Re: rhotics (was: Hellenish oddities)

Christophe Grandsire, responding to me, wrote:
>Well, in fact the trilled uvular /r/ has nearly disappeared in French. Only
a
>few Parisians still pronounce it this way. The French 'r' is now a voiced
uvular
>approximant, much nicer for your throat I believe. At least, it doesn't
sound
>like a dog's growl :) .>

Interesting-- within the past 40 years, then.  I more or less learned
pronunciation in 1959 from a French gentleman in Saigon, who could trill his
uvula amazingly well.