Episode 30: R Consonants

After our overview episode last week, Phil and Eric look in greater detail at the full range of R consonant variation. We follow the Rhotic Consonants page on wikipedia as a means of tracking the various possible articulations. You can follow along, too!

We cover:
• Trills
• Alveolar [r]
• Uvular [ʀ]
• Retroflex [ɽ]
• Taps and flaps
• Alveolar tap [ɾ]
• Alveolar lateral flap [ɺ]
• Retroflex flap [ɽ]
• Labiodental flap (perceived as non-rhotic) [ⱱ]
• Alveolar approximant [ɹ]
• Molar approximant (aka “braced” /r/) -- see John Wells’s phonetic blog on the VASTA discussion and Erik Singer’s “anchor” []
• Retroflex approximant [ɻ]
• Uvular fricative [ʁ]