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IPA – number	122
IPA – text	r
IPA – image
Entity	r
X-SAMPA	r
Kirshenbaum	r<trl>
Sound sample (help·info)

The alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages (such as Russian, Spanish, Armenian, and Polish). The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is r, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. It is informally called the rolling R or rolled R.

Contents 1 Features 2 In English 3 In other languages 4 Notes on phonetic transcription 5 Raised alveolar non-sonorant trill 6 Allophones 7 See also

[edit] Features

Features of the alveolar trill:

• Its manner of articulation is trill, which means it is produced by vibrations of the tongue against the place of articulation.
• Its place of articulation is alveolar which means it is articulated with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge.
• Its phonation type is voiced, which means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

[edit] In English

Most dialects of English lack an alveolar trill. The most notable exception is the Scottish dialect. This particular sound is challenging to produce for people who do not have it in their native tongue.

Although not used in day-to-day language, a TV ad campaign in Canada for the Tim Hortons doughnut shop chain brought the sound to prominence with the expression "Roll up the rim to win", which used rolled R's to make the ad campaign more memorable. A similar ad appeared on American television for Ruffles brand potato chips with the slogan, "R-r-ruffles have r-r-ridges."

[edit] In other languages

Alveolar trills are common in Slavic languages like Russian and Polish, as well as Romance languages such as Spanish (which is especially well-known for the trill, written rr, or just r when in the beginning of a word), Catalan, Occitan, and Italian. It also figures prominently in Basque. Standard varieties of French and German, use the uvular trill instead, albeit allophonically. However, the alveolar trill exists in the Southern dialects of both of those languages. The trill is also found in colloquial and standard Arabic where it is represented by the letter ر. All Indo-European languages, including English and French, are believed to originally have featured this sound.

In some languages, e.g. Czech, Slovak and Serbo-Croatian, the alveolar trill can be syllabic [r̩], i.e. it can supply a vowel which forms a nucleus of a syllable as in Czech krk (neck) or Serbo-Croatian rt (cape). Syllabic [r̩] can be long in Slovak (denoted by an acute /ŕ/,) and Serbo-Croatian, e.g. sŕna [sr̩:na] (roe-doe). This feature gives rise to the sentence Czechs sometimes use to jokingly demonstrate to foreigners that Czech lacks vowels: "Strč prst skrz krk." "Stick (the/a) finger through (the/a) neck." The only vowel in the sentence is [r̩]

A voiceless version of this sound, [r̥], occurs in Welsh, and is written as rh, and Breton has retained its alveolar trill. While the trill does occur in some dialects of Scots Gaelic and of Irish, this is mostly a stereotype and the flap is generally more common. It also occurs at the end of a syllable in Icelandic. The voiceless alveolar trill also was most likely allophonic to its voiced counterpart in Ancient Greek.

Some Malayalam speakers pronounce both of their language's rhotics as trills. These people contrast a prealveolar (~ dental) and a postalveolar trill: [r̟] vs. [r̠].

[edit] Notes on phonetic transcription

In English and German dictionaries, the symbol [r] is usually used as a unified symbol for rhotics in those languages, such as the alveolar or retroflex approximant in English (IPA symbols: [ɹ] and [ɻ]) or the uvular trill in German (IPA symbol: [ʀ]).

[edit] Raised alveolar non-sonorant trill

There is a phoneme (different from [r]) which is exclusively used in the Czech language. Its manner of articulation is similar but the tongue is raised, it is partially fricative. It is orthographically represented by the letter <ř>, and in IPA symbols [r̝]. The basic manner of pronunciation is voiced but there is also a voiceless counterpart [r̝˚] which is not an individual phoneme but an allophone. E.g. it is voiceless in the word rybář (fisherman) but it is voiced in rybáři (fishermen).

Unlike [r], it is non-sonorant, i.e. [r̝] cannot be a nucleus of a syllable.

[edit] Allophones

In the majority of Indo-European languages this sound is at least occasionally allophonic with a voiced alveolar tap [ɾ], particularly in unstressed positions. Exceptions to this include Spanish and Albanian, which treat them as separate phonemes.

In Swedish this sound is frequently allophonic with a voiced alveolar approximant [ɹ].

[edit] See also

• List of phonetic topics

Consonants (List, table)	See also: IPA, Vowels
Pulmonics Bilabial Lab'den. Dental Alveolar Postalv. Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn. Epiglottal Glottal Non-pulmonics and other symbols Nasals m ɱ n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ Clicks  ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ Plosives p b • • t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Implo­­sives  ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ ʛ Fricatives ɸ β f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Ejec­­tives  pʼ tʼ kʼ qʼ sʼ Approximants β̞ ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ Other laterals  ɺ ɫ Trills ʙ r • ʀ • Co-articulated approximants  ʍ w ɥ Flaps & Taps ѵ̟ ѵ ɾ ɽ • Co-articulated fricatives  ɕ ʑ ɧ Lat. Fricatives ɬ ɮ • • • Affricates  ʦ ʣ ʧ ʤ Lat. Appr'mants l ɭ ʎ ʟ Co-articulated stops  k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m
This page contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help] Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged impossible.

cs:Alveolární vibranta

de:Stimmhafter alveolarer Vibrant fr:Consonne roulée alvéolaire voisée gd:Coireall còsagail ko:치조 전동음 pt:Vibrante múltipla alveolar ro:Consoană vibrantă alveolară sv:Alveolar tremulant zh:齿龈颤音