# Prononciation du R dans les chansons en français (Piaf, Aznavour, Mathieu, Brel, etc.)



## Frenchnoob

Hi all,

I've noticed that in Edith's songs she tends to flap her R's as opposed to the usual pronunciation of R in french.
I've also noticed some other french singers do this also such as Charles Aznavour.

So my question is: why?
Is it easier to sing this way?
Was it simply a style choice?
Was it an old fashion way of singing?

Help in curing my curiosity appreciated.

Merci d'avance.

fn.

*Moderator note:* Multiple threads merged to create this one. This question is however too broad to be discussed in a single thread. This thread is therefore closed. If you have a question about a specific word, you are welcome to open a new thread if such a thread does not already exist. See also the following related discussions:
Prononciation du R en français / Pronunciation of the French R
Prononciation du R final en français
See also the links in the Pronunciation thread from our Resources subforum.


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## tilt

It's above all an old fashion way of singing.
But I wouldn't say Charles Aznavour does it so much, contrary to Mireille Matthieu who is much more outdated that him, even if younger, in my humble opinion!


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## Niock

Edith Piaf est d'origine italo-kabyle par sa mere.
Charles Aznavour est d'origine arménienne.
Edith Piaf a lancé avec succès la carrière de Charles Aznavour.

Peut-etre un debut d'explication...


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## Sickduck

Is it how it's called: flapping one's Rs? I always thought it was "rolling one's Rs"


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## pieanne

Singers belonging to the "older" generation tend to do that.

"Flapping"? (I share Sickduck 's wondering)


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## wildan1

I hear Piaf's pronunciation as an _uvulaire roulé - uvular trill - _not as a trill of the tongue (alveolar r)

J'ai toujours pensé que ses r était un produit du parigot pur sang plutôt que d'une descendance italo-kabyle

Suis-je donc bête et sourd à la fois ?


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## tilt

I've no idea about "uvularities", neither about Wildan's ears and brain, but I second the point about the (outdated) Parisian accent.
And this way to say the R's is different from rolling them. I don't know if _flapping _is the word to be used, but _rolling _isn't. And I'm realising I even don't know how to say it in French!


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## doodlebugger

In French we simply say _rouler les "r"._
It was quite usual not so long ago and you can still hear it in the country side.
Some singers and politician still roll their r's.


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## archijacq

tilt said:


> I've no idea about "uvularities", neither about Wildan's ears and brain, but I second the point about the (outdated) Parisian accent.
> And this way to say the R's is different from rolling them. I don't know if _flapping _is the word to be used, but _rolling _isn't. And I'm realising I even don't know how to say it in French!



grasseyer: prononcer les "r" en faisant vibrer la luette ("uvula") contre la partie postérieure de la langue


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## mally pense

I'm aware that officially one "rolls" one's "r", but when I read Frenchnoob's "flap" it made me smile - it seemed so appropriate! Sorry!

But is it _just_ an old fashioned way of _"singing"? _Having recently come back to French after many decades away, I'm surprised how little 'arse-rolling' _(as one of my French teachers used to call it!)_ I'm hearing. Is it just me, or has the degree of rolling diminished in everyday speech too?


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## wildan1

The sound represented in writing by the letter R can be pronounced four ways in French--all are allophones (meaning using any one of them doesn't change the meaning of the word--it just provides some variation in the person's accent)

1. r fricative uvulaire sonore
2. r fricative uvularie sourde
3. r uvulaire roulée (celui d'Édith Piaf)
4. r battu alvéolaire voisée (comme l'italien, ou chez certains paysans francophones)

1 & 2 are used by most native European French speakers. The only difference is whether the voice is used (sonore) or not (sourd). Sometimes people vary between one and the other--and probably don't realize they are doing it.
3 is what you hear when Édith Piaf or Mireille Mathieu sing (they are "rolling" their uvulas, not their tongues)
4. isn't heard very much anymore in Europe except in the countryside and usually just older people. African French speakers often use it, and I think it is used in some regions of Québec as well.


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## mally pense

Thank you wildan! I suspect that part of the reason why I'm hearing or imagining it to have diminished is that French sounds less foreign to me now than it did then. I think that happens as one becomes tuned in to a language perhaps. Is this a common experience?

The other factor may be a certain amount of exposure to your no. 4 sound from French speaking Mauritanians (if indeed they are included amongst the people who use this variant). Possibly I'm hearing 1 and 2 as less extreme* by contrast?

* _for want of a better word, no disrespect intended._


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## tilt

wildan1 said:


> 1. r fricative uvulaire sonore
> 2. r fricative uvularie sourde
> 3. r uvulaire roulée (celui d'Édith Piaf)
> 4. r battu alvéolaire voisée (comme l'italien, ou *chez certains paysans francophones*)


I may have been wrong all my life, but "_rouler les r_" has always been refering to #4 for me!


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## wildan1

yes, but in fact that way of speaking is not _rolled/roulé_, but _flapped/battu_ (only one touch of the tongue, not many). I am using this in a technical, phonetic sense. Only #3 is truly _"roulé"_ with more than one flapping of the uvula


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## Outsider

If by _roulé_ you mean "trilled", then both 3 and 4 are _roulés_. The sounds are as follows:

1
2
3
4

None of the four is a flap. See also this article.


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## wildan1

The article you cite isn't completely correct--not unusual for Wikipedia! But you or I could easily improve on it if we wanted.

the only _r roulé (trilled r) _as a native speaking French allophone is #3. The trill is made by the uvula, not the tongue

the #4 r is a tongue flap like the r in Spanish pero (and the #4 in French I described)
an alveolar trill is like the r in Spanish perro (and doesn't normally exist as a native speaking French allophone)


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## Outsider

Oh, I see. In that case you're right.


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## Albert 50

The degree of use of the "r roulé"  (no 4,   AKA  "the flap")  is a real phenomena,  accelerated by TV,  mobility,  a sense that the "r roulé"  is old-fashioned etc.

In French-speaking Canada,  when I was a child most people used no 4,  "le r roulé".  The "r uvulaire"  (we called it "r grasseyé)  was used by a minority, mainly around Quebec City, the region called "le Sagueney",  and in villages in Manitoba.  It was probably an 80/20 split...

Nowadays this has changed a lot in Canada.  The "r roulé"  is still dominant in Montreal but is diminishing in many other areas,  it seems.  Even in Montreal many young people are using the "r grasseyé" when their parents at home still "roll"  theirs...

I lived in Belgium for several years and noticed there that (in many families)  the parents "rolled their r's"  which was very "wallon",   while their teen-agers and adult children had adopted the "r grasseyé"  (the so-called "throaty" r).  

In my own family in Manitoba my step-mother rolled her r's but all of her children used the "r grasseyé"...    Interesting...

Albert


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## Nicomon

tilt said:


> I may have been wrong all my life, but "_rouler les r_" has always been refering to #4 for me!


Make that 2. _Apical ou roulé_, according to this petite histoire de r. 
Here's an extract:


> Enfin, il ne faut pas confondre le r roulé avec un r uvulaire ou *dorso-vélaire prolongé* comme peuvent les produire Édith Piaf ou Mireille Mathieu.


I can confirm that many Quebecers pronounce their R somewhere between a "_pero_" flap and a "_perro_" alveolar trill, and I say that they "roll" them... while I don't. 
I agree with archijacq. If the "trill" is made by the uvula, then it's _grasseyer_ (which Robert& Collins translate as "guttural"). 

Edit: I just read Albert 50's post above. Though I was born and raised in Montreal - and alas can't consider myself "young" - my R is usually "grasseyé"... but I can make it roll if I want to.


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## wildan1

> according to this petite histoire de r.


 
Bien intéressante, cette historique du phonème r !

Mais elle ne parle pas (et moi aussi je l'ai oublié) d'une autre variante :
le r des Antilles (Martinique, Guadeloupe, Haïti) qui s'approche du w...


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## itka

I just want to say that I completely agree with Wildan1.
Wildan, your explanation is great and perfectly right !

Modern singers usually pronounce the consonant "r" just like when they speak :  uvulaire fricative sourde ou sonore (généralement ce sont des variantes contextuelles).

I think that people interested by this thread have a good knowledge of french so I continue in this language, a lot easier to me !

Edith Piaf parlait un français absolument sans accent étranger (elle est née et a toujours vécu en France) et en parlant produisait la plupart du temps des "r" légèrement grasseyés comme on peut les entendre chez les locuteurs qui ont un accent parisien. En chantant, elle avait en effet tendance à prononcer des "r" vélaires, mais attention, pas toujours et de façon très discrète, si on la compare avec les chanteurs du début du XXe siècle !  
 Mireille Mathieu_ imite_ Edith Piaf et donc tout naturellement, elle reproduit les mêmes sons.
 Quant à Charles Aznavour... je dois dire que je n'ai jamais rien noté de semblable dans sa prononciation. Il me semble que ses « r » sont les mêmes que lorsqu'il parle... mais peut-être ne l'ai-je pas bien écouté...


 Voici deux liens qui vous conduiront vers de vieilles chansons françaises où vous pourrez entendre beaucoup plus clairement ces « r  ». D'ailleurs vous pourrez entendre à peu près toutes les possibilités de « r », car chez un même interprète, des « r » différents coexistent !
http://perso.orange.fr/philippe.galmel/mp3_mac.html
http://www.seniorplanet.fr/forumsp/index.php?showtopic=19301&st=20


 Autrefois, disons au XVIIe siècle, les « r » étaient habituellement des « r alvéolaires, roulés ou battus (?) » ce qui demeure sensible dans certains parlers dits « paysans »  et qu'on retrouve dans l'accent québécois qui a conservé les traits de cette époque (encore que selon Albert50, il soit en train de se modifier).


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## Nicomon

Je viens de lire le post d'Albert50, et d'éditer le mien (#20). Il est juste que beaucoup de québécois prononcent des « r alvéolaires, apicaux, roulés ou "battus" », et que c'est plus évident à Montréal. Mais le R grasseyé n'est pas si récent. Je prononce les miens un peu comme Bourvil et Ray Ventura.

Widan: Bien vu, pour le R "w" des Antilles, qu'on entend aussi chez les jeunes enfants. Il y a aussi le phénomène de "lallation", plus fréquent chez les asiatiques, qui consiste à prononcer les R comme des L.


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## Ninon

Am attempting one of her songs and would like to know how to get those amazing rolling "R's." Are they are far back in the throat as the normal French R, or more forward on the tongue like the Spanish?

THanks!


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## Pie Crust

Dear Edith Piaf - one of my all-time favourites.

The rolling "r" sound is produced at the very back of the throat.  Try gargling as you sing - you may surprise yourself!


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## Rauketropman

Also, in operatic french (le chant lyrique), the 4th one is used as well.


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## JiPiJou

The original question concerned the pronunciation of the "r" when *singing*.

Even today, in French amateur choirs, one is asked to roll (softly) the "r", whatever the language of the text. It is very difficult for an amateur to sing correctly a guttural "r" without it sounding very harsh.


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## MikeMc

Pourquoi est-ce que quelque chanteurs, e.g., Jacques Brel et Édith Piaf, roulent leurs “R’s” quand ils chantent et les autres, e.g., Amélie-les-Crayons et France Gall, ne les roulent pas?
[...]

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## Nawaq

le français a plusieurs types de R, si je me rappelle bien à l'école, en cours de musique, notre professeur nous avait dit que le R roulé (en chanson en tout cas) était un truc "d'ancienne génération", plus personne roule les R en chantant maintenant je crois... (à moins que ça vienne d'un accent régional). Édith Piaf faisait ça pour le style, il me semble, c'est même à ça qu'on la reconnait (?). Ça me fait penser qu'en cours d'espagnol, j'ai jamais réussi à rouler mes R, je trouve que c'est un son extrêmement dur à produire.


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## Kelly B

(Jean Ferrat had a particularly rich throaty rrrrrrrrr, if you're interested in another example. )


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## Kecha

[…]

Note that Brel was Belgian and Belgians have an accent to French ears, especially concerning the 'R'.


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## Chimel

Have we???

I think it's more a matter of generation and of style, like Piaf, and not so much of origin.


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## Pass_nad

Nawaq said:


> le français a plusieurs types de R, si je me rappelle bien à l'école, en cours de musique, notre professeur nous avait dit que le R roulé (en chanson en tout cas) était un truc "d'ancienne génération", plus personne roule les R en chantant maintenant je crois...


Yes, it's very "old fashioned" in France (Edith Piaf, Mireille Matthieu...)


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## Barbanellie

Les gens d'une certaine génération à Montréal roulent également les R.  je suis convaincue qu'une recherche You Tube pour Monique Jérôme-Forget (qui était ministre des Finances au Québec pendant plusieurs années) pourrait en faire rigoler plusieurs!


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## Nicomon

Moi qui ne suis pas la politique de près,  je connais mieux  ceux de Louise Forestier.   Extrait d'un article intitulé   Morribond « R » rrroulé


> « Le ‟r” roulé est le ‟r” latin, soit celui de l’italien et de l’espagnol », dit Louis Mercier, qui cite la chanteuse Louise Forestier comme l’une des locutrices les plus audibles d’une prononciation qui a commencé sa lente disparition avec la Révolution tranquille.


  Lise Watier ne donne pas sa place non plus, et les plus vieux se rappellent celui du cardinal Léger.  

*Note :*  Le « R » d'Edith Piaf  - on le précise dans l'article -  n'est pas le même.  
Comme celui de Jacques Brel, il est plus « grasseyé » que « rrroulé ».


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