Voiced alveolar approximant

A voiced alveolar approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents it is ⟨ɹ⟩, a lowercase letter r rotated 180 degrees.

Voiced alveolar approximant
ɹ
IPA number	151
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɹ
Unicode (hex)	U+0279
X-SAMPA	r\
Braille
Image

Features

A schematic mid-sagittal section of an articulation of a voiced alveolar approximant [ɹ].

Features of a voiced alveolar approximant:

• Its manner of articulation is approximant, which means it is produced by narrowing the vocal tract at the place of articulation, but not enough to produce a turbulent airstream.
• Its place of articulation is alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
• 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

Alveolar

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Albanian	unknown	gjelbër	[ˈɟʑɛlbəɹ]	'green'
Armenian	Classical	սուրճ	[suɹtʃ]	'coffee'
Assamese		ৰঙা (rônga)	[ɹɔŋa]	'red'
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic	Alqosh dialect	ܪܒ	[ɹɑbɑ]	'many'	Corresponds to /ɾ/ in most other Assyrian dialects.
	Tyari dialect
Bengali[1]		আবার	[abaɹ]	'again'	Phonetic realisation of /r/, especially in some Eastern Dialects and sometimes in conjunct before consonants. Corresponds to [r ~ ɾ] in others. See Bengali phonology
Burmese[2][3]		ပရိဘောဂ	[pəɹḭbɔ́ɡa̰]	'furniture'	Occurs only in loanwords, mostly from Pali or English.
Chukchi[citation needed]		ңирэк	[ŋiɹek]	'two'
Dutch	Central Netherlandic	door	[doːɹ]	'through'	Allophone of /r/ in the syllable coda for some speakers. See Dutch phonology.
	Western Netherlandic
	Leiden	rat	[ɹat]	'rat'	Corresponds to /r/ in other dialects.
Faroese		róður	[ɹɔuwʊɹ]	'rudder'	See Faroese phonology.
German	Moselle Franconian (Siegerland[4] and Westerwald[5] dialects)	Rebe	[ˈɹeːbə]	'vine'	Most other dialects use a voiced uvular fricative [ʁ], a uvular trill [ʀ] or an alveolar trill [r]. See Standard German phonology.
	Silesian
	Upper Lusatian
Greek[6]		μέρα/méra	[ˈmɛɹɐ]	'day'	Allophone of /ɾ/ in rapid or casual speech and between vowels. See Modern Greek phonology.
Persian		فارسی	[fɒːɹˈsiː]	'Persian'	Allophone of /ɾ/ before /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, and /l/. See Persian phonology.
Portuguese	Multiple Brazilian dialects, mostly inland Centro-Sul[7]	amor	[aˈmoɹˠ]	'love'	Allophone of /ɾ ~ ʁ/ in the syllable coda. Velarized, may also be retroflex, post-alveolar and/or a rhotic vowel. See Portuguese phonology.
Spanish	Andalusian[8]	doscientos	[do̞(ɹ)ˈθje̞n̪t̪o̞s]	'two hundred'	Allophone of /s/ before [θ]. See Spanish phonology.
	Belizean	invierno	[imˈbjeɹno]	'winter'	Possible realization of /r/ in the syllable coda due to English influence.
	Caribbean Colombian
	Puerto Rican
	Costa Rican[9]	carro	[ˈkaɹo]	'car'	Allophone of /r/, and of /ɾ/ before /l/. See Costa Rican Spanish.
Swedish	Central Standard[10]	område	[ˌɔ̝mː˦˥˩ˈɹʊə̯˩˥˧d̪ɛ̠ɛ̠̊˧˩˨]ⓘ	'domain'	Allophone of /r/. Some speakers have [ɾ] ([r] when geminated) in all positions. See Swedish phonology.
Tagalog		parang	[paɹaŋ]	'like-'	Allophone of the more usual and traditional flap or trill [ɾ ~ r] and is sometimes thus pronounced by some younger speakers due to exposure to mainstream English.
Turkish	Marmara Region	artık	[aɹtɯk]	'excess, surplus'	Occurs as an allophone of [ɾ] in syllable coda, in free variation with post-alveolar [ɹ̠]. See Turkish phonology.
Vietnamese	Saigon[11]	ra	[ɹa]	'go out'	In free variation with [ɾ], [r] and [ʐ]. See Vietnamese phonology.
Zapotec	Tilquiapan[12]	rdɨ	[ɹd̪ɨ]	'pass'	Allophone of /ɾ/ before consonants.

Laminal alveolar

Voiced laminal alveolar approximant
z̞
ð̠˕

Some languages have a voiced (post)alveolar approximant that is acoustically distinct from a typical [ɹ], which has variously been described as being '[z]-like'^[13] or 'non-rhotic'.^[14] Some authors have reported the distinction as one of articulation, with the formerly mentioned sound being classified as laminal, while a typical [ɹ] is distinguished as apical.^[15] The International Phonetic Alphabet has no symbol to represent this sound, but possible transcriptions with diacritics include ⟨z̞⟩ and ⟨ð̠˕⟩, both of which have been used in literature. Several symbols have been proposed to represent this sound, but none have become widely accepted.

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Danish	Standard[16][17][18]	ved	[ve̝ð̠˕ˠ]	'at'	Velarized; allophone of /d/ in the syllable coda.[16][17][18] For a minority of speakers, it may be a non-sibilant fricative instead.[18] See Danish phonology.
Icelandic		veggfóður	[ˈvɛkˑfo̞ð̠˕ˌɵ̞r̝̊ː]ⓘ	'wallpaper'	In free variation with a weak fricative ([ð̠]).[19][20] See Icelandic phonology.
Myakoan	Irabu[13]	[z̞zä]		'father'	Realized as [z̞z] when word initial, geminate [z̞ː] when presyllabic, variable when medial, and plain [z̞] when word final. Phonemically transcribed as /ž/ or /žž/.

Postalveolar

See also: Voiceless postalveolar fricative and Voiced retroflex approximant

Voiced postalveolar approximant
ɹ̠
Audio sample
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A schematic mid-sagittal section of an articulation of a voiced postalveolar approximant [ɹ̠].

The most common sound represented by the letter r in English is the voiced postalveolar approximant, pronounced further back than a typical [ɹ] and transcribed more precisely in IPA as ⟨ɹ̠⟩, but ⟨ɹ⟩ is often used for convenience in its place. For further ease of typesetting, English phonemic transcriptions might use the symbol ⟨r⟩ even though this symbol represents the alveolar trill in phonetic transcription.

The bunched or molar r sounds remarkably similar to the postalveolar approximant and can be described as a voiced labial pre-velar approximant with tongue-tip retraction. It can be transcribed in extIPA as ⟨ɹ̈⟩.

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
English	Australian	red	[ɹ̠ʷed]	'red'	Often labialized. May also be a labialized retroflex approximant. For convenience it is often transcribed ⟨r⟩. See Australian English phonology, English phonology, Rhoticity in English and Pronunciation of English /r/.
	Most American dialects[21]		[ɹ̠ʷɛd]ⓘ
	Received Pronunciation
Igbo[22]		rí	[ɹ̠í]	'eat'
Malay		راتوس / ratus	[ɹ̠ä.tos]	'hundred'	More commonly trill [r] or flap [ɾ]. See Malay phonology
Maltese	Some dialects[23]	malajr	[mɐˈlɐjɹ̠]	'quickly'	Corresponds to [ɾ ~ r] in other dialects.[23]
Shipibo[24]		roro	[ˈd̠ɹ̠o̽ɾ̠o̽]	'to break into pieces'	Pre-stopped. Possible word-initial realization of /r/.[24]

As an allophone of other rhotic sounds, [ɹ] occurs in Edo, Fula, Murrinh-patha, and Palauan.^[25]

See also

• Index of phonetics articles