Talk:R-colored vowel

message: I've never heard the name "schwer" for this sound and suspect it is a neologism. There is already an article r-colored vowel which describes this sound and its near ally . There's no need for separate articles, and neologisms in titles are best avoided. Therefore this should be merged with r-colored vowel. --Angr/ 15:20, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Isn't "schwer" also the word meaning "suffering" in German? Could the Google search be picking that up? --HappyCamper 15:49, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's the word for "heavy" in German, and the Google search is picking up a lot of those. Nevertheless there are a few sites using "schwer" as the name of the r-colored schwa. --Angr/ 16:03, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: schwer.  that's funny.  on a more serious note, how is the claimed "schwer" here different, from a phonological standpoint, from the  as explained previously in the article?  It's not.  So why does it have a separate section?  Better question, tho, why is there no coverage of the fact that ɚ is a convention used to represent both rhotic and non-rhotic prounciations?  In GA,  is actually pronounced , as is , whereas in non-rhotic pronunciations  is pronounced  and  is pronounced . Tomertalk 16:45, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, because it isn't.  is an r-colored schwa, which in American English (but not necessarily in other languages with the sound) can be interpreted as a syllabic allophone of , though not everyone does interpret it that way. Non-rhotic accents of English don't have  or as surface sounds or  or as phonemes. --Angr (tɔk) 17:06, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Using  or  for  or is like representing  as .  Not as a degree of appropriateness, I just mean the relationship between "schwer" and the approximant . AEuSoes1 03:37, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Schwer

message: Most American singers I hear don't use R-coloured vowels in their singing, even though they do in their speech, so I added a counterexample to Celine Dion. I don't have any good reference for this and welcome an improvement, or someone just striking the whole paragraph.
:Perhaps opera. The [æ] sound is another that's discouraged by voice teachers as being cacophonic, and that's probably because Italian is thought of as the language of music, and Italian doen't have [æ]. Or perhaps rhotic vowels were once considered a provincialism compared to prestigeous non-rhotic dialects like RP? kwami 01:43, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, Celine Dion is Canadian, though I don't know if that's really all that important for this article, since a good deal of Canadians speak with the standard American accent. —User:ACupOfCoffee@ 19:41, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's probably also relevant that, conversely, a lot of British pop singers seem to use R-coloured vowels in singing when they wouldn't in speech (although I have no good reference for this beyond Rhotic and non-rhotic accents). —Greg K Nicholson 15:15, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Not just Opera, but traditional singing generally.  De-emphasizing or completely eliding the r sound on the ends of syllables is a standard part of traditional vocal training.  Go to a choir practice sometime.  They also teach you not to hold consonants, such as s.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.210.138.71 (talk) 14:17, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Singers 

message: Isn't one the reasons that the r-colored vowels don't happen, in say, Spanish, is because they roll their r's?
Cameron Nedland 23:08, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In standard Spanish, a single r is tapped once /ɾ/ and a double r (rr) (or a word-initial r) is trilled /r/.  In practice this isn't always the case, but that's not "why" Spanish doesn't have r-colored vowels.  In most pronunciations of American English, the tapped phoneme /ɾ/ occurs quite commonly (as in most Americans' prounciation of words like "ladder" /ˈlæ·ɾɹ̩/) and American English, which pronounces "r" almost exclusively as /ɹ/ and more frequently has r-colored vowels (since most American English speakers speak rhotic dialects) than British and Irish English speakers, yet their [the Brits and Irish] pronunciations also have r-colored vowels (although less frequently, from what I understand).  I assume that the original pronunciation of "r" in English was either /ɾ/ or /r/ and that the pronunciation /ɹ/ is an innovation.  All of this to say that the probably "reason" that Spanish doesn't normally have r-colored vowels is because standard Spanish doesn't have /ɹ/.  I haven't read much about it, but I would guess that Spanish, German and various Slavic languages have palatalized l-colored vowels and that Russian's dark/heavy "l" l-colors vowels as well (albeit not palatally, obviously).  In upper Midwestern AmE, I know I frequently hear l-colored vowels (more like the l-coloring in Brazilian Portuguese, oddly enough) that turns some people's pronunciation, e.g., of "Milwaukee" into what sounds very much like /mo·ˈɑ·ki/ (that's a fun example, although I rather strongly suspect that the former /w/ plays a large role in turning /ɪlʷ/ into /o/).  Tomertalk 03:53, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

text: It's related, but not the cause, so much as another result of the same phonetic phenomenon, namely, that the Spanish r is pronounced with the tongue in a different part of the mouth than the English r.  The English r is much more difficult to trill because of this, but it forms blends more readily, especially when preceding a plosive.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.210.138.71 (talk) 14:20, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Rolled r's  

message: An anon just added "and some dialects of Portuguese" to the end of the first paragraph. I've never heard of r-colored vowels being present in any dialect of Portuguese, and would like verification of the claim before it is returned to the article. --Angr 19:30, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What about the girl here?  Her name's Michelle. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 09:20, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Portuguese 

message: From the image, it seems as though the only difference between regular schwa and r-colored schwa is formant three.  Doesn't formant three indicate lip rounding?  Considering the English rhotic is labialized, it seems as though the image doesn't indicate the R-coloredness of "schwer" just the lip-rounding aspect. That being the case, the image doesn't seem nearly as relevant. AEuSoes1 17:20, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think lip rounding is indicated by a lowered F2, not F3. Angr (talk • contribs) 17:29, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pretty sure that F1 indicates height and F2 indicates backness.  I vaguely recall Ladefoged saying something to that effect in vowels and consonants. AEuSoes1 18:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, F2 indicates backness, but it also indicates rounding. The F2s of  and  are very close. Angr (talk • contribs) 19:30, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Does this mean that languages that distinguish between  and  are rare if not nonexistant?  If F3 doesn't indicate rounding, what does it indicate? AEuSoes1 21:15, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it does mean that such languages are rare (though I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few). I really don't know what else F3 indicates besides rhotacization (and I don't know what F4 indicates at all), and I've taught a class in acoustic phonetics myself! Angr (talk • contribs) 05:21, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some Bostonians pronounce "certain" as [sʏtn̩], which is does not rhyme, I'm pretty sure, with "bitten".--Atemperman (talk) 05:02, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: D'oh, of course they don't.  Somehow I thought I was going to be contrasting [ʏ] with [].--Atemperman (talk) 05:06, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Formant 3

message: Both American Heritage and MW give pronunciations of apparatus with the r being [ɹ] at the beginning of the third syllable.--Atemperman 17:58, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apparatus 

message: Do it.  They cover the same ground.Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 22:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm a bit unsure. The material currently at Vocalic r does seem to refer to R-coloring. However, I thought a vocalic r was a syllabic consonant, like the Czech "vowel" r... FilipeS 15:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, that's true.  There's no mention of that on the page.  There's some muddy water between the two (i.e. some R-colored vowels can be considered manifestations of vocalic r).  I would suggest that, if we want to mention the syllabic /r/ (such as in a number of Slavic languages) that we could merge the two pages under the title "vocalic r" (i.e. merging r-colored vowel to vocalic r rather than the other way around) and describe both the rhotic vowels and the syllabic /r/ in different sections.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 01:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm thinking it might be better to do a conservative edit: move the text that is currently at 'Vocalic r' here, but turn the other article into a redirect to Syllabic consonant. FilipeS 16:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay.  That does sound better.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 23:31, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

text: The problem is that it's talking about an English language phenomenon, which is pretty much always an r-colored vowel.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 23:05, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Changed my mind again about 'Vocalic r'. Since it seems it's used as a synonym of an r-colored vowel in some contexts, I thought it was best to redirect it to this article. FilipeS 17:43, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge proposal with 'Vocalic r'

message: It seems as though the Sanskrit ऋ (and its longer equivalent ॠ) deserve to be mentioned here:  they are mentioned as vowel sounds ("containing [consonantal] r") by the ancient grammarians, and they are usually thought to have been pronounced as the vocalic retroflex approximant in ancient times.  (Today they are usually pronounced "ri" as a result of changes in Hindi and other Indian languages). Grover cleveland 16:14, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, but it sounds like it would be something that is a vocalic r but not an r-colored vowel.  Maybe we should rename the article to "vocalic r."  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 16:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Sanskrit ऋ 

message: The Oxford Dictionary ©2008 appears to be specific about the rhotic applying to Midwestern American English rather than general American English. They further provide the examples, e.g., Midwestern American English, in which r is pronounced before a consonant (as in hard) and at the ends of words (as in far).
I'm not religious about this, but offer this information in case some of you are.
regards, --UnicornTapestry (talk) 04:08, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oxford and Midwestern English 

message: If the Sanskrit vowel ऋ corresponds to a PIE vowel, then how can it be retroflex? Weren't retroflex sounds in Indo-Aryan a result of Dravidian influence? GSMR (talk) 04:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Dravidian influenced how Indo-Aryan developed.  The retroflexes in Sanskrit aren't simply the result of borrowing.  — Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 05:27, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Aha! I knew it! According to Kurgan proponents retroflex consonants in Indo-Aryan are a telltale sign that India was not the Urheimat!  But apparently retroflex consonants can develop independently as they do with other Indo-Iranian languages (like Pashto).  Oh, what science... GSMR (talk) 18:53, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradiction in Sanskrit ऋ section 

message: Are r-colored vowels only found in American English, or in other rhotic varieties of English as well (e.g. West Country, Scots)?  (Although presumably they would be r-coloured;) ) Iapetus (talk) 11:23, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, they're found all over.  Phonetically, many non-rhotic dialects of Southern England also feature r-colo(u)red vowels in statements like the fur is here. — Æµ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 15:05, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Just American, or other rhotic varieties of Engilsh as well? 

message: The sections "In singing", "In Mandarin Chinese" and "In Quebec French" need source citations.Lisapaloma (talk) 13:41, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations needed 

message: I dimly recall from past reading that in General American there is r-coloring in words like "fear" and "bear", though there is no mention of it in this article. 
I thought that "fear" is between /fɪr/ and /fir/ for many Americans (though  /fɪr/ or /fir/ for others), and that this in-between sound never appears except before /r/. 
And I thought that "bear" is between /bɛr/ and /ber/ for many Americans (though /bɛr/ or /ber/ for others), and that again this in-between sound never appears except before /r/.
Am I just remembering wrong here? Duoduoduo (talk) 16:56, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Fear" and "bear" 

message: I propose that this article be renamed to Rhotic vowel, which currently redirects to this page. The primary reasoning is for consistency across article titles. As the article for R-like consonants is named Rhotic consonant, it would make since for R-like vowels to likewise be named Rhotic Vowel. This also would stay consistent with other article titles such as Nasal vowel. Zombiedude347 (talk) 02:08, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rename to Rhotic Vowel 

message: would this make /ɹ/ a semivowel?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Livakno (talk • contribs) 12:40, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. An approximant is a non-syllabic vocoid. There being a syllabic counterpart in the same phonological system allows you to consider it a semivowel. Nardog (talk) 20:23, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  R-colored vowels are funky 

message: I would like to learn the origin of the term name. Why is it called "colored" when it has nothing to do with colors? Wolf O'Donnel (talk) 04:18, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Term name