Classical Hebrew used an alveolar /ɾ/ (this is the same sound as the single R as in Spanish pero) for ר.

Language planners in midcentury Israel often prescribed this alveolar /ɾ/, though listening to most current Israelis it's clear that Yiddish-influenced /ʁ/ (or another similar uvular sound) has largely won out. Of course, even today there remain some speakers from traditions who continue to use the /ɾ/ pronunciation instead.

I'm curious about sociolinguistic perceptions of /ɾ/ vs. /ʁ/ in modern daily life in Israel today, so these questions are really geared at Israelis who've grown up in Israel:

• If you use /ɾ/, are you immediately presumed to be foreign?
• Would any person growing up in Israel today use /ɾ/ or would doing so be seen as a relic from their Sephardic/Mizrahi grandparents?
• Are there any examples of /ɾ/ use in modern Israeli media?

Thanks!

Asking for a rather complex linguistics project

This happens in syllable onset or word initially, and especially when the voiceless stop precedes [o], [u], or an [l]:

/pʰ/ ͢ /p͡x~p͡χ/

/tʰ/ ͢ /t͡x~t͡χ/

/kʰ/ ͢ /k͡x~k͡χ/

It seems like this doesn’t happen to /t͡ʃʰ/, but I assume that’s because of the palatal and fricative nature of this phoneme, unless someone has noticed it happens to this phoneme too?

Also, /k/ seems to become /q/ before a back vowel or /ɫ/.

So there I am, browsing Quora because I'm bored. I read this question:

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-it-that-wrong-is-spelled-like-rong-because-you-cant-hear-the-w-anyway

asking why "wrong" isn't spelled "rong". Alright, not very interesting. Look down into the answers:

> You’re wrong (no pun) about the ‘w’, it’s the rounded form that dominated in the most spoken dialects, so that initial /r/ is always rounded in Californian, Canadian, General American and in greater London. It’s far from silent, but you should know that it indicated rounding of the ‘r’ sound, not the consonant that begins ‘way’.

All good so far. But here's something strange:

>‘Wrong’ for example is [ ʁʷɑ̃ːŋ ] in Californian and [ ɹʷɑ̃ŋ ] in General American.

I'm sorry, did he just use a voiced uvular fricative to transcribe the rhotic in Californian English? What?

So I went to check out this guy's other answers, as one does. And lo and behold: https://www.quora.com/Do-all-American-people-pronounce-the-word-strength-as-strangth >Should the ‘a’ in ‘strangth’ mean the vowel at the end of ‘stray’ ( /stre/ ) then most but not all Americans say /streŋθ/. That comes out as [ stʁẽːŋ̥kθː] in my accent, with a long vowel and long final consonant.

Narrow but, benefit of the doubt, accurate transcription aside, he again insists that Californians use a voiced uvular fricative as their rhotic.

Perhaps I'm mistaken, and someone can forward me a paper on the different rhotic sounds of American English. In that case, feel free to rip me apart in the comments. This guy does seem to know what he's talking about, other than this one quirk, so I could easily be mistaken.

Here I'll be sharing the phonology of the next language in the Gemmilëan tree. As usual, criticism is encouraged. I have grammar but it's kinda boring. If anyone wants to see some cooler things like honorifics or copulas, I might make a post, but I don't know how much interest there is for that on this sub. This will cover the evolution from old Gemmilëh to Zánys ['t͡sɑ.nɨs] and also come at you with a few problems.

First of all, why am I continuing the line at all? The short answer is because I've accomplished my goals for Gemmilëh Proper (however simple those goals may've been), and am now setting out to make another conlang. Just... directly descended from old Gemmilëh. I'm not quite done writing my grammatical and cultural goals yet, and I'm having a few issues with the phonological goals, so I've decided to come here. Starting with the phonology of Old Gemmilëh,

Consonants:

Vowels:

Gemmilëh has vowel harmony, splitting only back vowels. The corresponding rows are not pair, as no consistent pairs exist. u usually becomes ɨ, o usually becomes ɤ and the other way around, but anything else is a toss-up.

Now here, I will go through the fifty-ish sound changes between the two languages, and then show you the modern phonology at the end. Sorry for the wall of text, if sound changes don't interest you, skip to the end. (Also if anyone can help me put these in a SCE, specifically vowel harmony, please drop a suggestion in the comments).

1. r > Ø after velars
2. Geminate fricatives lengthen previous vowel and ungeminate
3. VçV > VʝV
4. after h ɰ, i ɨ u ɤ ə ɛ o > e ə o ɑ a æ ɒ
5. ɰ > x non-word-initially or between voiced segments
6. vowels before coda h lengthen, then the h is lost.
7. h > Ø, lengthening any previous sounds
8. ɛ a > e æ
9. æː {eː iː} > e i
10. ɒː {oː uː} > o u
11. ɑː {ɨː əː ɤː} > ɤ ɨ
12. In unrounded words, u o ɒ > ɨ ɤ ɑ
13. In rounded words, ə ɨ ɤ ɑ > ʊ u o ɒ
14. {Vu Vʊ Vo Vɒ} {uV ʊV oV ɒV} > Vw wV
15. {Vi Ve Væ} {iV eV æV} >

I absolutely love Hebrew, but the uvular (''French'') pronunciation of rêš always sounded so counterintuitive to me, especially considering the vibe around the Aliyah and the revival of Hebrew; it was all about a return to the roots. That's why I supposed that the early adopters of a new Hebrew standard would have treated the issue of pronunciation in a similar fashion.

As far as I know, the uvular resh was introduced by the Ashkenazim, whose Yiddish was influenced by the Lower Germanic r. [I also heard some Jews in Iraq pronounced it in an uvular way.]

But Israel (officially) counts 2.8 million Ashkenazim, against 3.2 million Mizrahim and 1.4 million Sephardim. Assuming the latter two Jewish groups as well as the Arabs (1.9 million) pronounced the resh as an alveolar trill, how did the uvular pronunciation become so widespread?!

My second question is: Do some people in Israel still pronounce the resh as a trill? Does the trilled resh bear any sociolinguistic connotations? Is it associated with Arabic? Is a trilled resh frowned upon? Or do some Mizrahim/Sephardim still proudly opt for it?

Any information is most welcome.

שלום מהולנד!

These fricative consonants are staples in Classical Arabic and seem to be absent in pretty much every other major or semi-consequential Romance language.

Over the years, I've noticed that some speakers of Standard American English realize the voiceless stops /k/, /p/, and /t/ as /kχ/, /pχ/, or /tχ/ (I'm not sure if that is the correct IPA, but imagine it the "pr" in the French "près") when they precede certain mid or open vowels. For example, at times I hear people realize /klæs/ as /kχlæs/. It can be heard very clearly in this video at 1:01 when he says "point" or at 1:34 when he says "close."

I'm just wondering, has a paper been written on this phenomenon?

I truly cannot tell the difference between these two. I've actually seen many arguments about it online with regards to German Ach-laut, Hebrew Khaf, and Arabic Kha, and still haven't quite managed to distinguish them in speech and pronounce them myself. Obviously one is pronounced with the back of the tongue near the uvula and the other with the back of the tongue near the soft palate but either my tongue or my ears are failing me, as I can't make the distinction. The one possibly useful (if correct in the first place) piece of information I've found is the velar cannot trill while the uvular can, so if while holding it there is a gurgle, it is uvular. However, the only alternative I can manage simply feels and sounds more like a pharyngeal to me.

Are there any methods I could undertake to understand this? I can certainly pronounce at least one, if not both, but it's unclear which is which.

Where did the Voiced uvular come from in French? Was it from Celtic or Germanic languages?

Hey,

I've been learning German for a couple of years now but /still/ cannot pronounce the German R sound. I know the way Germans pronounce it is different all across Germany, some roll the R or some use the uvular R, etc, but I cannot do any.. haha. This makes me totally avoid common words like Hören, Sprechen, Regen and what not, which is starting to feel stupid and embarrassing. I am able to correctly pronounce the ch sound in words like Auch and Machen though, *thankfully*.

I've tried watching a bunch of youtube videos and reading articles, trying all sorts of tricks like gargling water but have not managed to pronounce it.

Has anyone please got any tips/tricks or is having similar problems? How did you learn to do it?

ps. I'm native British and have a typical 'proper' British accent when speaking English lol.

Thanks so much in advance!

Top of th1e sub lol. H2ow are y'all doing. I'm h3orrible

I just made whatever sound I’m talking about and curious if it has a name since it technically should be a consonant.

I cannot roll my rs at all. So many people have tried to show me and I've spent hours watching YouTube videos. However, I can do the uvular trill R sound seen in French and German perfectly. I know this is used in some Dutch dialects. Would I be better off using an English R sound or going with a uvular trill when speaking Dutch?

(31F, 167cm, 102kg, went through transsphenoidal surgery to remove a macroadenoma, don't drink/smoke/do drugs)

Hi everyone. I had surgery on Friday to remove a brain tumour and I had to be intubated. Immediately after leaving the OR, I was coughing violently and I eventually noticed that my uvula had been damaged and was becoming necrotic. The necrotic tissue fell off almost completely last night, but the uvula is still a little elongated and I still have a lot of pain when swallowing anything that isn't room temperature water. I'm not sure if the pain is only on my uvula, but it feels like it's around the soft palate/uvula/throat general area. My vocal cords are unaffected.

I've been spraying hexomedine in my throat, but the relief only lasts a few seconds. I'm also taking some anaesthetic drops. Is there anything else I could do in order to be able to eat again without being in so much pain? Thank you!

36F; 5'7'; 120lbs; West Asian; diagnosis: celiac, POTS, inflammatory arthritis, osteoporosis, strabismus; current medication Mestinon (120mg daily) , tramadol (50mg as needed up to 3 times a day), propanolol (15mg daily)

My pain management doctor wants me to consider vagus nerve stimulation for POTS but there seems to be a lack of evidence. I'm worried he is just trying to sell his own devices.

He says that my uvula deviates to the left and that this is evidence of vagus nerve damage. Is this true? How certain a test is it? What might my other options be?

It starts with horns and strings and then the singer starts singing about something like the sun rays against her fingers (I know very little French). It sounds very old-timey. Singer sounds like (or maybe is) Edith Piaf. Thanks in advance!

It occurs in Afrikaans. It's seen as a sort of speech impediment. In certain areas in the Western Cape province in South Africa this is the normal way to say an r, and it's called "brei" in Afrikaans. Many people, especially young children, go to speech pathologists to say the r "normally," as sometimes they can be hard to understand.

Also, is there a common word for the occurrence?

The International Phonetic Alphabet Keyboard(2005 revised edition)

Missing some symbols? Apply Doulos SIL font

Consonants (Pulmonic)

BilabialLabiodentalDentalAlveolarPostalveolarRetroflexPalatal Velar UvularPharyngealGlottalPlosivepbtdʈɖcɟkɡqɢ ʔ NasalmɱnɳɲŋɴTrillʙrʀTap or FlapⱱɾɽFricativeɸβfvθðszʃʒʂʐçʝxɣχʁħʕhɦLateral fricativeɬɮApproximantʋɹɻjɰLateral approximantlɭʎʟ

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible.

Consonants (Non-Pulmonic)

ClicksVoiced implosivesEjectivesʘBilabialɓBilabialʼExamples:ǀDentalɗDental/alveolarpʼBilabalǃ(Post)alveolarʄPalataltʼDental/alveolarǂPalatoalveolarɠVelarkʼVelarǁAlveolar lateralʛUvularsʼAlveolar fricative

Vowels

📷FrontCentralBackCloseClose-midOpen-midOpeniyɨʉɯuɪʏʊeøɘɵɤoəɛœɜɞʌɔæɐaɶɑɒ

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel.

Other Symbols

ʍVoiceless labial-velar fricativeɕʑAlveolo-palatal fricativeswVoiced labial-velar approximantɺAlveolar lateral flapɥVoiced labial-palatal approximantɧSimultaneous ʃ and xʜVoiceless epiglottal fricativek͡p t͜s
◌͡◌ ◌͜◌

Affricates and double articulations can be represented by two symbols joined by a tie bar if necessary.

ʢVoiced epiglottal fricativeʡEpiglottal plosive

Suprasegmentals

ˈPrimary stressˌSecondary stressˌfoʊnəˈtɪʃənːLongeːˑHalf-longeˑ◌̆Extra shortĕ|Minor (foot) group‖Major (intonation) group.Syllable breakɹi.ækt‿Linking (absence of a break)

Diacritics

Diacritics may be placed above a symbol with a descender, e.g. ŋ̊

◌̥Voicelessn̥d̥◌̤Breathy voicedb̤a̤◌̪Dentalt̪d̪◌̬Voiceds̬t̬◌̰Creaky voicedb̰a̰◌̺Apicalt̺d̺ʰAspiratedtʰdʰ◌̼Linguolabialt̼d̼◌̻Laminalt̻d̻◌̹More roundedɔ̹ʷLabalizedtʷdʷ◌̃Nasalizedẽ◌̜Less roundedɔ̜ʲPalatalizedtʲdʲⁿNasal releasedⁿ◌̟Advancedu̟ˠVelarizedtˠdˠˡLateral releasedˡ◌̠Retractede̠ˤPharyngealizedtˤdˤ◌̚No audible released̚◌̈Centralizedë◌̴Velarized or pharyngealizedɫ◌̽Mid-centralizede̽◌̝Raisede̝(ɹ̝ = voiced alveolar fricative)◌̩Syllabicn̩◌̞Lowerede̞(β̞ = voiced bilabial approximant)◌̯Non-syllabice̯◌̘Advanced Tongue Roote̘˞Rhoticityɚa˞◌̙Retracted Tongue Roote̙

Tones and Word Accents

LevelContoure̋or˥Extra highěor˩˥Risingé˦Highê˥˩Fallingē˧Mide᷄˦˥High risingè˨Lowe᷅˩˨Low risingȅ˩Extra lowe᷈˧˦˧Rising-falling↓Downstep↗Global rise↑Upstep↘Global fall

Voiceless Retroflex-Uvular Stop: ɋ

Voiceless: ʙ̥͡r̥͡ʀ̥ Voiced: ʙ͡r͡ʀ

I've noticed I (Australian English speaker) often use and hear what I think is a voiced uvular tap or stop as an allophone for the /d/ in the consonant cluser /-dn-/ or /-dən-/ in words like "wooden", "didn't", "sudden", "widening", etc. This includes when it occurs between separate words, for example "good night", "could never".

A friend who natively speaks Scottish English (but has been in Australia since childhood) also uses it in "Wednesday". Wiktionary notes Scottish English pronunciation as /ˈwɛ(ʔə)nzde/ but the sound I'm thinking of isn't a glottal stop; I guess it would be /ɢ̆/.

Is this an allophony that people talk about? From my googling it seems like uvular taps are very rare and not attested in English. Is it something that's unrecognised or is it a well-known thing that I've just got wrong/missed in my googling? Is it present in other varieties of English?

And is the concept of rhotics justified? The coronal and dorsal consonants are rather different articulatorily? Any readings about this?

[b]

I'm thinking about giving German another go, but the pronunciation is making me a little hesitant (along with gender & cases, but that's irrelevant at the moment). For the most part, I'm pretty good at pronouncing languages, but I cannot for the life of me come close with German, namely with the uvular trill. I can do an alveolar trill & a uvular fricative, but I can't pronounce "R" as a uvular trill. Can I survive just pronouncing the fricative? I tried Google/this forum, but I've mostly just found pages on the different pronunciations of "R". Thanks in advance.

How did French change an alveolar trill/tap to uvular trill/glide in normal speech? The most common version states that the defective pronounciation of "r" had firstly developed in an upper class, and then it became popular among most native French speakers (so now alveolar trill/tap in French speech is generally considered as marker of "redneck" or foreign accent as the pronounciation of Russian /g/ like a velar/glottal fricative, ex.). But this version doesn't still answer the question about how alveolar trill / tap could be changed to an uvular trill/glide, that seem to be impossible to imagine any intermediate variants of pronunciation between [r] and [ʀ] (but between [r] and [ɹ] a chain can be imagined: [r] -> [ɾ] -> [ɾ͡ɹ] (weakened tap, tap with glide release)-> [ɹ] or [r] -> [r̝] -> [ɹ]). Though a change of sound [r~ɾ] to [ʀ~ʁ] might firstly happen as a result of allophony of sonorant /r/ placed before a dorsal consonant (like germanic /n/ and /l/ behave before velar/uvular consonants causing [n~nˠ~ŋ] and [l~ɫ~ʟ] allophony), and then the dorsal allophone of /r/ might be placed in all enviroments (like the Middle English alveolar approximant allophone of /r/ placed before consonants, changed a sound [r~ɾ] to [ɹ] in all enviroments in standart Modern English)

Although it seems that French developed uvular pronounciation of "r" earlier than some germanic languages because in almost all Germanic languages which allows [ʀ~ʁ] as a variant of /r/, it's only a free allophone of /r/, while in French uvular pronounciation of "r" is normal

This happens in syllable onset or word initially, and especially when the voiceless stop precedes [o], [u], or an [l]:

/pʰ/ ͢ /p͡x~p͡χ/ /tʰ/ ͢ /t͡x~t͡χ/ /kʰ/ ͢ /k͡x~k͡χ/

It seems like this doesn’t happen to /t͡ʃʰ/, but I assume that’s because of the palatal nature of this phoneme

Also, /k/ seems to become /q/ before a back vowel or /ɫ/.