A voiceless uvular trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is less common than its voiced counterpart. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a small capital version of the Latin letter r with a ring diacritic indicating voicelessness.

Features Features of a voiceless uvular trill:

Occurrence Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Baïnounk Gubëeher Some speakers 'to go' Word-final allophone of . French Belgian 'sad' Allophone of after voiceless consonants; can be a fricative instead. See French phonologyGerman Standard 'to step' Possible allophone of after voiceless consonants for speakers that realize as a uvular trill . See Standard German phonology Chemnitz dialect 'skirt' In free variation with , , and . Does not occur in the coda. Limburgish Hasselt dialect 'odour' Possible word-final allophone of ; may be alveolar instead.While does not state that explicitly, he uses the symbol for many instances of the word-final . See Hasselt dialect phonology Spanish Ponce dialect 'dog' This and are the primary realizations of in this dialect. See Spanish phonologyCentral and northern Spainojo'eye'This and are the primary realizations of in this dialect.

Fricative trill

Many languages claimed to have a voiceless uvular fricative may actually have a voiceless uvular fricative trill (a simultaneous and ). note that there is "a complication in the case of uvular fricatives in that the shape of the vocal tract may be such that the uvula vibrates."

Although they are not normally differentiated in studies, languages in which they have been (Hebrew, Wolof, as well as the northern and central varieties of European Spanish) have been found to specifically possess the fricative trill. The fricative-trill can be transcribed as (a devoiced and raised uvular trill) in IPA. It is found as either the fortis counterpart of (which itself is voiceless at least in Northern Standard Dutch: ) or the sole dorsal fricative in Northern SD and regional dialects and languages of the Netherlands (Dutch Low Saxon and West Frisian) spoken above the rivers Rhine, Meuse and Waal (sometimes termed the Rotterdam–Nijmegen Line). A plain fricative that is articulated slightly further front, as either medio-velar or post-palatal is typical of dialects spoken south of the rivers (mainly Brabantian and Limburgish but excluding Ripuarian and the dialect of Bergen op Zoom), including Belgian SD. In those dialects, the voiceless uvular fricative trill is one of the possible realizations of the phoneme .. have also found that frication is much more commonly in the velar region in dialects and language varieties with "hard G", though they do not distinguish between trilled and non-trilled fricatives in their study., cited in See Hard and soft G in Dutch for more details.

The frication in the fricative trill variant sometimes occurs at the middle or the back of the soft palate (termed velar or mediovelar and post-velar, respectively), rather than the uvula itself. This is the case in Northern Standard Dutch as well as some varieties of Arabic, Limburgish and Madrid Spanish. It may thus be appropriate to call those variants voiceless (post)velar-uvular fricative trill as the trill component is always uvular (velar trills are not physically possible). The corresponding IPA symbol is (a devoiced, raised and advanced uvular trill, where the "advanced" diacritic applies only to the fricative portion of the sound). Thus, in cases where a dialectal variation between voiceless uvular and velar fricatives is claimed the main difference between the two may be the trilling of the uvula as frication can be velar in both cases - compare Northern Dutch acht 'eight' (with a postvelar-uvular fricative trill) with Southern Dutch or , which features a non-trilled fricative articulated at the middle or front of the soft palate.

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Afrikaans: "White South African English is one of very few varieties to have a velar fricative phoneme (see ), but this is only in words borrowed from Afrikaans (...) and Khoisan (...). Many speakers use the Afrikaans uvular fricative rather than the velar." 'good' Varies between a fricative and a fricative trill when word-initial. See Afrikaans phonology. Arabic 'green' (f.) Fricative trill with velar frication. May be transcribed in IPA with . See Arabic phonology Dutch Standard Northern 'eight' Fricative trill with post-velar frication. May be transcribed in IPA with . See Dutch phonology and Hard and soft G in Dutch Belgian 'bread' Voiced when following a vowel. Realization of varies considerably among dialects. See Dutch phonology English Scouse 'clock' Possible word-final realization of ; varies between a fricative and a fricative trill. neck 'neck' Hebrew / 'king' Usually a fricative trill. See Modern Hebrew phonology. Limburgish Some dialects 'was' Allophone of that has been variously described as occurring in the syllable coda and word-final. May be only partially devoiced; frication may be uvular or post-velar. The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect. See Maastrichtian dialect phonology and Hard and soft G in Dutch Low German Dutch Low Saxon 'eight' Fricative trill with post-velar frication; voiceless counterpart of . May be transcribed in IPA with . See Hard and soft G in Dutch Spanish European 'eye' Fricative trill; frication is velar in Madrid. Occurs in northern and central varieties. Most often, it is transcribed with in IPA. See Spanish phonology. Upper Sorbian 'fault' Fricative trill. West Frisian 'mountain' Fricative trill with post-velar frication; voiceless counterpart of . Never occurs in word-initial positions. May be transcribed in IPA with . See West Frisian phonology Wolof 'grass' Fricative trill.

See also Index of phonetics articles Uvular trill

Notes

References