R-colored vowel
| R-colored vowel | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ◌˞ | |||
| ɚ | |||
| ɝ | |||
| IPA number | 322 + 419 | ||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) | ˞ |
||
| Unicode (hex) | U+02DE | ||
| X-SAMPA | @` |
||
| Kirshenbaum | R |
||
|
|||
| Sound | |||
|
|
|||
.svg)
In phonetics, an r-colored or rhotic vowel (also called a retroflex vowel, vocalic r, or a rhotacized vowel) is a vowel that is modified in a way that results in a lowering in frequency of the third formant. R-colored vowels can be articulated in various ways: the tip or blade of the tongue may be turned up during at least part of the articulation of the vowel (a retroflex articulation) or the back of the tongue may be bunched. In addition, the vocal tract may often be constricted in the region of the epiglottis.
R-colored vowels are rare, occurring in less than one percent of the languages of the world. However, they occur in two of the most widely spoken languages: North American English and Mandarin Chinese. In North American English, they are found in words such as butter, nurse and, for some speakers, start. They also occur in Quebec French, in some varieties of Brazilian Portuguese and some Jutlandic dialects of Danish.
In the IPA, an r-colored vowel is indicated by a hook diacritic ( ˞) placed to the right of the regular symbol for the vowel. For example, the IPA symbol for schwa is ə, while the IPA symbol for an r-colored schwa is ə˞. This diacritic is the hook of ɚ, a symbol constructed by John Samuel Kenyon along with ᶔ by adding the retroflex hook (right hook) to ə and ɜ. Both ɚ and ɝ were proposed as IPA symbols by editors of the American Speech in 1939 to distinguish it from əɹ.
...
Wikipedia