Guttural R
Guttural R is the phenomenon whereby a rhotic consonant is produced in the back of the vocal tract rather than in the front portion thereof and thus as a guttural consonant. Speakers of languages with guttural R typically regard guttural and coronal rhotics to be alternative pronunciations of the same phoneme, despite articulatory differences. Similar consonants are found in other parts of the world, but they often have little to no cultural association or interchangeability with coronal rhotics and are not rhotics at all.
The guttural realization of a lone rhotic consonant is typical in most of what is now France, French-speaking Belgium, most of Germany, large parts of the Netherlands, Denmark, the southern parts of Sweden and southwestern parts of Norway. It is also frequent in Flanders, eastern Austria, Yiddish, Luxembourgish, and among all French and some German speakers in Switzerland.
Outside of central Europe, it also occurs as the normal pronunciation of one of two rhotic phonemes in standard European Portuguese and in other parts of Portugal, particularly the Azores, various parts of Brazil, among minorities of other Portuguese-speaking regions, and in parts of Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
Germanic languages
The uvular rhotic is most common in Central German dialects and in Standard German. Many Low Franconian, Low Saxon, and Upper German varieties have also adopted it with others maintaining the alveolar trill. The development of uvular rhotics in these regions is not entirely understood, but a common theory is that these languages have done so because of French influence, though the reason for uvular rhotics in modern European French itself is not well understood. The Frisian languages usually retain an alveolar rhotic.Danish
The rhotic used in Denmark is a voiced uvular approximant, being predominant to all varieties. The use of this guttural r possibly influenced over neighbouring Swedish and Norwegian languages.Dutch and Afrikaans
In modern Dutch, quite a few different rhotic sounds are used. In Flanders, the usual rhotic is an alveolar trill, but the uvular rhotic does occur, mostly in the province of Limburg, in Ghent and in Brussels. In the Netherlands, the uvular rhotic is the dominant rhotic in the southern provinces of North Brabant and Limburg, having become so in the early twentieth century. In the rest of the country, the situation is more complicated. The uvular rhotic is dominant in the western agglomeration Randstad, including cities like Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. The uvular rhotic is also used in some major cities such as Leeuwarden. Outside of these uvular rhotic core areas, the alveolar trill is common.The Afrikaans language of South Africa also uses an alveolar trill for its rhotic, except in the rural regions around Cape Town, chiefly in the town of Malmesbury, Western Cape, where it is uvular. Some Afrikaans speakers from other areas also bry, either as a result of ancestry from the Malmesbury region or from difficulty pronouncing the alveolar trill.
English
Speakers of the traditional English dialect of Northumberland and northern County Durham use a uvular rhotic, known as the "Northumbrian Burr". However, it is no longer used by most contemporary speakers, who generally realize as an alveolar approximant,, in common with other varieties spoken in the English-speaking world.The Hiberno-English of northeastern Leinster in Ireland also uses a uvular.
Icelandic
In Icelandic, the uvular rhotic-like or is an uncommon deviation from the normal alveolar trill or flap, and is considered a speech disorder.Low Saxon
In the Dutch Low Saxon area there are several cities which have the uvular rhotic: Zutphen, Steenwijk, Kampen, Zwolle and Deventer. In IJsselmuiden near Kampen the uvular r can also be heard. In the countryside the alveolar trill is common.Norwegian
Most of Norway uses an alveolar flap, but about one third of the inhabitants of Norway, primarily in the South-West region, are now using the uvular rhotic. In the western and southern part of South Norway, the uvular rhotic is still spreading and includes all towns and coastal areas of Agder, most of Rogaland, large parts of Hordaland, and Sogn og Fjordane in and around Florø. The origin was the city of Bergen as well as Kristiansand in the 18th century. Because retroflex consonants are mutations of and other alveolar or dental consonants, the use of a uvular rhotic means an absence of most retroflex consonants.Standard German
Although the first standardized pronunciation dictionary by Theodor Siebs prescribed an alveolar pronunciation, most varieties of German are now spoken with a uvular rhotic, usually a fricative or approximant, rather than a trill. The alveolar pronunciation continues to be considered acceptable in all Standard German varieties, but is most common in the south as well as the far North of German-speaking Europe. It also remains prevalent in classical singing and, to a lesser degree, in stage acting.In German dialects, the alveolar has survived somewhat more widely than in the standard language, though there are several regions, especially in Central German, where even the broadest rural dialects use a uvular R.
Regardless of whether a uvular or an alveolar pronunciation is used, German post-vocalic "r" is often vocalized to,, or a simple lengthening. This is most common in the syllable coda, as in non-rhotic English, but sometimes occurs before an underlying schwa, too. Vocalization of "r" is rare only in Alemannic and Swabian German.
Swedish
The nearby Swedish ex-Danish regions of Scania, Blekinge, southern Halland as well as a large part of Småland and on the Öland island, use a uvular trill or a uvular fricative. To some extent in Östergötland and still quite commonly in Västergötland, a mixture of guttural and rolling rhotic consonants is used, with the pronunciation depending on the position in the word, the stress of the syllable and in some varieties depending on whether the consonant is geminated. The pronunciation remains if a word that is pronounced with a particular rhotic consonant is put into a compound word in a position where that realization would not otherwise occur if it were part of the same stem as the preceding sound. However, in Östergötland the pronunciation tends to gravitate more towards and in Västergötland the realization is commonly voiced.Common from the time of Gustav III, who was much inspired by French culture and language, was the use of guttural R in the nobility and in the upper classes of Stockholm. This phenomenon vanished in the 1900s. The last well-known non-Southerner who spoke with a guttural R, and did not have a speech defect, was Anders Gernandt, a popular equitation commentator on TV.
Yiddish
, the traditional language of Ashkenazi Jews in central and eastern Europe, is derived from Middle High German. As such it presumably used the alveolar R at first, but the uvular R then became predominant in many Yiddish dialects. It is unclear whether this happened through independent developments or under influence from modern German.Romance languages
Catalan
Most of Catalan dialects pronounce r like in Spanish, distinguishing between strong and soft r. However, in Roussillon, the Uvular is widespread among its speakers, due to influence from neighbouring French.French
The letter R in French was historically pronounced as a trill, as was the case in Latin and as is still the case in Italian and Spanish. In Northern France, including Paris, the alveolar trill was gradually replaced with the uvular trill from the end of the 17th century. Molière's Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, published in 1670, has a professor describe the sound of as an alveolar trill. It has since evolved, in Paris, to a voiced uvular fricative or approximant.The alveolar trill was still the common sound of in Southern France and in Quebec at the beginning of the 20th century, having been gradually replaced since then, due to Parisian influence, by the uvular pronunciation. The alveolar trill is now mostly associated, even in Southern France and in Quebec, with older speakers and rural settings. The alveolar trill is still used in French singing in classical choral and opera. It is also used in other French speaking countries as well as on French oversea territories such as French Polynesia due to the influence of the indigenous languages which use the trill.
Italian
Guttural realization of is mostly considered a speech defect in Italian, but the so-called r moscia, which is sometimes uvular, is quite common in areas of Northwest Italy, i.e. Aosta Valley, Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna.Occitan
Originally, most of Occitan varieties pronounced r like in Catalan and Spanish, distinguishing between strong and soft r, still pronounced so in Aran Valley, Spain. Nowadays, due to French influence, the uvular trill and the voiced uvular fricative or approximant are common in several Occitan dialects.Portuguese
In Portugal
Standard varieties of Portuguese have two rhotic phonemes, which contrast only between vowels. In older Portuguese, these were the alveolar flap and the alveolar trill . In other positions, only is written in Modern Portuguese, but it can stand for either sound, depending on the exact position. The distribution of these sounds is mostly the same as in other Iberian languages, i.e.:- represents a trill when written between vowels; at the beginning of a word; or following,,, or. Examples: carro, rua, Isr'ael, honrar. Note that does not represent, but a nasalized vowel.
- represents a flap elsewhere, i.e. following a vowel or following any consonant other than,, or. Examples: caro, quatro, quarto, ma'r.
A common realization of the word-initial in the Lisbon accent is a voiced uvular fricative trill.
The dialect of the fishermen of Setúbal used the voiced uvular fricative for all instances of "r" – word start, intervocalic, postconsonantal and syllable ending. This same pronunciation is attested in people with rhotacism, in a new developing variety of young people in São Tomean Portuguese, and in non-native speakers of French or German origin.