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The link below provides what it supposed to be a definitive answer to the question of how the English /r/ is articulated. It claims that for the American /r/ there is little to no raising of the front of the tongue towards the postalveolar region. I find this type of articulation quite challenging. Of course, I'm not a native speaker, but I would like the opinion of those who are, in particular with respect to the American /r/.
http://venus.unive.it/canipa/pdf/EPs_26_English_R.pdf
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Re: "...the American /r/ ..."
In General American, it has a gritty sound to it unlike the 'r' of British English and the American English of the northeasern United States. New York City has a special 'r' (a paleto-velar) sound which approaches the sound of 'l'. No wonder, Puerto Rican Spanish speakers call it Nueva Yol'.
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The American /r/ is different to the British /r/? That's news to me. Does that mean an Irish /r/ is unique too?
Soon someone will claim that other consonants vary as well.
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Uh, yeah ... the R's are the main thing that separate American and British speakers!
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I doubt the miniscule difference in realisation of /r/ between American an British dialects would matter. It's transcribed as [r\] across the board. Choosing a rhotic or nonrhotic model is more important.
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Re: Uh, yeah ... the R's are the main thing that separate American and British speakers! --- Uriel
I think you're right. Australians notice it too and I heard an Australian rock singer being interviewed on the radio recently who said "In Australia, we call American English the -er language."
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Uriel and Brennus:
The point in the essay is not that there is a difference between the rhotic American and non-rhotic British pronunciations in words such as "bird" and "letter", a difference that we all know about. The point is that the articulation of the "r" in words such as "red" "wrong" "arrive" (i.e. words in which both accents produce an 'r') is still different.
In your own production of /r/, do you raise the tip of the tongue towards the postalveolar region? That is what I do, but apparently not what Americans do.
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Gabriel,
I think you are asking aquestion that is a little too technical for most of us who communicate on this forum. It is almost more of an "Ask A Linguist"- type question instead. Kirk and Travis come the closest to dealing with the kind of question you are asking. Maybe they will respond.
In the meantime, let me do a little more research on it. Generally speaking though, I still stick by what I wrote in my first post - that outside the northeastern United States, American English 'r' is a pretty homogeneous sound with the greatest difference being in New York.
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>>I think you're right. Australians notice it too and I heard an Australian rock singer being interviewed on the radio recently who said "In Australia, we call American English the -er language." <<
The same could be said for Irish but that's a matter of rhotic vs nonrhotic, where in American the R consonant is pronounced on the end of -er words, whereas in Australian it's omitted or "dropped". But the consonant itself exists in both dialects.
From the outset, Gabriel was questioning only the quality of the consonant. It would be like comparing the production of L or M consonants, so a "phono-linguist" would be better at dissecting such to observe any trivial differences.
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Thanks for the link, Gabriel. On that article I'd say my 'r' is best represented by the first and second drawings of figure 26.1 most of the time.
If anyone's interested I recorded myself saying the examples from the article. As far as I'm aware my 'r' is a pretty typical way of articulating American 'r' in its various positions:
http://media.putfile.com/Kirkrwords
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Oh, by the way, here's the list of the words/phrases I pronounced. As I said before I got those examples from the article Gabriel linked.
rear
rare
roar
murder
murderer
tower
tower of london
powers
powers of darkness
the car arrived
take care of yourself
the idea of it
Eliza Ellis
Shaw asked
witch
rich
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Gabriel,
General American English 'r' is apparently considered a retroflex 'r' but only mildly so. For example, there are stronger retroflex r-s in the languages of India and Australia as well as retroflex d's and l's. .
In this kind of r the tongue body is bunched and the tip slightly curled back. It touches the HARD PALATE which is a little further up on the roof of the mouth than the ALVEOLAR RIDGE which is near the back of the upper front teeth.
In effect, it sounds like you pronounce 'r' more like the way Spanish, Japanese and British English speakers do where 'very'" sounds more like 'veddy' and Spanish pero and quiere often sound like "payddo" and "kedday."
No American speaker pronounces 'r' this way. However, languages and pronunciations often change over time so it is always possible that the alveolar and postalveolar 'r' sounds could appear in some future American English pronunciations.
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No, there's no curl of the tongue in an American R.
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After listening to Kirk's recording, I'm baffled that people would find a significant difference in the pronunciation of R. As an Australian, the only differences I note in his recording are due to its rhotic nature and the quality of the vowels, not the consonants. So I can't imagine hearing the average Londoner saying "veddy" for the word very, that someone mentioned above, which implies that I should say "veddy" — bizarre stuff.
The article Gabriel linked to states "American and British English have two quite different articulations" concerning the pronunciation of R, but the only British dialect I can think of for such is Scottish. How different is quite different, then?
Somehow this R business has been gravely exaggerated.
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