no syllable without a vowel. Every dictionary in line of succession from, and including Noah Webster’s original dictionary of 1828 shows vowelless syllables.” p. 32a of my 1986 edition.**

Okay, maybe I shouldn’t say vowels are needed to complete a syllable. Words like “grr” have no vowels. True. But “r” is still not a vowel. Grr is a word composed of consonants.

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**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/23 "2003-10-08T02:54:20Z")

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Back when I took freshman linguistics, they taught us that the final syllables in words like “river”, “button”, “column”, and “little” were _syllabic consonants_. Here’s a good [explanation](http://www.cola.wright.edu/dept/eng/limouze/Phoniss.htm) of the phenomenon (scroll down to the last section.) Essentially, these consonants occur whenever you have an unstressed vowel followed by an /n/, /l/, /m/, or /r/ sound: for example, compare the words “batten” (stress on the first syllable, syllabic /n/) and “baton” (stress on the second syllable; the /o/ sound is obvious.) Or even better, pronounce the name of the Louisiana capital “Baton Rouge” the way the (English-speaking) locals do.

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**Author:** ![Dragonblink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Dragonblink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragonblink)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/24 "2003-10-08T05:40:34Z")

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Dang, I just missed getting to explain syllabic consonants.

The word “bird” is also an example of a syllabic r – when you say it, it’s just like you’re taking brrr (as in ‘I’m cold’) and throwing a d on the end. No true vowels in it at all, but the r acts as a vowel.

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**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/25 "2003-10-08T05:50:52Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by leenmi \*  
> In English words (and I’m sure someone will come up with an obscure exception), a syllable can not be formed without one of the following letters: a e i o u y. (That’s why it’s a e i o u and sometimes y. Y is sometimes needed to complete a syllable. Such as in syllable. It’s not a vowel in the word Yellow.)

Okay, so _atlatl_ is probably pretty obscure, but what about _chasm_ and _rhythm_?

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**Author:** ![jwest77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/cc9497/32.png) [@jwest77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jwest77)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/26 "2003-10-08T12:31:33Z")

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Thanks for pointing out the syllabic consonants. It helps, but I still don’t get why it isn’t just called a vowel. I know I am starting to sound like a broken record, but based on the definitions, it acts like a vowel. I don’t understand why we have to come up with fancy names like syllabic consonants. All the definitions seem to start with the assumption that it is a consonant, and there are only 5 vowels.

When I say:

Hay  
Her  
Hi  
Ho

My mouth, tongue, etc. are doing similar things. These are also very different from saying:

Hat  
Had  
Half  
Has

Not only are these four different from the first four, they are also very different from each other.

What makes “her” so different from “hay” that it should belong in the second set?

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**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/27 "2003-10-08T14:24:05Z")

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OK, you asked for it.

**Jwest77** , I’d suggest submitting your concerns as a query to the free [Ask A Linguist service](http://linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/index.html) at Eastern Michigan University’s Linguist List website. Renowned linguists from all over the world will gladly take on and discuss at length questions just like yours.  
Review the list of names at the bottom of the link. They are truly the heavy hitters in the contemporary world of academic linguistics. You may even e-mail many of them directly, if you wish – and most of them will answer you personally.

Actually, Ask A Linguist has dealt with your issue before. What follows is a sampling.

[Larry Trask (University of Sussex)](http://www.linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/archive-most-recent/msg00062.html) weighs in:

> [@](#):
>
> **Q:** How many phonemes do “star” and “fork” have? I thought 4 each. Is that right? How about “tern”? Would that be 3 and “ladder” 4, because “er” is a pure vowel. I would love to have the confusion about the r controlled  
> vowels cleared up.
> 
> \*\*A: There are no absolute answers to these questions: the answers are different depending on the accent being described, and in some cases also on our analytical preferences.
> 
> In a rhotic accent (an accent that permits /r/ to occur in any position), the words ‘star’ and ‘fork’ have four phonemes each. But, in a non-rhotic accent (an accent that permits /r/ to occur only before a vowel), these words have only three phonemes each.
> 
> However, the word ‘tern’ is more complicated. In a non-rhotic accent, it has three phonemes. But, in a rhotic accent, the decision comes down to our preference in analyzing the r-colored vowel. If we decide to analyze this as a sequence of a vowel plus /r/, then ‘tern’ has four phonemes. However, if we decide instead to analyze it as a single r-colored vowel at the phonemic level, then the word has only three phonemes. Analytical tastes differ here.
> 
> The same happens with ‘ladder’: four phonemes or five.\*\*

Trask on the difference between consonmants and vowels (cached on Google - search “syllabic”, “consonant”):

> [@](#):
>
> \*\*It depends on whether you’re talking about phonetics or phonology.
> 
> In phonetics, a consonant (or contoid) is defined as a speech sound whose articulation involves noticeable obstruction of the airstream, while a vowel (or vocoid) involves no such obstruction. The grey area here is the approximants, which involve minimal obstruction, and especially the glides, which involve no more obstruction than some vowels.
> 
> In phonology, a vowel is typically defined as a sound which can be a syllabic nucleus, and a consonant as one that can’t. This makes glides consonants, and typically also the other approximants, but the grey area is that, in some languages, approximants, liquids, and sometimes even fricatives can be syllabic nuclei. This is the problem of ‘syllabic consonants’.\*\*

[James Fidelholtz (Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla, Mexico)](http://www.linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/archive-1997.10/msg01561.html) addresses another related question:

> [@](#):
>
> **Q:** The folks who settled in the Appalachian Mountains of the Eastern United  
> States and migrated across the mountainous regions of the southern  
> states and into Texas and Oklahoma added an ‘R’ to many words that is  
> not in its spelling. Examples: holler = hollow (valley), winder =  
> window, idear = idea, warsh = wash and Etter = Etta. John Kennady said  
> ‘Cuber’ and Paul McCartney (England) calls his wife Linder. So it is  
> not restricted to the mountain regions. My question is how did this  
> ‘intrusive R’ originate? I have had explanations of: A lazy  
> tongue… Being unable to read (how a word should sound)… It  
> came from Northern Ireland… It came from the Elizabethan period of  
> England… It came from Cockney talk. Does anyone have a  
> professional answer to this? Many Thanks!
> 
> \*\*A: _The English ‘r’ is a rather complex sound phonetically, and, for  
> example, is one of the last sounds mastered by children acquiring the  
> language._ (my ital)
> 
> This also means that it is more subject to changes in its  
> pronunciation over time than many other sounds. Indeed, in many  
> positions in the word (eg, at the end of the word), the ‘r’ has lost its  
> peculiar ‘retroflexion’ (that is, the curling back of the tongue) in many  
> different varieties of English, and, in at least some cases, apparently  
> independently. This has happened, among other places, in British  
> standard English, New England English, Southern (United) States English,  
> etc.
> 
> Now, notice that I said ‘in many positions’. Between vowels, the  
> ‘r’ is never lost, so far as I know, in any variety of English. So  
> everybody everywhere pronounces ‘sorrow’ with a retroflex (normal) ‘r’.  
> However, the vowels surrounding the ‘r’ do not (in most varieties) have  
> to be in the same word. So, again in nearly all the varieties which  
> sometimes eliminate or change ‘r’, we would find, for example:
> 
> _**{transcription note: ‘v’ is the vowel sound of ‘but(t)’; ‘@’ is  
> the shwa, the last sound of ‘sofa’; ‘r’ is the retroflex (sulcal)  
> pronunciation typical of most varieties of English}**_
> 
> ```
> 'butter is ...' [bvt@riz...]
> '... butter.' [...bvt@]
> 
> ```
> 
> Thus, ‘butter is butter’: [bvt@rizbvt@], and the ‘r’ shows up in  
> one case of the word, and doesn’t in the other case.
> 
> Before going on, I should clarify that a good Midwesterner like  
> me actually pronounces the ‘r’ as a sort of ‘r-colored vowel’, what we  
> would call a ‘syllabic r’, in many contexts (just the ones where eg New  
> Yorkers might not have any r coloring). This we often just transcribe  
> with ‘r’, although technically we should indicate that it is syllabic  
> with some sort of mark, usually a small vertical line below the ‘r’ or  
> sometimes with a small circle below the ‘r’–this is hard to do in e-mail  
> for general purposes, so I will limit myself to ‘r’ for the (syllabic or  
> not) ‘full’ pronunciation of the ‘r’, and ‘@’ for the non-r-colored vowel  
> pronunciation that you asked about.
> 
> OK so far? Well, many varieties (like British English) nearly  
> ALWAYS ‘discolor’ the ‘r’ (make it into a simple shwa vowel sound) when  
> it is eg at the end of the word &/or before another consonant; but when  
> the following word begins with a vowel, the ‘r’ shows up. However, there  
> are many words like ‘sofa’, ‘Cuba’, et cetera, that historically never  
> had an ‘r’. But when pronounced in isolation by a speaker of one of  
> these varieties, ‘sofa’ rhymes exactly with ‘gopher’. So we would get:
> 
> ```
> I saw a sofa [...@sof@]
> I saw a gopher [...@gof@].
> 
> ```
> 
> Now, in many of these varieties (and probably also in the first  
> historical stages of eg British cultured speech, called Received  
> Pronunciation), we would still find a distinction between these two  
> words, eg in the following context:
> 
> ```
> A sofa is ... (over there)	[@sof@iz...]
> A gopher is ... [@gof@riz...].
> 
> ```
> 
> But many speakers are insecure in their use of the language. They now  
> know that [gof@] must take an ‘r’ at the end in the second context, and  
> if they leave it off, then they may get corrected by their teacher, their  
> boss, etc. So, to be safe, they stick in an ‘r’ in the same context in  
> ‘sofa’, giving [@sof@riz …]. In some varieties, such as Received  
> Pronunciation, this insecurity then became generalized, and now even the  
> most cultured Brits say [@sof@riz…], and this is called a ‘linking r’.  
> It appears even where historically there was never an ‘r’ in the word.
> 
> It also should be mentioned that the social value of dropping r’s  
> varies according to the region: in New York City, for example, it is  
> relatively ‘low class’ to drop too many r’s, while in many areas of  
> Southern United States English, it is relatively ‘low class’ to drop too  
> few r’s. In the areas where dropping is relatively ‘bad’, speakers who  
> wish to appear more refined often add r’s at the end of words like ‘sofa’  
> and ‘Cuba’, and in some cases, this becomes later the normal way to  
> pronounce such words. That is why Kennedy said ‘Cuber’ (especially when  
> the word was followed by another word beginning with a vowel).
> 
> Others may give you a slightly different perspective on this, and  
> some of my actual ‘historical’ facts might be slightly off, but this is  
> the general outline of how these different pronunciation arose (or at  
> least might have arisen).\*\*

…

So after all that, **Jwest77** , the answer to your question is this: “R” is not, in fact, always considered a consonant. Sometimes “r” is considered a consonant. Other times it’s considered a vowel. And other times, it’s something in between.

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**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/28 "2003-10-08T14:29:44Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by jwest77 \*  
> \*\*Websters Third New International Dictionary (unabridged):
> 
> Vowel: one of a class of speech sounds in the articulation of which the oral part of the breath channel is not blocked and is not constricted enough to cause audible friction. Examples include o in the English “hot” and ü in the German word fünf.
> 
> Consonant: one of a class of speech sounds characterized by constriction or closure at one or more points in the breath channel.\*\*

Keep in mind that these definitions are gross simplifications, and actually fall apart under academic scrutiny.

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**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/29 "2003-10-08T14:36:31Z")

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“r” is neither a vowel nor a consonant, it is a LETTER! Letters are neither vowels nor consonants. SOUNDS are vowels, consonants, etc.

In some languages and some dialects of English, the sound often represented by “r” is a vowel. Some pronunciations of “bird” actually are /brd/. There is nothing inherently “consonant-like” about the sound of the rhotic “r”.

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**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/30 "2003-10-08T14:42:09Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Dogface \*  
> **"r" is neither a vowel nor a consonant, it is a LETTER! Letters are neither vowels nor consonants. SOUNDS are vowels, consonants, etc.**

You know … I overlooked this, but that is really a very important point.

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**Author:** ![jwest77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/cc9497/32.png) [@jwest77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jwest77)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/31 "2003-10-08T15:14:12Z")

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Bordelond:

Thanks for the great resource. I will check it out.

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**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/32 "2003-10-08T17:08:30Z")

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_Letters_ are or are not vowels mostly on the basis of historical assignment. Letters do not have a one-to-one correspondence with sounds – not between different languages, and not within the same language in many cases and certainly not in the case of English.

The **International Phonetic Alphabet** has a symbol which looks like the schwa (upside down lower case “e”) with a tail on the top of it akin to the horizontal top portion of the lower case “r”.

This symbol represents the vowel sound in “word”, “bird”, “fur”, and “herd”.

And yes, it is essentially the same sound, produced in the same manner, as the “r” in “break” or “trill” or (yes) “river”, just drawn out and utilized as a vowel.

Seriously?  
[IPAfont]  
s´rt¨nlí  
[/IPAfont]

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**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/33 "2003-10-08T20:10:04Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> _originally posted by AHunter3_  
> \*\*The International Phonetic Alphabet has a symbol which looks like the schwa (upside down lower case “e”) with a tail on the top of it akin to the horizontal top portion of the lower case “r”.
> 
> This symbol represents the vowel sound in “word”, “bird”, “fur”, and “herd”.
> 
> And yes, it is essentially the same sound, produced in the same manner, as the “r” in “break” or “trill” or (yes) “river”, just drawn out and utilized as a vowel.\*\*

Just so. If I may pick a very slight and pedantic nit: the “turned schwa with r-hook” vowel symbol you mention is not the same symbol as that used for American English consonantal /r/. Instead, a “turned r” symbol is used for /r/ as a consonant, as in “red”. Also, you will note below that some phoneticists posit a separate symbol for the “er” sound in stressed syllables, using a “turned epsilon with r-hook” instead of a “turned schwa with r-hook”.

UCLA phoneticist Peter Ladefoged, in his book _[The Sounds of the World’s Languages](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0631198156/qid=1065642955/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-6122433-3953429?v=glance&s=books#product-details)_, notes that the relationship between the “r” in “red” and the “er” vowel sound in “herd” is analagous with the relationship between the “y” in “yes” and the “ee” vowel sound in “need” (p. 325).

Somwhat related is this interesting seven-year-old discussion captured on a [University of Vienna](http://www.wu-wien.ac.at/earlym-l/logfiles/earlym-l.log9601a) online log archive, in which Ladefoged’s work is referenced:

> [@](#):
>
> **Q:** If /u/ and /v/ were different phonemes in Latin, then why were they written the same, especially given that the model for the Roman alphabet, the Etruscan, _did_ use two different signs.
> 
> **A1:** Here you seem to be getting into deeper water. A consonant and a vowel cannot, in my book, be “the same phoneme” (Consider “tweet” and “to eat” in English, for example. Is this not a minimal pair?)
> 
> \*\*A2: It depends on one’s definition of “minimal pair”. “Tweet” is one syllable, “to eat” two. If a “syllable break” is counted as a phoneme somehow, the pair is no longer minimal ('twit ~ tu’it).
> 
> In a language like Spanish, that is usually not considered to have a separate /w/ phoneme, and [w] are indeed allophones (syllabic and non-syllabic) of the phoneme /u/. For instance:
> 
> ```auto
> 
> "aun" /'aun/ ['awn]
> "au'n" /a-'un/ [a'un]
> "gru'a" /'gru-a/ ['grua]
> "guante" /'guan-te/ ['gwante]
> 
> ```
> 
> Likewise, most descriptions of English don’t consider [n] in “nose” and syllabic [n-] in “given” to be two separate phonemes.
> 
> On the other hand, introducing /w/ into the phonological description of Spanish would be defendable, as would be the introduction of a separate symbol for English syllabic “n”. Indeed, most transcriptions I have seen use separate symbols for consonantal “r” and syllabic “r” in those varieties of English that have the latter sound. Ladefoged, for instance, uses /(E\*r)/ “turned epsilon with r-hook” for the vowel sound in AE “fur”, and /@r/ or /(@r)/ “schwa with r-hook” for the final sound in AE “father”. Transcribing them /r:/ and /r/ would, in my opinion, not be unreasonable.
> 
> _In conclusion, “vowel” and “consonant” are not such clear cut concepts, and there is plenty of room for (allophonic) overlap. This is probably related to the fact that “syllable” is no clear cut concept either (To mention Ladefoged again: “Syllable: A unit of speech for which there is no satisfactory definition”). Whether it is the overlaps between /i/~/j/, /u/~/w/ etc., that prevent a satisfactory definition of “syllable”, or that it’s the lack of a definition for “syllable” that prevents us from deciding whether something is an /i/ or a /j/, a /u/ or a /w/, I don’t know._\*\*

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**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/34 "2003-10-09T13:54:45Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by bordelond \*  
> **UCLA phoneticist Peter Ladefoged, in his book _[The Sounds of the World’s Languages](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0631198156/qid=1065642955/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-6122433-3953429?v=glance&s=books#product-details)_, notes that the relationship between the “r” in “red” and the “er” vowel sound in “herd” is analagous with the relationship between the “y” in “yes” and the “ee” vowel sound in “need” (p. 325).**

I screwed up the reference a bit here. The section paraphrased is actually on page 323 of the paperback edition.

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**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/35 "2003-10-09T17:30:53Z")

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ies, ouell said!

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**Author:** ![saramamalana](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/74df32/32.png) [@saramamalana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saramamalana)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/36 "2003-10-10T04:10:21Z")

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I don’t really have something to add, just that reading this thread was very satisfying. Earlier tonight I had fished out the notebook from one of my favorite classes, _Linguistics of Uncommonly Taught Languages: Polish_ and it was fun to look over my notes. Reading this whole discussion was like a little refresher course.

[hijack]For any of you that know IPA, once you learned it did you find yourself writing random words and friend’s names using it? A friend and I were such dorks that for a while we’d pass notes writing in IPA. :D[/hijack]

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**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/37 "2003-10-10T07:08:19Z")

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Are you kidding? I created my own IPA font (back in the Macintosh System 4 days when bitmap fonts ruled the screen) so I could _type_ in IPA.

Such a cool idea. One symbol per sound, one sound per symbol.

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**Author:** ![Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dreaming_of_Maria_Callas)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2003, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-the-letter-r-a-vowel-seriously/206132/38 "2003-10-10T12:46:52Z")

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Sanskrit had vocalic R in addition to normal, consonantal R.

But even more interesting is that Sanskrit had vocalic L, as well. I don’t know any other Indo-European language that formally contained that sound. If you say the word “kleptomaniac” really fast, that’s what vocalic L is like. Indeed, the only common Sanskrit word that contains the sound is the verb root “klp”.

UnuMondo

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