Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 26, 2026

Voiced uvular tap and flap

In the context of phonetics, a voiced uvular tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. There is no dedicated symbol for this sound in the IPA. It can specified by adding a 'short' diacritic to the letter for the uvular plosive, ⟨ɢ̆⟩, but normally it is covered by the unmodified letter for the uvular trill, ⟨ʀ⟩, since the two have never been reported to contrast and a uvular tap or flap is not known to exist as a phoneme in any language.

Last revised
Jul 26, 2026
Read time
≈ 3 min
Length
680 w
Citations
21
Source
Voiced uvular tap or flap
ɢ̆
ʀ̆
IPA number112 505
Audio sample
Encoding
Entity (decimal)ɢ​̆
Unicode (hex)U+0262 U+0306

In the context of phonetics, a voiced uvular tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. There is no dedicated symbol for this sound in the IPA. It can specified by adding a 'short' diacritic to the letter for the uvular plosive, ⟨ɢ̆⟩, but normally it is covered by the unmodified letter for the uvular trill, ⟨ʀ⟩,1 since the two have never been reported to contrast and a uvular tap or flap is not known to exist as a phoneme in any language.

In some languages a uvular tap is reported is said to vary allophonically with a uvular trill, and is most likely a single-contact trill [ʀ̆] rather than an actual tap or flap [ɢ̆] in these languages.

Features

Features of a voiced uvular tap or flap:

Occurrence

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Dutch2 rood [ʀ̆oːt] 'red' More common than a uvular trill.3 Realization of /r/ varies considerably among dialects. See Dutch phonology
English Northumbrian red [ɢ̆ɛd] 'red' Tap,45 or also a tapped fricative,6 most usually a plain fricative. See Northumbrian burr
German Standard7 Ehre [ˈʔeːʀ̆ə] 'honor' Common intervocalic realization of uvular trill.7 See Standard German phonology
Hiu8 [βɔ̞ʀ̆] 'hibiscus'
Ibibio9 ufʌk [úfʌ̟̀ɢ̆ɔ̞] 'summary' Intervocalic allophone of /k/; may be a velar approximant [ɰ] instead.9
Limburgish Hasselt dialect10 weuren [ˈβ̞øːʀ̆ən] '(they) were' Possible intervocalic allophone of /r/; may be alveolar [ɾ] instead.10 See Hasselt dialect phonology
Okanagan Southern11 ʕaləp [ɢ̆àlə́p] 'lose' Allophone of /ʕ/; corresponds to [ʕ] in other dialects.11
Supyire12 tadugugo [taduɢ̆uɢ̆o] 'place to go up' May be in free variation with [ɡ].12
Wahgi13 Allophone of /ʟ̝/.13
Yiddish Standard14 בריק [bʀ̆ɪk] 'bridge' Less commonly a trill [ʀ]; can be alveolar [ɾ ~ r] instead.14 See Yiddish phonology
Notes

Notes

  1. Bruce Connell, Lower Cross Wordlist
  2. Collins & Mees (2003), pp. 42, 199.
  3. Collins & Mees (2003), p. 42.
  4. Gąsiorowski, Piotr (2006). "A Shibboleth upon Their Tongues: Early English /r/ Revisited". Studia Anglica Posnaniensia. 42: 63–76. hdl:10593/2383.
  5. Wells, John C. (1982). Accents of English 2: The British Isles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 368. ISBN 0-521-24224-X.
  6. Påhlsson, C. (1972) The Northumbrian Burr. Lund: Gleerup.
  7. Lodge (2009), p. 46.
  8. François (2005), p. 44.
  9. Urua (2004), p. 106.
  10. Peters (2006), p. 118.
  11. Kinkade (1967), p. 232.
  12. Carlson (1994), p. 10.
  13. Phillips (1976), p. ?.
  14. Kleine (2003), p. 263.
References

References