Re: |r|, |rr| and other Rs. :)

Quoting Roger Mills <rfmilly@...>:

> Chris Bates wrote:
>
> > What language is Samarra in?
>
> Well, it's located in Iraq, so I'd assume it's Arabic, and probably
> trilled-- but whether it's spelled with a double r in Arabic I don't know.
> (There's a neat story associated with Samarra, from which John O'Hara drew
> the title of his novel "Appointment in Samarra" [or Samara?])
>
> In addition to the well-known trills, and uvulars, "r" is also realized as a
> velar fricative (voiced or voiceless) in various languages. I've always been
> given to understand that the title *Weirdest and Rarest R in the World* goes
> to our American/English one; at least it's notoriously difficult for
> foreigners to acquire.
I'd suggest Czech r-hacek.

That's assuming the title being meaningful - a certain lengthy discussion here
nonewithstanding, I remain unconvinced that "r sounds" constitute an objectively
identifiable class.

The local dialect here, as I've mentioned repeatedly before, uses [w] for /r/.
Does that qualify as "an r"? If yes, is it weird? - the sound as such is
certainly not uncommon, but it's not normally considered a rhotic (and if I got
José right it's a non-member of the acoustic class of rhotics).

                                                               Andreas

Reply