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Czech has special sound which to me seems to be a voiced trilled r. It is written as "ř".

Wikipedia describes it a different way: A raised alveolar trill, and uses the IPA notation [r̝].

Czech speakers always seem to tell me that it's unique and that foreigners can never pronounce it. I actually can pronounce it though I have trouble with lots of other language sounds so for me it doesn't feel so exotic or difficult.

So is this a case of language pride or is Czech really the only language with this sound?

hippietrail
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    Can you give a more detailed phonetic description of the ř? A "voiced trilled r" doesn't say much, and doesn't seem very unique: almost all r-like sounds are voiced, and trills are extremely common. – JSBձոգչ Sep 21 '11 at 23:01
  • IIRC, there's a small amount of frication, but I'm not sure if it's an on- or off-glide, or maintained throughout the production of the trill. – Alek Storm Sep 22 '11 at 03:10
  • Well, I don't know if it's really that unique, but if the Slovaks can't pronounce it (and that language is pretty much mutually intelligible with Czech), then it must be pretty unique. [disclaimer: I'm studying Czech as a foreigner and I know many others in my position; we all have troubles with it] – VPeric Oct 09 '11 at 22:19
  • Whenever I'm in Istanbul I'm sure I hear a similar sound from educated people but subtle and with a whispering quality. I don't recall hearing it in the rest of Turkey. – hippietrail Jun 09 '13 at 03:32
  • I am aware of at least two historical instances of /z/ becoming some variety of /r/ (in Old Norse, and Classical Latin). I don't know the phonetic process involved in these changes, but I wonder if they might not have gone through a stage similar to "ř". – Colin Fine Jun 16 '13 at 17:56
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    The many conflicting answers on this page are partially indicative of a difference in precision. Individual utterances of this sound will obviously all be different, if you examine them closely enough. Depending on your level of description and abstraction, you ignore more and more of the individual, idio-, dia-, sociolectal etc variations over a set of utterances. – tripleee Mar 15 '18 at 05:44
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    The way the inhabitants of Berlin pronounce "Wurst" is remarkably similar to "ř" for a my Czech ear. – Eleshar Apr 22 '18 at 13:59
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    @Eleshar And the Czech word for Wurst is ... vuřt or colloquially buřt. – Vladimir F Героям слава Jun 09 '19 at 09:25
  • (This is just a comment.) Well, for me, /ř/ and /rz/ are both allophones of the flap /r/ in consonant clusters, when in last position, or of trilled /r/ in initial or even mid position when whispering. For instance, «Grzegorz» in Polish sounds just like Gregoż to me. I, too, have heard the sound in Turkish, in final stop position, also allophone of /r/ in that place. So is it for me as well, if whispering. Now, I am a Castilian speaker, from Mexico. Thus methinks it's really curious. – user24775 Jun 08 '19 at 18:12
  • In Czech it is a phoneme, not an allophone (well, it has one voiced and one unvoiced allophone). – Vladimir F Героям слава Jun 08 '19 at 18:26
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    Polish and <ż> represent the same phoneme, /ʐ/. They are simply orthographic variants based on etymology, but there is no difference in sound despite what the spelling may imply. Also, they are not allophones of /r/, although there are some derivational processes that involve /r/~/ʐ/ alternations. The primary allophone of /ʐ/ is [ʂ], based on devoicing rules. – Mark Beadles Jun 09 '19 at 00:16

7 Answers7

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Wikipedia has these two factoids; they are tagged "citation needed" but could be avenues of investigation:

This sound occurred historically in Polish, where it was written "rz", but it has since merged with "ż" [ʐ]. This sound is also used in local pronunciation of Spanish "rr" in region of Ibarra in Ecuador.

(source)

Aaron
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    Yes I saw these after adding the wikilinks but answers from linguists are better than answers from Wikipedia anyway. I always pronounce rz like ř because to me I assumed they should be the same going by the spelling even though Polish people don't make the same sound as me. But hey there's enough other Polish sounds I can't make anyway (-: The Ecuadorian Spanish thing is interesting though. I've spent a lot of time in Latin America but never that far south. I'd love to hear it. – hippietrail Sep 21 '11 at 23:34
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    I liked the Polish one so much I asked an example question about it in the Polish Language & Usage proposal. – hippietrail Sep 22 '11 at 00:13
  • SPE (The Sound Pattern of English), as I recall, has remarks about a Czech r which they think (Halle, I suppose) may be an obstruent liquid. – Greg Lee Apr 17 '18 at 07:57
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    Factoids, so they're not actually factual? – cmw Nov 28 '23 at 15:40
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Another instance, though a sketchy one. At least one description of Tsakonian (I think it's Scutt, C. A. 1912-13. The Tsakonian Dialect I. The Annual of the British School at Athens 19. 133-173) commented that men's pronunciation of palatalised /r/ resembled "the Czech r". The pronunciation would have been unstable even at the time (hence the sociolinguistic split of men vs women), and all subsequent descriptions say it is simply [ʒ].

Greek-based practical orthographies of Tsakonian continue to write the sound as ρζ—just like the <rz> digraph in Polish, which appears to reflect a similar development. So "justice of the peace", Stadnard Greek ειρηνοδίκης [irinoðicis], was rendered in Tsakonian as ρζινοδίτζη [r̝inoðitɕi].

Nick Nicholas
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The Czech raised alveolar trill that is represented by ř in Czech orthography is phonetically quite unique. However, there are apparently certain Polish dialects where it exists as an allophone of 'rz' (See this listing on Wikipedia). This resource on Polish dialects (in Polish) gives a distribution of these dialects and suggests that the full realization is only sporadic and present mostly among the oldest speakers. I'm not sure of any detailed study that has looked at this from a truly contrastive perspective, though.

Although the prototypical phonetic instantiation of ř is voiced, it has a voiceless allophone which is acoustically quite similar to the Polish 'rz' sometimes leading to claims that Polish has the 'ř' phoneme.

Czechs are taught that 'ř' is unique to Czech (and some other little known language in Papua New Guinea) but again I don't remember seeing any study of this other than anecdotal evidence. Speech impediments related to the sound are called 'Rotacismus Bohemicus' suggesting that this may be a peculiarly Czech sound.

hippietrail
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Dominik Lukes
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Actually, Czech people mean that it's a unique sound (believe me, I'm a Czech and a linguist), but it's not. There were at least "ř" in some northern Polish dialects, in Sorbian. It's usually said to be pronounced with two or three flaps, but some actual phonetic contributions have evidence that it's mostly one flap, rarely two flaps and very rarely three flaps (just because we're usually pretty lazy about pronouncing them) - so the same "ř" sound as for example in Spanish.

hippietrail
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Karolína Vyskočilová
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it's not unique to Czech. We have it in European Portuguese. It's written RJ in words like 'gorjeta' or 'sarjeta'.

hugo
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    Are there any additional links or references you can provide about this? – curiousdannii Mar 14 '18 at 12:11
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    Not a confirmation of as such, but WIkipedia reports "For speakers who realize /r/ as an alveolar trill [r], the sequence /sr/ (as in e.g., os rins) can coalesce into a voiced alveolar trill fricative [r̝]." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_phonology, citing p. 157 of https://books.google.com/books?id=9RtCAgAAQBAJ) – Nick Nicholas Mar 23 '18 at 12:46
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    I speak Portuguese natively and study Czech and ř is absolutely NOT our rj sound! Not in Portuguese from Brazil or Portugal. Only someone who does not know the Czech sound would think so. On the other hand, I was wondering how close the ř sound is to the slender r in Irish. – Gus Jan 02 '21 at 23:22
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    The slender r in Irish is very rarely a real trill – normally it’s more of a fricative or approximant. It also tends not to not be lowered like the Czech sound. They’re not acoustically wholly dissimilar, but also not the same. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jan 02 '21 at 23:42
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The way you've described it so far sounds like the Turkish [r]. English speakers perceive it as a [ž] especially in __# positions.

Deniz
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  • I've been to Turkey actually and their sound is reminiscent of the Czech one but the Turkish one is more "whispery". – hippietrail Jun 15 '13 at 09:49
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It depends on which perspective you are taking it. If it is the perspective of non-professional then no. Take for example the Polish Grzegorz, where that sound may sound the same as its Czech equal Řehoř.

But from the linguistic point of view, they are different sounds. Compare its IPA transcriptions. ˈɡʐɛ.ɡɔʂ for Polish Grzegorz and ˈr̝ɛɦor̝̊ for Czech Řehoř.

Juandev
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  • Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center. – Community Dec 06 '23 at 16:23
  • Should be dear Bot? Its my personal research. – Juandev Jan 04 '24 at 09:07