Voiced alveolar and postalveolar approximants

The voiced alveolar and postalveolar approximants are types of <a href="/facts/Consonant/81X2SGS6">consonantal</a> sounds used in some spoken <a href="/facts/Language/IRcTok2q">languages</a>. The symbol in the <a href="/facts/International_Phonetic_Alphabet/2e7jmUaG">International Phonetic Alphabet</a> that represents the <a href="/facts/Alveolar_consonant/B6VkW2EX">alveolar</a> and <a href="/facts/Postalveolar_consonant/YUo5nJly">postalveolar</a> <a href="/facts/Approximant/SXrlw7zY">approximants</a> is ⟨ɹ⟩, a lowercase letter r rotated 180 degrees. The equivalent <a href="/facts/X-SAMPA/LEkkVBgw">X-SAMPA</a> symbol is r\.
The most common sound represented by the letter r in English is the voiced postalveolar approximant, pronounced a little more back and transcribed more precisely in IPA as ⟨ɹ̠⟩, but ⟨ɹ⟩ is often used for convenience in its place. For further ease of typesetting, English phonemic transcriptions might use the symbol ⟨r⟩ even though this symbol represents the <a href="/facts/Alveolar_trill/rDplJobc">alveolar trill</a> in phonetic transcription.
The <a href="/facts/Bunched_r/dcw103Xv">bunched or molar r</a> sounds remarkably similar to the postalveolar approximant and can be described as a voiced labial pre-velar approximant with tongue-tip retraction. It can be transcribed in IPA as ⟨ψ⟩ or ⟨ɹ̈⟩.

Voiced alveolar and postalveolar approximants open-in-new

Voiced alveolar and postalveolar approximants