Dental, alveolar and postalveolar trills

The alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is ⟨r⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. It is commonly called the rolled R, rolling R, or trilled R. Quite often, ⟨r⟩ is used in phonemic transcriptions (especially those found in dictionaries) of languages like English and German that have rhotic consonants that are not an alveolar trill. That is partly for ease of typesetting and partly because ⟨r⟩ is the letter used in the orthographies of such languages.

Voiced alveolar trill

Alveolar trill
r
IPA number	122
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	r
Unicode (hex)	U+0072
X-SAMPA	r
Kirshenbaum	r<trl>
Braille

Most commonly, the alveolar trill is voiced.

Voiced alveolar fricative trill

Voiced alveolar fricative trill
r̝
r̻
IPA number	122 429
Encoding
X-SAMPA	r_r

In Czech, there are two contrasting alveolar trills. Besides the typical apical trill, written r, there is another, laminal trill, written ř, in words such as rybáři [ˈrɪbaːr̝ɪ] 'fishermen' and the common surname Dvořák. Its manner of articulation is similar to [r] but is laminal and the body of the tongue is raised. It is thus partially fricative, with the frication sounding rather like [ʒ] but less retracted. It sounds like a simultaneous [r] and [ʒ], and non-native speakers may pronounce it as [rʐ] or [ɹʒ]. In the IPA, it is typically written as ⟨r⟩ plus the raising diacritic, ⟨r̝⟩, but it has also been written as laminal ⟨r̻⟩. (Before the 1989 IPA Kiel Convention, it had a dedicated symbol ⟨ɼ⟩.) The Kobon language of Papua New Guinea also has a fricative trill, but the degree of frication is variable.

References

IPA: Pulmonic consonants [edit]
Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Laryngeal Manner ↓ Bi­labial Lab-den. Ling-lab. Den. Alv. Pst-alv. Retro. Pal. Vel. Uvul. Pharyn. Glottal Nasal m̥ m ɱ n̼ n̪ n̥ n n̠ ɳ̊ ɳ ɲ̊ ɲ ŋ̊ ŋ ɴ Stop p b p̪ b̪ t̼ d̼ t̪ d̪ t d t̠ d̠ ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Sibilant affricate t̪s̪ d̪z̪ ts dz t̠ʃ d̠ʒ ʈʂ ɖʐ t̠ɕ d̠ʑ Non-sibilant affricate pɸ bβ p̪f b̪v t̪θ d̪ð tɹ̝̊ dɹ̝ t̠ɹ̠̊˔ d̠ɹ̠˔ cç ɟʝ kx ɡɣ qχ ɢʁ ʡʜ ʡʢ ʔh Sibilant fricative s̪ z̪ s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ Non-sibilant fricative ɸ β f v θ̼ ð̼ θ ð θ̠ ð̠ ɹ̠̊˔ ɹ̠˔ ɻ̊˔ ɻ˔ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ h ɦ Approximant β̥˕ ɸ̬˕ ʋ̥ ʋ θ̞ ð̞ ɹ̥ ɹ ɹ̠ ɻ̊ ɻ j̊ j ɰ̊ ɰ ʁ̞ ʕ̞ ʔ̞ Tap/flap ⱱ̟ ⱱ ɾ̼ ɾ̪ ɾ̥ ɾ ɾ̠ ɽ̊ ɽ ɢ̆ ʡ̆ Trill ʙ̥ ʙ r̼ r̪ r̥ r r̠ ɽr̥ ɽr ʀ̥ ʀ ʜ ʢ Lateral affricate tɬ dɮ ʈɭ̊˔ ɖɭ˔ cʎ̝̊ ɟʎ̝ kʟ̝̊ ɡʟ̝ Lateral fricative ɬ̪ ɮ̪ ɬ ɮ ɭ̊˔ ɭ˔ ʎ̝̊ ʎ̝ ʟ̝̊ ʟ̝ Lateral approximant l̪ l̥ l l̠ ɭ̊ ɭ ʎ̥ ʎ ʟ̥ ʟ ʟ̠ Lateral tap/flap ɺ ɭ̆ ʎ̆ ʟ̆
Symbols to the right in a cell are voiced, to the left are voiceless. Shaded areas denote articulations judged to be impossible.