Talk:Guttural R

message: It's unfair to say Gandalf's trilled r is unfaithful, as tolkien merely says that uvular vs alveolar R is more a manner of the race of the person speaking it, rather than the language being spoken. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.189.165.18 (talk • contribs) 11:55, 22 July 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You raise a good point.  I'll try to change the wording of the paragraph, or consider its removal. - Gilgamesh 11:15, 22 July 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unfaithfulness of Jackson's movie 

message: It would be nice to have some sound files containing examples of the uvular R ... --zeno 15:08, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Examples 

message: A user in :Category talk:Uvular R pointed out that one of the guttural Rs (in Brazilian Portuguese) isn't even uvular.  Would it be better to rename this to Guttural R? - Gilgamesh 01:16, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Renaming? 

message: why not rename "rhotic"? peace — ishwar  (SPEAK) 17:56, 2005 Jun 9 (UTC)
:Do you mean rhotic r, ish? Personally, I think it might be a good idea to summarize this information in the article rhotic consonant.
:Peter Isotalo July 3, 2005 19:39 (UTC)
::I think there are two issues here. Phonetically "gutteral" is too imprecise to be a useful term. However, the 'guttural R' is a sociolinguistic phenomenon, and here it is the very imprecision of the word that is so useful: the precise phonetics don't matter, it's the throaty quality that people have in mind when they speak of this. I don't know of any other good word in English. "Whirr" is used for crickets and treefrogs as well as people, so it's not appropriate. "Rhotic" as a phonological term also covers coronal trills, flaps, and approximants, which aren't the point of this article. 
::Speech registers of various languages are distinguished by the gutteral ar, and therefore a separate article on this subject will be useful for linking from other articles if for nothing else. I came to this article for just that reason: Zamenhof only used a few Slavic words in Esperanto, less than two dozen, but one of the words he thought important enough to bring in was kartavi "to pronounce the letter <r> in the throat" (my translation from the SAT dictionary of 1934). 
::However, I agree that the phrase "pseudo-ar" is a poor choice. Better to explain that the Inuit sound, while phonetically similar to the gutteral ar, is completely distinct sociolinguistically, and should not be considered a rhotic at all. It's only due to the influence of Danish orthography that the letter R was chosen for it. kwami 00:19, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: rhotic ?

message: I dont like this category at all. The category Guttural R is NOT a list of languages alone. Therefore it should be removed, or (even better) deleted. -- 84.174.83.186 10:53, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Category is wrong

message: as in dutch, german and german dialects including swiss german dialects have both (or in the case of dutch SEVERAL) types of /r/ (or (r)?), for example, in Basel and St. Gallen [R] is more common, whereas in Chur and Zurich [r] is usually heard (not universally though, at least in Zuerich). the account of [R] and [r] in Germanic seems rather doubtful to me. it is even controversial which type of /r/ was used in (Proto-)Germanic. 
Wathiik 11:46, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [R] and [r]

message: The section on French has the following remark:
:The nearby Breton language in Brittany, which is a Celtic language rather than a Romance language, but is heavily influenced by French, retains an alveolar trill in some dialects.
This is rather cryptic, but suggests that the uvular R is also used in other dialects of Breton. Why not expand on that?... FilipeS 10:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't get your problem. To paraphrase: Breton originally only used an alveolar trill, just like apparently all European languages prior to the 18th century (as far as they had a rhotic consonant, but I don't know any who used not to) used an alveolar rhotic. Under heavy influence by French, the uvular pronunciation was introduced, but some dialects retain the original pronunciation as an alveolar trill. That's all it says, and I don't see how that isn't clear from the paragraph. It's not cryptic, it's totally plain. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:42, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Why not a separate section for Breton?

message: I think that this article should be renamed to Guttural rhotic.  This is an article that describes rhotic consonants as they are phonetically, and simply by its scope is very little orthography-oriented.  Naturally, a search for and link to Guttural R will be directed to this page still.  Anyone oppose? Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 22:28, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Rename

message: This article has been tagged for lacking citation for more than half a year! Where are the unsourced statements? A cleanup is required NOW.--Fitzwilliam 05:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, before the publication date comes upon us.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 13:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Citation

message: it was claimed that Fez speech uses a uvular R.  this is definitely wrong; i spent a couple months learning moroccan arabic in Fez and it has no such sound.  linguistic accounts of Moroccan Arabic claim the following: that there are two /r/ phonemes, "pharyngeal" and "non-pharyngeal", where the "pharyngeal r" is historically due to /r/ when not preceded or followed by /i/; however, nowadays they almost never alternate (unlike the similar situation in Egyptian, for example), with one or the other having been generalized to all words derived from a particular root, except in a few remnant cases.  Richard Harrell's dictionary, and his grammar, and Jeffrey Heath's book "Ablaut and Ambiguity" are all in agreement about this.  "Ablaut and Ambiguity" also claims that the two sounds are clearly distinguishable (without saying what they sound like), and also claims to be based mostly on the speech around Fez.  i assume that this must describe a former situation, c. 30 years ago or so or whenever Heath did his research.  it definitely didn't apply in the speech of any Moroccans i encountered, and i asked a number of them to pronounce some relevant words -- this includes the 70-year-old guy who taught me Moroccan dialect.  the current situation is apparently that both /r/'s sound the same (alveolar tap/trill), but are distinguishable by their effects on neighboring vowels. Benwing (talk) 03:39, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  arabic mistake 

message: Took out this section:
:Guttural R exists as a pronunciation of the written character Ğ in some, especially East Anatolian dialects of Turkish of Turkey (and in neighbouring Azerbaijani). However, the sound is not an allophone of true, alveolar R sounds in any Turkish language . The pronunciation of the sound is softer than French guttural R (always voiced).
which seemingly refers to a a plain ol' voiced uvular fricative; and even in case it is a trill, it's stressed even in this write-up that it's nothing to do with /r/. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 10:03, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Turkish 

message: The assertion that that the /rr/ in "carro" is normally pronounced as h, x or χ is simply wrong. To the extent that such pronunciations exist at all, they are restricted to certain regions and, by and large, to uneducated speakers, and thus fall far short of being considered standard. As a matter of fact, they sound rather odd to most native speakers and would hardly ever be encountered in the media. Without conducting a scientific survey, I would say that x and χ for initial /r/ and intervocalic /rr/ are restricted to poorly educated speakers from the city of Rio de Janeiro and its surroundings, while the media and all reasonably educated speakers there are actually notorious for their use of [ʁ]. Analogously, [h] confines itself largely to the Centro Oeste, an expansive but sparsely populated region, and, again, to uneducated speakers.
Wfgiuliano (talk) 02:26, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I clearly remember how (decades ago) on shortwave the female voice pronounced "Radio Nacional do Brasil"! The "R" in "radio" was neither [r] nor [ɾ] nor [ʁ] nor [ʀ], but undoubtedly [x] or maybe [χ]. - So I do not believe, this pronunciation is characteristic of uneducated speakers. 88.68.82.23 (talk) 20:36, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Brazilian Portuguese

message: The article claims that Frisian languages are surrounded by languages using the uvular r. As this claim is lacking a source and as I cannot confirm it from my own experience, I would like to delete it. Unoffensive text or character (talk) 11:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Continental West Germanic 

message: Eh?  Who calls it "throaty R"?  Sounds like an ad-hoc description rather than an accepted term.  If there's no source to show it actually exists it should be deleted. Flapdragon (talk) 12:21, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Throaty R"? 

message: I may simply have overlooked it, but I cannot find the claim about the uvular r in Bergen being introduced through contact with the Hanseatic League supported anywhere.
The uvular r seems to date back to the late 19th century in Bergen. A time when the Hanseatic League had long ceased to be of any importance.
Unoffensive text or character (talk) 15:50, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point, although Bergensk says that the Low German merchants were present in the city until 1750 and the uvular trill was already acquired in the 18th century, but as far as I'm aware, the uvular trill spread in Central German first and Low German, especially more remote dialects, partly retains the alveolar pronunciation until the present day, and the Bergen dialect certainly was relatively isolated as well. From Bergensk, it seems that the feature was actually acquired from Danish, just like elsewhere in Norway, although it is conceivable that the influence from German in the 19th century supported the tendency towards a uvular pronunciation. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:56, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bergen, Norway 

message: As it stands the section on Yiddish reads, “The upper/lower distinction also historically influenced the development of upper and lower dialects of Yiddish, the historic vernacular language of Ashkenazi Jews. As these Jews migrated to Eastern Europe (and later America etc.), they brought their particular pronunciations with them.” This “upper/lower distinction” is not defined in the article. Does upper/lower mean place of articulation? Or the part of Germany where dialects or subdialects originated? When you are talking about migrations, it would be helpful to indicate, at least broadly, where the different regional allophones were used at the time of the destruction of the Yiddish cultural area ~1942. — Solo Owl (talk) 17:39, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I immediately understood it in a sociolinguistic sense, i. e., that the uvular trill was only used in formal (acrolectal) registers of Yiddish. But you are correct that it is not altogether clear if it does not perhaps refer to Yiddish dialect regions, or perhaps German dialect regions, but it wouldn't make a lot of sense to me. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 10:22, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Yiddish

message: On the rhotic/non-rhotic R article Tyneside is given as having this sort of R yet on the map here it is not coloured. Should it not be?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.6.183.81 (talk) 23:20, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The map is from a specific source that doesn't talk about English.  Including Tyneside might be a little too WP:OR.  — Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi] 01:02, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: If I remember correctly, the map was first published in the eighties. It is outdated and some of its details are incorrect (eg. use of uvular/alveolar r is not a social marker in German, as the caption implies). But it is the best map I know - in fact the only one. However, Tyneside speech, if I am not completely mistaken, has given up the burr long ago.  Unoffensive text or character (talk) 14:50, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: We don't use a burr in the north east anymore but we do use a very gutteral French style R.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.216.117.92 (talk) 12:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Huh? Northumbrian Burr means exactly that, a guttural R like in French. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:36, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: North east

message: The map on this page is outdated as it stands now, for example guttural r is and has for centuries been widespread throughout the south-west coast between Bergen and Kristiansand, plus a little farther north and south-east of those cities in recent times, this is especially along the coast of Norway, since guttural r has and is spreading rapidly and has gained a foothold in these areas for many years. --OnWikiNo (talk) 23:27, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes! Totally agree (see also below) Boeing720 (talk) 23:15, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Lack of widespread areas

message: Although the Dutch dialects often uses R in combination with other consonant sounds, would I say that the map ought to include all areas in the Netherlands and Belgium in one of the blue colours. How is "R" elsewise pronounced in the Dutch dialects ? It isn't like England-English nor as in Scotland or like in Slavic languages nor as in for instance Spanish or Italian. The same also applies to a larger area of southern Sweden, not just Scania. And on the "Norwegian Head" (where Norway is wider, in the south) should it cover more than just the Bergen area, most of the southern west-coast and about half the width of those parts of Norway. Boeing720 (talk) 23:14, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The maps are very interesting, however I liked the older one more because it detailed where the uvular pronunciations were more or less likely to be used. For example, it is very widely known and even a shibboleth for south French people to have an alveolar pronunciation rather than a uvular one. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 17:06, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dutch dialects, southern Sweden and western Norway (in the south) 

message: The article needs audio for both:
* comparison of guttural sounds
* comparison of rhotic sounds
Multiple speakers would be best: older, younger, high-voiced female, low-voiced male, people with relatively obstructed airways (snorers), people with relatively unobstructed airways, etc.
97.104.70.92 (talk) 01:38, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I have added some samples but I cannot write IPA for them. --Error (talk) 10:54, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  need audio 

message: In the subsection "Spanish," please specify what uvular pronunciation of R is referred to in the last sentence. —Jencie Nasino (talk) 02:50, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification needed 

message: We have nothing on the general question of how a very front consonant (alveolar) can suddenly change into a very back consonant (uvular). I would be very grateful for such information, but I also want to put forward my own theory, which is that it may arise through coarticulartion (that is, velarisation, uvularisation, or pharyngealisation). Some Arabic dialects have such a sound and it is very difficult at times to dinstinguish it from an actual guttural R. Listen to the Moroccan Arabic word  here, which sounds almost like . This would be the same as alveolar  changing to velar  via coarticulation as e.g. in Polish, Portuguese, some English accents, and – importantly – historically in French. 2.244.2.9 (talk) 01:03, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Theory on development