I was listening to myself and other people speak the other day, and I started to wonder why the letter R has a consonant status in English. I listened to myself pronounce it and it certainly doesn't sound like a consonant, but more like a deformed vowel.
I can see how it would be used as a consonant in Spanish or French for example, but English doesn't have the usual trill found in many other languages.
A tip: never confuse English spelling with English pronunciation.
Richard.
Are you thinking about 'r' in non-rhotic English which is inaudible or nearly so ( British linguists like to cite the example in Cockney: "An oass as fowa legs 'A horse has four legs'). Otherwise, I think that 'r' in any language, if it is sounded, is universally considered to be a consonant.
"r" is a sonorant approximate consonant, which is basically as close as a consonant can become a vowel, so yes, "r" is kinda like a deformed vowel. The reason why it is not a vowel is because vowels do not have constriction of the vocal tract.
I'm an American, and I can see how R is considered universally as a consonant, and although I'm fairly young in learning about languages and languages themselves, I haven't heard any other language that uses the General American English R sound; Not only that, but the British like to drop the R completely. I think what I'm trying to say is that the letter R doesn't have the hard accent heard in other letters such as B, P, G, K, D, T, etc... Is the R just super soft?
Another letter that I wonder about is the letter W, when pronounced as in words like "where" "word" "water". If the letter W is supposed to be a double-u (UU), then why is it considered a consonant?
I like to drink uuater. :)
Richard, you have to remember that "uu" was a convention used to write such, as many Germanic languages had /w/ (which is a semivowel, or a consonant to many laypersons), but there was no builtin way to write such in the Roman script before Roman script started being used to write various Germanic languages. In writing Old High German and Old Saxon, "uu" was used (mind you that at this time, there was little distinction between "u" and "v" in writing, as these were little more than graphical variants of the same character, and only became solidly separate letters later), whereas a character looking like "p", called a "wynn", which was taken from the Futhorc (the Anglo-Saxon version of the Futhark, or Germanic runes that is) was used in period Roman-script writings in Old English. Over time, "uu" ended up getting ligatured together into "w" in writing, and became thought of as a letter unto itself rather than a digraph, and the letter "w" replaced the use of the wynn in the writing of English with the transition from Old English to Middle English, due to continental influence.
That mega mega cruel redhead Anne Robinson in the Weakest Link wecently made fun of this guy who pwonounced his Rs as Ws. She weally, weally laid into the guy it made you cwinge. I'm not sure if it's because of a speech impediment that some people have difficulty with their Rs in this way, or is it because of something else. It only seems to affect certain English people ...usually of the more "posh" vawiety if you know what I mean....I have never heard of any Scot with this pwoblem. Weird...quite wowwying weally.
Sowwy...I meant to say the wedhead Anne Wobinson. There's another guy on TV here (can't wemember his name but he's something to do with politics) who definitely has the same R pwoblem...he's a bit posh as well....and deffo English!
And then there's Jonathan Ross.
For some reason, when I was growing up, I only thought of this as affecting English speakers, perhaps because I just wasn't really listening to how non-English speakers sounded. I was surprised when one of my Russian friends told me that he couldn't pronounce his R's correctly. I knew there was something a bit different about his speech, but I'd let it go by without trying to figure out what it was.
I've heard some French people pronounce the R as a cross between an R and a W in English.
I had a problem as a child in pronouncing the r in Afrikaans.
I would pronounce it with a l and not r.
There is actually a term in Afrikaans if you can't roll the r in the correct way or pronounce it with a w or l. They say that you brei - Pretty cruel to put a r in the word if you can't say it but hey - That's language!
Oh DEBORAH...yeah...I forgot Jonathan Woss...he weally does have a pwoblem. He sometimes pops up on the wadio....on a Fwiday.
SNIPSA.....what about the Chinese then....they tend to use an L for an R don't they? And the Japanese the other way round? We've discussed this before in here I think.
what is the most beautiful way to prononce the R ?
I think it is the english R the better ...