The voiced alveolar approximant is a type of
consonantal sound used in some spoken
languages. The symbol in the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...
that represents the
alveolar Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit.
Uses in anatomy and zoology
* Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs
** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte
** Alveolar duct
** Alveolar macrophage
* ...
and
postalveolar
Postalveolar or post-alveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the ''back'' of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but no ...
approximants is , a lowercase letter ''r'' rotated 180 degrees. The equivalent
X-SAMPA 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 , but is often used for convenience in its place. For further ease of typesetting, English phonemic transcriptions might use the symbol even though this symbol represents the
alveolar trill in phonetic transcription.
The
bunched or molar r 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 or .
Features

Features of the voiced alveolar approximant:
Occurrence
Alveolar
Postalveolar
As an allophone of other
rhotic sounds, occurs in
Edo
Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo.
Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...
,
Fula,
Murrinh-patha, and
Palauan.
See also
*
Index of phonetics articles
A
* Acoustic phonetics
* Active articulator
* Affricate
* Airstream mechanism
* Alexander John Ellis
* Alexander Melville Bell
* Alfred C. Gimson
* Allophone
* Alveolar approximant ()
* Alveolar click ()
* Alveolar consonant
* Alveolar ejecti ...
Notes
References
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External links
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{{Authority control
Alveolar consonants
Pulmonic consonants
Oral consonants
Central consonants