R

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This article is on the letter "R", for other uses go to R (disambiguation).

Image:Latin alphabet Rr.svg
Basic Latin alphabet
Aa Bb Cc Dd   Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv   Ww Xx Yy Zz

R is the eighteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ar (IPA: /ɑr/; pronounced [ɑː] or [ɑɹ]).^[1]

Contents 1 History 1.1 Minuscule 2 Various phonetic realizations of R 3 Codes for computing 4 See also

[edit] History

Egyptian hieroglyph tp	Proto-Semitic R	Phoenician R	Etruscan R	Greek Rho	Later Etruscan R
<hiero>D1</hiero>	Image:Proto-semiticR-01.png	Image:PhoenicianR-01.png	Image:EtruscanR-01.png	Image:Rho uc lc.svg	Image:EtruscanR-02.png

The original Semitic letter was probably inspired by an Egyptian hieroglyph for "head", pronounced t-p in Egyptian, but it was used for /r/ by Semites because in their language, the word for "head" was Rêš (also the name of the letter). It developed into Greek Ρ ῥῶ (Rhô) and Latin R. It is likely that some Etruscan and Western Greek forms of the letter added the extra stroke to distinguish it from a later form of the letter P.

[edit] Minuscule

The minuscule (lower-case) form of r developed through several variations on the capital form. In handwriting it was common not to close the bottom of the loop but continue into the leg, saving an extra pen stroke. The loop-leg stroke shortened into the simple arc used today.

Another minuscule, r rotunda, kept the loop-leg stroke but dropped the vertical stroke. It fell out of use around the 18th century.

[edit] Various phonetic realizations of R

See rhotic consonant, r-colored vowel, and guttural R for discussion of the family of 'r' sounds.

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, /r/ represents the alveolar trill sound. Other languages may use the letter r in their alphabets (or Latin transliterations schemes) to represent rhotic consonants different from the alveolar trill. In Haitian Creole, it is represents a sound so weak that it is often written interchangeably with w, eg. Kweyol for Kreyol. This sound can also change in a language perceptibly over time; the alveolar trill of British English is more characteristic of 19th / early 20th century speech and is associated with older speakers, while younger Britons have been known for a much weaker 'r' since at least the 1980s.

Alveolar trill /r/	Listen	Arabic, Armenian, some dialects of British English or in emphatic speech, Finnish, German in performance arts, Hungarian, Italian, Latin, Norwegian, Polish, Catalan, Romanian, Russian, Scots, Spanish 'rr', Welsh, Dutch in the Netherlands
Alveolar approximant /ɹ/	Listen	English (most varieties), Faroese
Alveolar flap / Alveolar tap /ɾ/	Listen	Greek, Hindi 'र', Portuguese, Catalan, Spanish 'r', Turkish, Italian
Alveolar lateral flap /ɺ/	Listen	Japanese
Retroflex approximant /ɻ/	Listen	some varieties of American English
Retroflex flap /ɽ/	Listen	Hindi 'ड़', sometimes Scottish English
Uvular trill /ʀ/	Listen	French; Dutch in Belgium, Swedish in Southern Sweden
Voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/	Listen	German, Danish, French in and around Paris, Modern Hebrew

[edit] Codes for computing

In Unicode the capital R is codepoint U+0052 and the lowercase r is U+0072.

The ASCII code for capital R is 82 and for lowercase r is 114; or in binary 01010010 and 01110010, correspondingly.

The EBCDIC code for capital R is 217 and for lowercase r is 153.

The numeric character references in HTML and XML are "R" and "r" for upper and lower case respectively.

[edit] See also

For other meanings and uses of the letter "R", see R (disambiguation). See also:

• Raidô
• Я (Cyrillic Ya)
• Rho (Greek)
• Vocalic r

The Letter "R"
General:	The letter R · Rhotic consonants (R-like sounds) · Rhotic and non-rhotic accents · R-colored vowels · Guttural R · Linking R and Intrusive R
Pronunciations:	Alveolar trill [r] · Alveolar approximant [ɹ] · Alveolar tap [ɾ] · Alveolar lateral flap [ɺ] ·Retroflex approximant [ɻ] · Retroflex flap [ɽ] ·Uvular trill [ʀ] ·Voiced uvular fricative [ʁ]
Variations:	R rotunda · Ɍɍ (R with stroke) · Ʀʀ · Ȑȑ · Ŕŕ · Ŗŗ · Řř · Ȓȓ · Ṙṙ · Ṛṛ · Ṝṝ · Ṟṟ · Rd · Rh · Rl · Rn · Rr · Rt · Rnd · ᚱ (Raidô) · ℛ (Riemann integral) · ℜ (Real part) · ℝ (Real number) · ® (Registered trademark) · Ⓡ (Enclosed R)

The ISO basic Latin alphabet
Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp	Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv	Ww	Xx	Yy	Zz
Letter R with diacritics ŔŕŘřṘṙŖŗȐȑȒȓṚṛṜṝṞṟɌɍᵲᶉɼⱤɽɾᵳ Two-letter combinations Ra Rb Rc Rd Re Rf Rg Rh Ri Rj Rk Rl Rm Rn Ro Rp Rq Rr Rs Rt Ru Rv Rw Rx Ry Rz RA RB RC RD RE RF RG RH RI RJ RK RL RM RN RO RP RQ RR RS RT RU RV RW RX RY RZ Letter-digit & Digit-letter combinations                 R0 R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9                 0R 1R 2R 3R 4R 5R 6R 7R 8R 9R history • palaeography • derivations • diacritics • punctuation • numerals • Unicode • list of letters

als:R

ar:R arc:R ast:R az:R bs:R br:R (lizherenn) ca:R cs:R co:R da:R de:R et:R el:R es:R eo:R eu:R fa:R fr:R (lettre) gd:R gl:R ko:R hr:R ilo:R id:R is:R it:R he:R ka:R kw:R sw:R ht:R la:R hu:R nl:R (letter) ja:R no:R nn:R pl:R pt:R ro:R qu:R ru:R (латиница) simple:R sl:R sr:R (слово латинице) fi:R sv:R tl:R th:R vi:R tr:R uk:R (латиниця) yo:R zh:R