R (phoneme)
The letter R, r represents one phoneme in English, although it has several different allophones or realizations. There are at least ten ways of pronouncing this letter in languages around the world, of which some six may be heard among native speakers of English. AWE always shows it in IPA transcriptions by /r/, raising this to a superscript where it is either pronounced or omitted in different accents, depending on whether they are rhotic or not.
- The most usual realization among speakers of RP and other British English accents is the post-Alveolar approximant, represented phonetically by IPA: /ɹ/. (This means that the tip of the tongue is raised behind the tooth-ridge, or alveola, without touching it.
- When the tongue is not moved, the letter can sound like a '-w-' (/w/), and may be due to a speech defect. It has been used to caricature effete aristocrats, who may be shown in popular fiction saying such things as "I say, you wottahs, you weally are unuttewably wotten."
- More commonly in North America, '-r-' is pronounced as a Retroflex approximant, represented phonetically by IPA: /ɻ/. For this, the tip of the tongue is curled backwards and is raised characteristically higher.
- In Scots, and for many speakers of RP concerned to be careful enunciators, the alveolar tap (IPA: /ɾ/) is more usual, as producing a more distinct sound. It is produced when the rising tongue taps the tooth-ridge.
When the tongue is held close to the tooth-ridge, so that a powerful air-stream makes the tongue vibrate against the ridge, the result is an alveolar trill (IPA: /[r]/), which is used to characterize (and mock) Scots. The sound is common in Mediterranean languages like Italian and Spanish, where the spelling with '-rr-', indicating a trilled r, forms a minimal contrastive pair with the single '-r-'.
- The alveolar flap, produced when the tongue-tip strikes the tooth-ridge in a lower position (while being lowered) is characteristic on many speakers of English in the Indian subcontinent, as well as in sub-continental languages like Hindi and Urdu.
- The characteristic French throaty '-r-', common in Paris as well as caricatures of Frenchmen, is a Voiced uvular fricative, shown in IPA as /ʁ/.
