# Pronunciation of Р (R) sound



## Interprete

Hello,

In my lessons I keep hearing a strange 'R' sound, that almost sounds like Edith Piaf's Rs when she sings (basically French Rs pronounced so harshly that the soft palate vibrates, which produces a sound vaguely similar to actual tongue trills- like in her song, 'Je ne regrette rien').
Is this pronunciation typical of a specific region in Russia? Or is it specific of a social class?

Here is an example: RRRRRRRRRRR (notice especially in забронированные)...

Thanks!


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## Vovan

I'm sorry to say but this is a slight defect of pronunciation.
Logopedists are not always successful in correcting it.


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## Interprete

Thank you. Funny they used her voice to record most of the lessons in my textbook...


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## Vovan

Interprete said:


> Thank you. Funny they used her voice to record most of the lessons in my textbook...


It's really funny and not contagious, I guess!
My own younger brother has this slight defect, by the way.


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## Rosett

This kind of rolling "r|p" can be found normally in few Russian-speaking Jewish communities of the ex-USSR and abroad (Brighton Beach, p.ex.)


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## Q-cumber

Interprete said:


> Thank you. Funny they used her voice to record most of the lessons in my textbook...


Actually, it's not that funny when language learners do their bests to reproduce the Edith Piaf's Russian.  Did you pay any money for these records?
  This lady reminded me the speech therapist from a famous Soviet comedy. Search the YouTube for "логопед - По семейным обстоятельствам".

P.S. There is a special verb in Russian that describes this defect of pronunciation - "картавить". Она слегка картавит.


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## Vadim K

Yes, it is a defect of pronounciation, which is called in Russian "_карта́вость_". It is quiet strange that the person with such kind of defect teaches Russian to foreign learners.


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## Interprete

Thanks everyone ! For your information/interest it is based on the GLOSS lessons by the U.S. Defense Language Institute (freely accessible online).  I have to say I first used this resource to learn Arabic,  and some of the actors in the Arabic recording also had a pronunciation defect (pronouncing Arabic flapped R's as English ones !).


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## Awwal12

Rosett said:


> This kind of rolling "r|p" can be found normally in few Russian-speaking Jewish communities of the ex-USSR and abroad (Brighton Beach, p.ex.)


As an element of Yiddish accent, yes (Yiddish doesn't have [r]). Jews who speak Russian as their first language and were exposed to the proper Russian pronunciation, though, have this feature with the same frequency as the very ethnic Russians do.


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## Drink

Awwal12 said:


> As an element of Yiddish accent, yes (Yiddish doesn't have [r]). Jews who speak Russian as their first language and were exposed to the proper Russian pronunciation, though, have this feature with the same frequency as the very ethnic Russians do.



In my personal experience, it seems it is more common among people from Belorussia, but perhaps this not a statistically significant observation.


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## Rosett

Drink said:


> In my personal experience, it seems it is more common among people from Belorussia, but perhaps this not a statistically significant observation.


Well, it is a good point, since many of them kept talking Yiddish in the families. Pre-war Jewish population was significant in Belorussia, many moved east from Poland just before. Senior generations used to learn the language in Yiddish public schools, too, and carried it on. Obviously, the accent influenced Russian pronunciation in few aspects.


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## Drink

Rosett said:


> Well, it is a good point, since many of them kept talking Yiddish in the families. Pre-war Jewish population was significant in Belorussia, many moved east from Poland just before. Senior generations used to learn the language in Yiddish public schools, too, and carried it on. Obviously, the accent influenced Russian pronunciation in few aspects.



But I meant among both Jews and non-Jews.


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## CrownDweller

Rosett said:


> This kind of rolling "r|p" can be found normally in few Russian-speaking Jewish communities of the ex-USSR and abroad (Brighton Beach, p.ex.)



Just for the record, it is in fact the Russian/Spanish 'r' that is internationally called "rolling" (or trilled). More formally it's known as an alveolar trill. The French/Hebrew pronunciation is referred to as a guttural 'r' or uvular trill.


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## Vovan

I believe this is neither the Russian/Spanish "r" nor its French counterparts. It is different (and is described in logopedic books only) as being the result of a slight anatomical defect, such as this.

Types of the distorted Russian "r" (in Russian).


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## Sobakus

Vovan said:


> I believe this is neither the Russian/Spanish "r" nor its French counterparts. It is different (and is described in logopedic books only) as being the result of a slight anatomical defect, such as this.
> 
> Types of the distorted Russian "r" (in Russian).


The sound in the recording is unquestionably the voiced uvular trill. Not being able to pronounce the alveolar tap or trill is a defect, but proning an uvular trill is not a defect - it's a phoneme in many languages, just not in Russian.

Here's the normal realisation of the French R.


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## Vovan

*Sobakus,* how does one palatalise the voiced uvular trill to say "посмот*р*еть" the way the speaker does? You might want to listen to the recording again to explain this phenomenon.


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## Sobakus

Vovan said:


> *Sobakus,* how does one palatalise the voiced uvular trill to say "посмот*р*еть" the way the speaker does? You might want to listen to the recording again to explain this phenomenon.


What would be the problem with palatalising it? The only sounds that you can't palatalise in principle are fully palatal sounds.

Every sound that can be produced by the human mouth is technically covered by the IPA and is used in some language (even if they don't constitute a phoneme). There's no special sounds that are reserved for discussing speech pathology only. That could only be a thing with a speech pathology that allows the speaker to produce sounds that cannot be produced by anybody else, and that's something I've yet to hear about.


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## Vovan

*Sobakus, *what is really heard in _"посмотреть"_ is that the quality of the resulting /r/ resembles both the Russian /r'/ and the voiced uvular trill. Can't you imagine two trills at once?


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## Sobakus

Vovan said:


> *Sobakus, *what is really heard in _"посмотреть"_ is that the quality of the resulting /r/ resembles both the Russian /r'/ and the voiced uvular trill. Can't you imagine two trills at once?


Two trills with one tongue? I'm intrigued to learn how in the world this is possible and where exactly the second trill is produced.

By the way, I don't hear any qualities to it other than those of a palatalised uvular trill.


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## Vovan

Sobakus said:


> Two trills with one tongue?


One is with the big tongue, and the other is with the small.


> Язычок играет важнейшую роль в формирования звуков речи. В частности, именно язычок выполняет функцию «горлового» звука Р, что в народе называют «картавостью». В рамках русской логопедии устранить вибрацию язычка при произношении звука «Р» очень сложно и достижимо лишь путём доведения до автоматизма звука «Р» в области кончика языка.
> 
> Язычок (биология) — Википедия


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## Sobakus

Vovan said:


> One is with the big tongue, and the other is with the small.


I'm afraid I'm not quite following. A sound that's made by the tongue and the uvula creating a narrow passage that the air goes through, creating vibration, is called the uvular trill. That's also what your quote describes. Where's the second trill? You aren't saying that there's a simultaneous alveolar trill there, surely?


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## Vovan

*Sobakus*, there can even be more trills* at a time, but I fear logopedics is out of the forum's scope.

___
* For instance, uvular + alveolar + bilabial. (Link.)


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## Drink

It is possible to do a uvular trill and regular trill at the same time (I just successfully tried it myself), but I do not believe that that is what we are hearing in the recording. It is simply a palatalized uvular trill.


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