ʁ in Irish

Séamus O'Neill · **Posted:** Wed 24 Dec 2025 2:52 am

As far as I know, ʁ (i.e. the r sound as it is pronounced in most dialects of French) has never been a common allophone for the r sound in Irish. On this thread (viewtopic.php?f=28&t=5516&p=43580&hilit=%CA%81#p43580), Labhrás said, however:

Quote:

A uvular trill [ʀ] or (more guttural) a voiced uvular fricative/ [ʁ]?

In "The Dialects of Irish" (by R. Hickey) a uvular r as a broad r is mentioned for Carna /kɑ:ʁnə/ in Conamara and Baile Riabhach /bal´ə ʀi:əx/ in Corca Dhuibhne.

BTW: This is the only way I can produce a rolled r

(so, phonetic notations above by me, as I pronounce these names)

In French "fromage" it is rather a voiceless uvular fricative [χ], /fχɔma:ʒ/, because of voiceless /f/.

Can anyone talk further to this, i.e. was this allophone commonly used in these areas or just among some speakers, or was it more common at one point in time then began to die out? I'm especially interested since it was said that an area of Dingle used this phoneme. On another thread (viewtopic.php?f=28&t=2740&p=25342&hilit=%CA%81#p25342), An Lon Dubh said that this variation was used in Cavan. I couldn't find a full pdf copy of Hickey's book referenced by Labhrás above, but I would love any more information. Thanks!

Breandán · **Posted:** Wed 24 Dec 2025 6:07 pm

Séamus O'Neill wrote:

As far as I know, ʁ (i.e. the r sound as it is pronounced in most dialects of French) has never been a common allophone for the r sound in Irish. On this thread (viewtopic.php?f=28&t=5516&p=43580&hilit=%CA%81#p43580), Labhrás said, however:

Quote:

A uvular trill [ʀ] or (more guttural) a voiced uvular fricative/ [ʁ]?

In "The Dialects of Irish" (by R. Hickey) a uvular r as a broad r is mentioned for Carna /kɑ:ʁnə/ in Conamara and Baile Riabhach /bal´ə ʀi:əx/ in Corca Dhuibhne.

BTW: This is the only way I can produce a rolled r

(so, phonetic notations above by me, as I pronounce these names)

In French "fromage" it is rather a voiceless uvular fricative [χ], /fχɔma:ʒ/, because of voiceless /f/.

Can anyone talk further to this, i.e. was this allophone commonly used in these areas or just among some speakers, or was it more common at one point in time then began to die out? I'm especially interested since it was said that an area of Dingle used this phoneme. On another thread (viewtopic.php?f=28&t=2740&p=25342&hilit=%CA%81#p25342), An Lon Dubh said that this variation was used in Cavan. I couldn't find a full pdf copy of Hickey's book referenced by Labhrás above, but I would love any more information. Thanks!

Irish R is generally flapped, but it does often occur unflapped before D, N, and T.

The French R allophone corresponds to broad DH and GH in Irish, not Irish R.

Séamus O'Neill · **Posted:** Fri 26 Dec 2025 11:21 pm

Go raibh maith agat, a chara, b'in a cheapas féin.

Labhrás · **Joined:** Sat 03 May 2014 4:01 pm **Posts:** 1954

I cited Raymond Hickey, an Irish linguist, who mentioned uvular r in Irish (and Irish English) in at least two of his books (The Dialects of Irish, The Sound Structure of Modern Irish).

djwebb2021 · **Joined:** Thu 27 May 2021 3:22 am **Posts:** 1722

In the Sound structure book, p95, he says this:

Quote:

Uvular r in Irish
The occurrence of uvular r in Europe is generally confined to a band which
stretches from Northern France to Southern Sweden and which is found in
languages such as standard French, standard German, Danish and in
Southern dialects of Swedish (Malmberg 1971: 89-91). In the British Isles,
uvular r is generally thought to be confined to traditional varieties of
English in Northumbria where it is referred to as a ‘burr’ (Beal 2008: 139-
140).
However, uvular r is also quite widespread in Ireland. In the record-
ings for A Sound Atlas of Irish English, the present author not only found
actual instances of uvular r in North Leinster (for instance in the town of
Drogheda, Hickey 2004a: 77-79) but also recorded vowel retraction to the
uvular area as a reflex of previous uvular r among speakers spread across a
much larger region of north-central Ireland. The recordings for Samples of
Spoken Irish revealed uvular r with speakers from the Western and South-
ern Irish areas. Uvular r is known from speakers from other parts of the
country, for instance rural Co. Waterford in the South-East.
The conclusion to be drawn from these facts is that previously uvular r
had a much wider distribution across all parts of Ireland, both in Irish and
in English. That uvular r is strongly recessive can be seen from its
occurrence in a confined area for English (North Leinster, Hickey loc. cit.)
and only with some older speakers in Western and Southern Irish. From the
limited distribution in the latter it would seem that uvular r only occurs for
non-palatal /r/and has a retracting effect on a preceding vowel.

Breandán · **Posted:** Sat 27 Dec 2025 10:14 pm

I think he's trying to describe the deflapping of broad R in some dialects, especially Munster, but I wouldn't describe it as "uvular". It's pretty much just an English R approximant.

The original flapped broad R had that approximant element overlaying the flap, often making the flap harder to hear anyway. But it doesn't have the "burr" of a proper uvular R.

As I said above, the true uvular R sound only occurs in broad DH and GH.

Séamus O'Neill · **Posted:** Sun 28 Dec 2025 5:33 am

Quote:

Uvular r is known from speakers from other parts of the country, for instance rural Co. Waterford in the South-East.

I can at least comment to this: some speakers of Waterford English (i.e. the Hiberno English spoken in Waterford), especially older speakers, have this uvular phoneme when speaking English. I doubt, however, that it is a typical sound of the Irish spoken there.

Breandán wrote:

I think he's trying to describe the deflapping of broad R in some dialects, especially Munster, but I wouldn't describe it as "uvular". It's pretty much just an English R approximant.

Yes, the English r phoneme has taken a large influence on Irish. I don't see, however, how Hickey's 'uvular r' could refer to an approximant English r when providing such specific examples (i.e. Carna and Baile Riabhach): the replacement of the English r into Irish is not a steady dialectal or sub-dialectal feature, and is a sign of badly expressed Irish phonetics. An English r in Irish is more common among younger speakers and non-natives, or just those who don't know the language well. The carrying over of this phoneme into these particular speakers Irish is consistent to all of those with non-native pronunciation, not just those of certain sub-dialectal regions. I would be very surprised if there was any region in the country that natively used an approximant r sound in their pronunciation.

djwebb2021 · **Joined:** Thu 27 May 2021 3:22 am **Posts:** 1722

Hickey in referring to a uvular r is not talking about the English-style approximant. Hickey is an academic and will know what uvular means. On a different page, pp313-314 he refers to approximants:

Quote:

In Irish, as in Russian, both /r/ and /r"/ exist but the realisation of them is different. Both of them are apical but in Irish /r/ is either a frictionless continuant, like English [r], but velarised, when it occurs initially, medially (intervocalically) or word-finally after a vowel, e.g. rua [ruq] ‘red-haired’, árasán [<:rqs<:nK] ‘flat, apartment’, cur [kvr] ‘putting’, or it is a flap when it comes after a stop and before a stressed vowel brón [b4o:nK] ‘sorrow’. /r/ is not rolled in Western Irish (unless for emphasis) although in the North a rolled [r] occurs as the articulation of /r/ with some older speakers; this has generally been replaced by a non-trill realisation.

Unfortunately, I copied the text from the PDF and it has messed up the IPA. But in any case Hickey is not trying to insist that only the Irish of older speakers is correct, and does accept approximant r's as the realisation of a broad r.

Wagner's LASID does not show approximant or uvular r's for the Irish of any dialect in Ireland - those symbols are not given in the list of symbols in volume 1.

baeris · **Joined:** Mon 17 Oct 2022 4:51 pm **Posts:** 27

A uvular R is widespread in Europe, it is also found in Italy, Poland, Romania etc. It appears that a uvular R in Irish was an infrequent variant that crops up rarely in some sources. Nils Holmer (Dialects of County Clare vol 1, 1962: 42) attests to a uvular R from one of scores of informants he met with:

Quote:

'one speaker, (Kv 3), quite exceptionally, has a very guttural r, recalling the continental (German or French) 'r', which is apt to disappear in word-final position, e.g., féar fʼeˑˈ(r)

Kv 3 refers to Martin Kilkelly (Kelly), Shanclogh (Kinvarradoorus) born either 1883 or 1870s.
It is not necessary to think that a uvular R in Irish is the result of French or continental influence since the same change has occurred independently such as in Iraqi Arabic. I am not aware of any reference to it at all in the native Irish of areas where a uvular realisation is more common in English (ie Waterford, Tipperary and Louth). I don't think I've ever heard an audio recording of a uvular R in Irish, I imagine many people would have considered it some kind of speech impediment.

Quote:

But in any case Hickey is not trying to insist that only the Irish of older speakers is correct, and does accept approximant r's as the realisation of a broad r.

It is not the prerogative of an academic to arbitrarily exclude certain data like this.

Quote:

Wagner's LASID does not show approximant or uvular r's...

Wagner's transcription can be broad in some respects. He may have mentioned something in the preface to Vol IV about audio recordings which I'd assume don't survive.

Séamus O'Neill · **Posted:** Sat 03 Jan 2026 4:56 am

Thank you.

Forum rules

ʁ in Irish

Who is online