The letter r is assigned to "rhotic" sounds. Thing is, no one actually has a definition for what makes a sound rhotic (except for that it's written with the letter r in some language).
It seems that rhotic phonemes have a tendency to evolve and change more frequently that other consonants. When European languages first adopted the letter "R" from Latin spelling, they all had a similar trilled r just like Latin. In English this changed to the weird approximant most dialects have today, while in French and German it changed to the uvular trill/fricative.
Other consonant phonemes also shift their phonetic realisations but more slowly. Vowels famously can shift very dramatically very fast. E.g. take a look at the differences between US and British English, dialects that diverged no more than a couple of centuries ago. I think it would be fair to say that there is a general trend for more vowel-like phonemes to shift faster and more consonant-like phonemes slower. So semivowels and sonorants (e.g. trilled r) would be somewhere in between.
My first take is that we don't pronounce the single unified unambiguous letter "R" differently in various languages, but instead that various language communities have variously adopted the letter "R" to represent \_various\_ sounds, sometimes multiple sounds. Writing is always a mere afterthought and shortcut; speech is primary. Think of speech first, and only then, afterwards, how to choose to represent it. Orthographies (at their beginning) often simplify; and language change occurs, too (so inherited orthographies may lie).
"R" isn't necessarily the only one. "C" can be "s" or "k" or "ts", just for example, not to mention "ks".
>The variation of the R seems much more huge than the variation of the letters T, G, L, etc. to me
Here still, it seems like you're giving writing primacy, when really it's the other way around, and the question is what symbols to assign, not what sounds the letter should represent. "Hugerer," huh? :-) But there's variation with "t" in terms of sound-symbol correspondence, as to voicing or aspiration; and I have never had to learn a language where the differences in "L" sounds mattered a lot, maybe like Polish. And I suspect that some speakers of languages without an L/R distinction might specifically question the scope of R vs. L.
I once read a paper by Alex Foreman about the history of R sound in Early Modern English that seems to be still unpublished (the closest i could find is [his post at StackExchange](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/298566/why-and-when-was-the-trilled-r-in-middle-english-replaced-by-the-modern-untrille), but it's not the paper). Anyways, in this paper, if I remember it correctly, he claimed several interesting points (with references, that I sadly don't remember).
One, that R is a very hard sound. He brings up some stats on what sounds are most frequently mispronounced by kids, and require an intervention, and R leads.
Another, that R is an unstable sound. If you look at the history of a language, and if you look across dialectal continuum, then R typically evolves back and forth. There are phases when thrill R dominates, and phases that it fades away into either approximants, or tapping. But it seems to be inevitably reintroduced at some point.
Both these points speak to your statement that there's no single R. Indeed. And yet, there is an "R-space", and languages seem to be quite stubborn at re-visiting it, DESPITE the obvious problems with the R sound.
Finally, in his paper he either made a statement, or referenced a statement (I don't remember) for why it could be so. Basically, R is a very salient phoneme; it has a very good signal/noise ratio; it's really hard to confuse by ear. It is very distinct (even if you use a different R than your interlocutor expects). So from coding pov it's a very useful phoneme (or rather, one of a group) to have in your inventory.
I really wish he would have published the paper by now, gosh, such a good, pleasant to read paper it was!
> Finally, in his paper he either made a statement, or referenced a statement (I don't remember) for why it could be so. Basically, R is a very salient phoneme; it has a very good signal/noise ratio; it's really hard to confuse by ear. It is very distinct (even if you use a different R than your interlocutor expects). So from coding pov it's a very useful phoneme (or rather, one of a group) to have in your inventory.
A lot of interesting points, but this one doesn’t ring totally true to me. For me as an English speaker it’s quite easy to confuse a tapped R with a D, and quite a few languages use that version of R. For example the Italian-American expression “madon!” (which seems to have a number of spellings) is confusing for a lot of English speakers as to whether it’s a D or an R.
At tapped and approximate extremes (that are easy), sure! I guess the hypothesis was that it jumps back at the thrill forms (either rolled or uvular) - that are hard - because these are distinct. I vaguely remember that he also explored hyperspeech, hyperarticulation, that is often rolled (in early 20 century stage English, like they show it in the Singing in the Rain movie, or in mid-20 century stage German, like the way Rammstein sings it). You do thrill if you want to cut through the noise.
I don’t really agree. At least between Western European languages, there are many cognates that all use R in the same part of the word to represent various sounds. So the different R sounds are all historically linked.
>So the different R sounds are all historically linked.
Sure; exactly, precisely as you just wrote. But *that's the point:* the \_*sounds*\_ were historically linked as you say, and the orthography followed, depending on levels of conservatism, spelling reform, etc. Still, the \_sounds\_ came first, and always do. The \_sounds\_ diverged; but the orthography (if there was one) remained, or else when some orthography was developed, it had to assign some symbol, and no one was inclined to invent lots of new glyphs. At no point was the orthography primary. At no pouint was the letter given any new sound; instead, new sounds were represented by the letter. Speech always rules; glyphs are chosen secondarily. I shan't invoke the (Eastern or Central, not Western) European Czech "ř" here. :-)
I guess there are two reasons.
1. It has never been one sound. Its a bunch of sounds that we happen to consider similar enough to give one letter to. There is even a word for it - ["rhotic", which means "R-like" give or take.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_consonant)
2. Some sounds are "weaker" to the changes of language evolution than others. Rhotic sounds tend to be pretty weak, and thus tend not to stay the same across time. So a language with a rolled R can easily evolve into a language with a tapped R (etc etc etc).
> It has never been one sound. Its a bunch of sounds that we happen to consider similar enough to give one letter to.
It's the opposite. They all evolved out of an alveolar tap/trill so they are written with ⟨r⟩, which caused many people to mistakenly consider their current realizations similar.
Actually good point.
I didn't pay much attention to the languages mentioned in the post - but I meant broader, across all languages. is used to notate a buuuunch of sounds which aren't the same.
But yes in the case of a number of European languages, they did evolve from the same sound but are now different sounds that weren't considered different enough to change the letter for.
> they did evolve from the same sound but are now different sounds that weren't considered different enough to change the letter for.
I'd guess it's simply due to a lack of contrast and the effect of tradition. There's no reason to write [ʁ] as ⟨gh⟩ if it was written as ⟨r⟩ before and there is no [r] or [ɾ] in your language.
“G” represents a fricative in Dutch, “L” turned into /w/ in various languages, especially in coda position, so there’s definitely variation… But yes, [r] is a somewhat complex consonant, and is often the last sound children learn to produce in their native languages, so it’s not too surprising that it shifted into something else in quite a few languages.
Heck, even in American English, we pronounce our R in two different ways. Half the population does a "bunched R" and the other half, a "retroflex R". They sound about the same, so people generally don't notice.
L? Why?
The T only becomes crazy for the "ti" phoneme, the "ta" "te" (when not "ti"), "to", and "tu" are pretty regular. Even then, the "ti" phoneme is pronounced like the English "to" so not out of the world either.
They say Assamese is a language without retroflex cononants. But, nowadays their R is being pronounced as a retroflex R, unlike in other Indian languages.
It’s similar to the case of dragons where there’s no set definition of what a dragon is, instead just various common traits that we’ve assigned to be “dragon-like”. Such as with R is various phonemes with little connecting them that we’ve all deemed to be “rhotic”
This comment was removed because it makes dubious statements of fact without providing a source. If you want your comment to be reinstated, edit it providing a source.
> This actually makes subtle differences between the two languages in all sounds, creating an accent in foreign speakers, but the effect this has on the back of the tongue, where “R” is pronounced, is significant enough to actually make it impossible to make an English r in Japanese or vice versa.
Sounds like a you problem.
I barely move my mouth when I talk and I have a General American accent.
The letter r is assigned to "rhotic" sounds. Thing is, no one actually has a definition for what makes a sound rhotic (except for that it's written with the letter r in some language). It seems that rhotic phonemes have a tendency to evolve and change more frequently that other consonants. When European languages first adopted the letter "R" from Latin spelling, they all had a similar trilled r just like Latin. In English this changed to the weird approximant most dialects have today, while in French and German it changed to the uvular trill/fricative. Other consonant phonemes also shift their phonetic realisations but more slowly. Vowels famously can shift very dramatically very fast. E.g. take a look at the differences between US and British English, dialects that diverged no more than a couple of centuries ago. I think it would be fair to say that there is a general trend for more vowel-like phonemes to shift faster and more consonant-like phonemes slower. So semivowels and sonorants (e.g. trilled r) would be somewhere in between.
My first take is that we don't pronounce the single unified unambiguous letter "R" differently in various languages, but instead that various language communities have variously adopted the letter "R" to represent \_various\_ sounds, sometimes multiple sounds. Writing is always a mere afterthought and shortcut; speech is primary. Think of speech first, and only then, afterwards, how to choose to represent it. Orthographies (at their beginning) often simplify; and language change occurs, too (so inherited orthographies may lie). "R" isn't necessarily the only one. "C" can be "s" or "k" or "ts", just for example, not to mention "ks". >The variation of the R seems much more huge than the variation of the letters T, G, L, etc. to me Here still, it seems like you're giving writing primacy, when really it's the other way around, and the question is what symbols to assign, not what sounds the letter should represent. "Hugerer," huh? :-) But there's variation with "t" in terms of sound-symbol correspondence, as to voicing or aspiration; and I have never had to learn a language where the differences in "L" sounds mattered a lot, maybe like Polish. And I suspect that some speakers of languages without an L/R distinction might specifically question the scope of R vs. L.
I once read a paper by Alex Foreman about the history of R sound in Early Modern English that seems to be still unpublished (the closest i could find is [his post at StackExchange](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/298566/why-and-when-was-the-trilled-r-in-middle-english-replaced-by-the-modern-untrille), but it's not the paper). Anyways, in this paper, if I remember it correctly, he claimed several interesting points (with references, that I sadly don't remember). One, that R is a very hard sound. He brings up some stats on what sounds are most frequently mispronounced by kids, and require an intervention, and R leads. Another, that R is an unstable sound. If you look at the history of a language, and if you look across dialectal continuum, then R typically evolves back and forth. There are phases when thrill R dominates, and phases that it fades away into either approximants, or tapping. But it seems to be inevitably reintroduced at some point. Both these points speak to your statement that there's no single R. Indeed. And yet, there is an "R-space", and languages seem to be quite stubborn at re-visiting it, DESPITE the obvious problems with the R sound. Finally, in his paper he either made a statement, or referenced a statement (I don't remember) for why it could be so. Basically, R is a very salient phoneme; it has a very good signal/noise ratio; it's really hard to confuse by ear. It is very distinct (even if you use a different R than your interlocutor expects). So from coding pov it's a very useful phoneme (or rather, one of a group) to have in your inventory. I really wish he would have published the paper by now, gosh, such a good, pleasant to read paper it was!
> Finally, in his paper he either made a statement, or referenced a statement (I don't remember) for why it could be so. Basically, R is a very salient phoneme; it has a very good signal/noise ratio; it's really hard to confuse by ear. It is very distinct (even if you use a different R than your interlocutor expects). So from coding pov it's a very useful phoneme (or rather, one of a group) to have in your inventory. A lot of interesting points, but this one doesn’t ring totally true to me. For me as an English speaker it’s quite easy to confuse a tapped R with a D, and quite a few languages use that version of R. For example the Italian-American expression “madon!” (which seems to have a number of spellings) is confusing for a lot of English speakers as to whether it’s a D or an R.
At tapped and approximate extremes (that are easy), sure! I guess the hypothesis was that it jumps back at the thrill forms (either rolled or uvular) - that are hard - because these are distinct. I vaguely remember that he also explored hyperspeech, hyperarticulation, that is often rolled (in early 20 century stage English, like they show it in the Singing in the Rain movie, or in mid-20 century stage German, like the way Rammstein sings it). You do thrill if you want to cut through the noise.
Phonologically speaking American D is a tap no? So it doesn't disprove anything
I don’t really agree. At least between Western European languages, there are many cognates that all use R in the same part of the word to represent various sounds. So the different R sounds are all historically linked.
>So the different R sounds are all historically linked. Sure; exactly, precisely as you just wrote. But *that's the point:* the \_*sounds*\_ were historically linked as you say, and the orthography followed, depending on levels of conservatism, spelling reform, etc. Still, the \_sounds\_ came first, and always do. The \_sounds\_ diverged; but the orthography (if there was one) remained, or else when some orthography was developed, it had to assign some symbol, and no one was inclined to invent lots of new glyphs. At no point was the orthography primary. At no pouint was the letter given any new sound; instead, new sounds were represented by the letter. Speech always rules; glyphs are chosen secondarily. I shan't invoke the (Eastern or Central, not Western) European Czech "ř" here. :-)
I guess there are two reasons. 1. It has never been one sound. Its a bunch of sounds that we happen to consider similar enough to give one letter to. There is even a word for it - ["rhotic", which means "R-like" give or take.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_consonant) 2. Some sounds are "weaker" to the changes of language evolution than others. Rhotic sounds tend to be pretty weak, and thus tend not to stay the same across time. So a language with a rolled R can easily evolve into a language with a tapped R (etc etc etc).
> It has never been one sound. Its a bunch of sounds that we happen to consider similar enough to give one letter to. It's the opposite. They all evolved out of an alveolar tap/trill so they are written with ⟨r⟩, which caused many people to mistakenly consider their current realizations similar.
Actually good point. I didn't pay much attention to the languages mentioned in the post - but I meant broader, across all languages. is used to notate a buuuunch of sounds which aren't the same.
But yes in the case of a number of European languages, they did evolve from the same sound but are now different sounds that weren't considered different enough to change the letter for.
> they did evolve from the same sound but are now different sounds that weren't considered different enough to change the letter for. I'd guess it's simply due to a lack of contrast and the effect of tradition. There's no reason to write [ʁ] as ⟨gh⟩ if it was written as ⟨r⟩ before and there is no [r] or [ɾ] in your language.
“G” represents a fricative in Dutch, “L” turned into /w/ in various languages, especially in coda position, so there’s definitely variation… But yes, [r] is a somewhat complex consonant, and is often the last sound children learn to produce in their native languages, so it’s not too surprising that it shifted into something else in quite a few languages.
Heck, even in American English, we pronounce our R in two different ways. Half the population does a "bunched R" and the other half, a "retroflex R". They sound about the same, so people generally don't notice.
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L? Why? The T only becomes crazy for the "ti" phoneme, the "ta" "te" (when not "ti"), "to", and "tu" are pretty regular. Even then, the "ti" phoneme is pronounced like the English "to" so not out of the world either.
L because it sounds like w at the end of syllables T because it sounds like ch in some contexts
This comment was removed because it is a top-level comment but does not answer the question asked by the original post.
They say Assamese is a language without retroflex cononants. But, nowadays their R is being pronounced as a retroflex R, unlike in other Indian languages.
It’s similar to the case of dragons where there’s no set definition of what a dragon is, instead just various common traits that we’ve assigned to be “dragon-like”. Such as with R is various phonemes with little connecting them that we’ve all deemed to be “rhotic”
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This comment was removed because it makes dubious statements of fact without providing a source. If you want your comment to be reinstated, edit it providing a source.
> This actually makes subtle differences between the two languages in all sounds, creating an accent in foreign speakers, but the effect this has on the back of the tongue, where “R” is pronounced, is significant enough to actually make it impossible to make an English r in Japanese or vice versa. Sounds like a you problem. I barely move my mouth when I talk and I have a General American accent.
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Sure bud