Voiced uvular tap and flap

In the context of phonetics, a voiced uvular tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. There is no dedicated symbol for this sound in the IPA. It can specified by adding a 'short' diacritic to the letter for the uvular plosive, ⟨ɢ̆⟩, but normally it is covered by the unmodified letter for the uvular trill, ⟨ʀ⟩,^[1] since the two have never been reported to contrast, the uvular tap or flap is not known to exist as a phoneme in any language.

Voiced uvular tap or flap
ɢ̆
ʀ̆
IPA number	112 505
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɢ​̆
Unicode (hex)	U+0262 U+0306
Image

Commonly, it is said to vary with the much more frequent uvular trill, and is most likely a single-contact trill [ʀ̆] rather than an actual tap or flap [ɢ̆] in these languages.

Features

Features of a voiced uvular tap or flap:

• Its manner of articulation is tap or flap, which means it is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator (usually the tongue) is thrown against another.
• Its place of articulation is uvular, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) at the uvula.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Dutch[2]		rood	[ʀ̆oːt]	'red'	More common than a uvular trill.[3] Realization of /r/ varies considerably among dialects. See Dutch phonology
English	Northumbrian	red	[ɢ̆ɛd]	'red'	Tap,[4][5] or also a tapped fricative,[6] most usually a plain fricative. See Northumbrian burr
German	Standard[7]	Ehre	[ˈʔeːʀ̆ə]	'honor'	Common intervocalic realization of uvular trill.[7] See Standard German phonology
Hiu[8]		[βɔ̞ʀ̆]		'hibiscus'
Ibibio[9]		ufʌkọ	[úfʌ̟̀ɢ̆ɔ̞]	'summary'	Intervocalic allophone of /k/; may be a velar approximant [ɰ] instead.[9]
Limburgish	Hasselt dialect[10]	weuren	[ˈβ̞øːʀ̆ən]	'(they) were'	Possible intervocalic allophone of /r/; may be alveolar [ɾ] instead.[10] See Hasselt dialect phonology
Okanagan	Southern[11]	ʕaləp	[ɢ̆àlə́p]	'lose'	Allophone of /ʕ/; corresponds to [ʕ] in other dialects.[11]
Supyire[12]		tadugugo	[taduɢ̆uɢ̆o]	'place to go up'	May be in free variation [ɡ].[12]
Wahgi[13]		[example needed]			Allophone of /ʟ̝/.[13]
Yiddish	Standard[14]	בריק	[bʀ̆ɪk]	'bridge'	Less commonly a trill [ʀ]; can be alveolar [ɾ ~ r] instead.[14] See Yiddish phonology