Voiced Uvular Fricative

The voiced uvular fricative or approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʁ⟩, an inverted small uppercase letter ⟨ʀ⟩, or in broad transcription ⟨ɣ⟩ or (if rhotic) ⟨r⟩. This consonant is one of several collectively called guttural R when found in European languages.

Because the IPA symbol stands for both the uvular fricative and the uvular approximant, the fricative nature of this sound may be specified by adding the uptack to the letter: ⟨ʁ̝⟩. The approximant can be specified by adding the downtack: ⟨ʁ̞⟩.