Uvular approximant
| Voiced uvular fricative | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ʁ | |||
| ʁ̝ | |||
| IPA number | 143 | ||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) | ʁ |
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| Unicode (hex) | U+0281 | ||
| X-SAMPA | R |
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| Kirshenbaum | g" |
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| Braille |
 
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| Sound | |||
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.svg)
| Voiced uvular approximant | |
|---|---|
| ʁ | |
| ʁ̞ |
The voiced uvular fricative or approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʁ⟩, an inverted small uppercase letter ⟨ʀ⟩, or in broad transcription ⟨ɣ⟩ or (if rhotic) ⟨r⟩. This consonant is one of several collectively called guttural R when found in European languages.
Because the IPA symbol stands for both the uvular fricative and the uvular approximant, the fricative nature of this sound may be specified by adding the uptack to the letter: ⟨ʁ̝⟩. The approximant can be specified by adding the downtack: ⟨ʁ̞⟩, though some writings use a superscript ⟨ʶ⟩, which is not an official IPA practice.
For a voiced pre-uvular fricative (also called post-velar), see voiced velar fricative.
Features of the voiced uvular fricative:
In Western Europe, a uvular trill pronunciation of rhotic consonants spread from northern French to several dialects and registers of Basque,Catalan, Danish, Dutch, German, Hebrew, Judaeo-Spanish, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Swedish, and Yiddish. However, not all of these remain a uvular trill today. In Brazilian Portuguese, it is usually a velar fricative ([x], [ɣ]), voiceless uvular fricative [χ], or glottal transition ([h], [ɦ]), except in southern Brazil and Rio de Janeiro, where alveolar, velar and uvular trills and the voiced uvular fricative predominate. Because such uvular rhotics often do not contrast with alveolar ones, IPA transcriptions may often use ⟨r⟩ to represent them for ease of typesetting. For more information, see guttural R.
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