R

R or r is the 18th letter of the modern English alphabet and the ISO
basic Latin alphabet. Its name in English is ar (pronounced /ˈɑːr/),
R
plural ars,[1] or in Ireland or /ˈɔːr/.[2]

Rr
Contents (See below)

History
Antiquity
Cursive
Name
Use in writing systems
English
Other languages
Other systems
Related characters
Usage
Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet
Calligraphic variants in the Latin alphabet Writing system Latin script
Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets Type Alphabetic and
Abbreviations, signs and symbols Logographic

Physics Language of Latin language

origin
Encoding
Phonetic usage [r]
Other representations
[ɾ]
See also [ɹ]
References [ʀ]
External links [ʁ]
(Table)
(English
History variations)
/ɑːr/
Unicode value U+0052, U+0072

Alphabetical 18
position
History
Development

Ρρ
 𐌓

Rr

Time period ~50 to present

Descendants •℟
•℞
•®
•Ɍ
•ᚱ
•𐍂
•Ꭱ
Sisters Р
‫ר‬
‫ر‬
‫ܪ‬
ࠓ
𐎗
𐡓
ረ
Ռռ
Րր
ર
र
Variations (See below)
Other
Other letters r(x), rh
commonly used
with
 15th
Archaic Roman modern
Egyptian century
Phoenician Greek/Old square blackletter German cursive
hieroglyph Florentine
Resh Italic capital (Fraktur) kurrent (D'Nealian
tp (D1) inscriptional
Rho R 1978)
capital

Antiquity

The original Semitic letter may have been inspired by an Egyptian

hieroglyph for tp, "head". It was used for /r/ by Semites because in
their language, the word for "head" was rêš (also the name of the The word prognatus as written on the
letter). It developed into Greek 'Ρ' ῥῶ (rhô) and Latin R. Sarcophagus of Lucius Cornelius
Scipio Barbatus (280 BC) reveals the
The descending diagonal stroke develops as a graphic variant in some full development of the Latin R by
Western Greek alphabets (writing rho as ), but it was not adopted that time; the letter P at the same
in most Old Italic alphabets; most Old Italic alphabets show variants time still retains its archaic shape
of their rho between a "P" and a "D" shape, but without the Western distinguishing it from Greek or Old
Italic rho.
Greek descending stroke. Indeed, the oldest known forms of the Latin
alphabet itself of the 7th to 6th centuries BC, in the Duenos and the
Forum inscription, still write r using the "P" shape of the letter. The
Lapis Satricanus inscription shows the form of the Latin alphabet around 500 BC. Here, the rounded, closing
Π shape of the p and the Ρ shape of the r have become difficult to distinguish. The descending stroke of the
Latin letter R has fully developed by the 3rd century BC, as seen in the Tomb of the Scipios sarcophagus
inscriptions of that era. From around 50 AD, the letter P would be written with its loop fully closed,
assuming the shape formerly taken by R.

Cursive

The minuscule (lowercase) form (r) developed through several variations on the capital form. Along with
Latin minuscule writing in general, it developed ultimately from Roman cursive via the uncial script of Late
Antiquity into the Carolingian minuscule of the 9th century.

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 in the Carolingian minuscule and until
today.

A calligraphic minuscule r, known as r rotunda ( ), was used in the sequence or, bending the shape of the r
to accommodate the bulge of the o (as in o as opposed to or). Later, the same variant was also used where r
followed other lower case letters with a rounded loop towards the right (such as b, h, p) and to write the
geminate rr (as ). Use of r rotunda was mostly tied to blackletter typefaces, and the glyph fell out of use
along with blackletter fonts in English language contexts mostly by the 18th century.
 Insular script used a
minuscule which retained two
downward strokes, but which
did not close the loop
("Insular r", ꞃ); this variant
survives in the Gaelic type
popular in Ireland until the
mid-20th century (but now
mostly limited to decorative
18th-century example of use of r
purposes).
rotunda in English blackletter
typography
Name
The name of the letter in
Latin was er (/ɛr/), following
Late medieval illuminated initial the pattern of other letters
representing continuants, such
as F, L, M, N and S. This
name is preserved in French and many other languages. In Middle
English, the name of the letter changed from /ɛr/ to /ar/, following a
pattern exhibited in many other words such as farm (compare French
ferme) and star (compare German Stern).

In Hiberno-English the letter is called /ɒr/ or /ɔːr/, somewhat similar

to oar, ore, orr.[3][4][5]

The letter R is sometimes referred to as the littera canīna (literally

'canine letter', often rendered in English as the dog's letter). This
Latin term referred to the Latin R was trilled to sound like a growling
dog, a spoken style referred to as vōx canīna ('dog voice'). A good Letter R from the alphabet by Luca
example of a trilled R is in the Spanish word for dog, perro.[6] Pacioli, in De divina proportione
(1509)
In William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, such a reference is made
by Juliet's nurse in Act 2, scene 4, when she calls the letter R "the
dog's name". The reference is also found in Ben Jonson's English Grammar.[7]

Use in writing systems

English

The letter ⟨r⟩ is the eighth most common letter in English and the fourth-most common consonant (after ⟨t⟩,
⟨n⟩, and ⟨s⟩).[8]

The letter ⟨r⟩ is used to form the ending "-re", which is used in certain words such as centre in some varieties
of English spelling, such as British English. Canadian English also uses the "-re" ending, unlike American
English, where the ending is usually replaced by "-er" (center). This does not affect pronunciation.

Other languages

⟨r⟩ represents a rhotic consonant in many languages, as shown in the table below.

Alveolar trill [r]
Alveolar approximant [ɹ]
Alveolar flap / Alveolar tap [ɾ]
Voiced retroflex fricative [ʐ]
Retroflex approximant [ɻ]
Retroflex flap [ɽ]
Uvular trill [ʀ]
Voiced uvular fricative [ʁ]
some dialects of British English or in emphatic
speech, standard Dutch, Finnish, Galician, German in
some dialects, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian,
Italian, Czech, Javanese, Lithuanian, Latvian, Latin,
Listen
Norwegian mostly in the northwest, Polish,
Portuguese (traditional form), Romanian, Russian,
Scots, Slovak, Swedish, Sundanese, Welsh; also
Catalan, Spanish and Albanian ⟨rr⟩
English (most varieties), Dutch in some Dutch
Listen dialects (in specific positions of words), Faroese,
Sicilian
Portuguese, Catalan, Spanish and Albanian ⟨r⟩,
Listen Turkish, Dutch, Italian, Venetian, Galician, Leonese,
Norwegian, Irish, Māori
Norwegian around Tromsø; Spanish used as an
allophone of /r/ in some South American accents;
Listen Hopi used before vowels, as in raana, "toad", from
Spanish rana; Hanyu Pinyin transliteration of
Standard Chinese.
some English dialects (in the United States, South
Listen
West England, and Dublin), Gutnish
Norwegian when followed by <d>, sometimes in
Listen
Scottish English
German stage standard; some Dutch dialects (in
Brabant and Limburg, and some city dialects in The
Listen Netherlands), Swedish in Southern Sweden,
Norwegian in western and southern parts, Venetian
only in Venice area.
North Mesopotamian Arabic, Judeo-Iraqi Arabic,
German, Danish, French, standard European
Listen Portuguese ⟨rr⟩, standard Brazilian Portuguese ⟨rr⟩,
Puerto Rican Spanish ⟨rr⟩ and 'r-' in western parts,
Norwegian in western and southern parts.

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 represents a sound so weak that it is often
written interchangeably with ⟨w⟩, e.g. 'Kweyol' for 'Kreyol'.

Brazilian Portuguese has a great number of allophones of /ʁ/ such as [χ], [h], [ɦ], [x], [ɣ], [ɹ] and [r], the
latter three ones can be used only in certain contexts ([ɣ] and [r] as ⟨rr⟩; [ɹ] in the syllable coda, as an
allophone of /ɾ/ according to the European Portuguese norm and /ʁ/ according to the Brazilian Portuguese
norm). Usually at least two of them are present in a single dialect, such as Rio de Janeiro's [ʁ], [χ], [ɦ] and,
for a few speakers, [ɣ].

Other systems

The International Phonetic Alphabet uses several variations of the letter to represent the different rhotic
consonants; ⟨r⟩ represents the alveolar trill.

Related characters

Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet

 R with diacritics: Ŕ ŕ Ɍ ɍ Ř ř Ŗ ŗ Ṙ ṙ Ȑ ȑ Ȓ ȓ Ṛ ṛ Ṝ ṝ Ṟ ṟ Ꞧ ꞧ Ɽ ɽ R r̃ ᵲ[9] [10] ᵳ[9] ᶉ[11]
International Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to R: ɹ ɺ ɾ ɻ ɽ ʀ ʁ ʶ ˞ ʴ
Obsolete and nonstandard symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet: ɼ ɿ
Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to R:[12]

U+1D19 ᴙ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL REVERSED R

U+1D1A ᴚ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL TURNED R
U+1D3F ᴿ MODIFIER LETTER CAPITAL R
U+1D63 ᵣ LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER R
Teuthonista phonetic transcription-specific symbols related to R:[13]

U+AB45 LATIN SMALL LETTER STIRRUP R

U+AB46 LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL R WITH RIGHT LEG
U+AB47 LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITHOUT HANDLE
U+AB48 LATIN SMALL LETTER DOUBLE R
U+AB49 LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH CROSSED-TAIL
U+AB4A LATIN SMALL LETTER DOUBLE R WITH CROSSED-TAIL
U+AB4B LATIN SMALL LETTER SCRIPT R
U+AB4C LATIN SMALL LETTER SCRIPT R WITH RING
ⱹ : Turned r with tail is used in the Swedish Dialect Alphabet[14]
Other variations of R used for phonetic transcription: ʳ ʵ

Calligraphic variants in the Latin alphabet

: R rotunda
Ꞃ ꞃ : "Insular" R (Gaelic type)

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

𐤓 : Semitic letter Resh, from which the following letters derive
Ρ ρ : Greek letter Rho, from which the following letters derive
𐌓 : Old Italic letter R, the ancestor of modern Latin R

ᚱ : Runic letter Raido

Р р : Cyrillic letter Er
𐍂 : Gothic letter Reda

Abbreviations, signs and symbols

℟: symbol for "response" in liturgy
℞ : Medical prescription Rx
₽ : Ruble symbol
® : Registered trademark symbol
Physics
Notation Quantity Unit
electrical resistance ohm (Ω)
Ricci tensor unitless
R
radiancy
gas constant joule per mole-kelvin (J/(mol·K))
r radius vector (position) meter (m)
radius of rotation or distance between two
r things such as the masses in Newton's law of meter (m)
universal gravitation

Encoding

Character R r
Unicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R LATIN SMALL LETTER R

Encodings decimal hex decimal hex

Unicode 82 U+0052 114 U+0072
UTF-8 82 52 114 72
Numeric character reference &#82; &#x52; &#114; &#x72;
EBCDIC family 217 D9 153 99

ASCII 1 82 52 114 72

1 Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh
families of encodings.

Other representations
NATO phonetic Morse code
Romeo ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄

Braille dots-
American
1235
manual
Signal flags Flag semaphore Unified
alphabet (ASL
English
fingerspelling)
Braille
See also
Guttural R

References
1. "R", Oxford English Dictionary 2nd edition (1989); "ar", op. cit
2. [1] (http://digilib.k.utb.cz/bitstream/handle/10563/9938/kr%C3%B6merov%C3%A1_2009_bp.pd
f?sequence=1)
3. "Analysis of selected contemporary Irish dialects" (http://digilib.k.utb.cz/bitstream/handle/10563/
9938/kr%C3%B6merov%C3%A1_2009_bp.pdf?sequence=1) (PDF). Digilib.k.utb.cz. Retrieved
7 November 2017.
4. Hogarty, Steve (November 11, 2013). "Losing My Voice - This Happened to Me" (https://mediu
m.com/this-happened-to-me/losing-my-voice-ef97a0c5e977). Medium.
5. "Mind your 'P's and 'Q's – ore you'll get into trouble!" (https://irishwithian.wordpress.com/2018/1
2/19/mind-your-ps-and-qs-ore-youll-get-into-trouble/). December 19, 2018.
6. "A Word A Day: Dog's letter" (http://wordsmith.org/words/dogs_letter.html). Wordsmith.org.
Retrieved 2012-01-17.
7. Shakespeare, William; Horace Howard Furness; Frederick Williams (1913). Romeo and Juliet
(https://archive.org/details/romeoandjuliet02furngoog). Lippincott. p. 189 (https://archive.org/det
ails/romeoandjuliet02furngoog/page/n218).
8. "Frequency Table" (http://www.math.cornell.edu/~mec/2003-2004/cryptography/subs/frequencie
s.html). Math.cornell.edu. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
9. Constable, Peter (2003-09-30). "L2/03-174R2: Proposal to Encode Phonetic Symbols with
Middle Tilde in the UCS" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2003/03174r2-mid-tilde.pdf) (PDF).
Unicode.org.
10. Everson, Michael (2019-05-05). "L2/19-075R: Proposal to add six phonetic characters for Scots
to the UCS" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19075r-n5036-scots-phonetics.pdf) (PDF).
11. Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to
the UCS" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2004/04132-n2740-phonetic.pdf) (PDF). Unicode.org.
12. Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the
UCS" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2002/02141-n2419-uralic-phonetic.pdf) (PDF). Unicode.org.
13. Everson, Michael; Dicklberger, Alois; Pentzlin, Karl; Wandl-Vogt, Eveline (2011-06-02). "L2/11-
202: Revised proposal to encode "Teuthonista" phonetic characters in the UCS" (https://www.un
icode.org/L2/L2011/11202-n4081-teuthonista.pdf) (PDF). Unicode.org.
14. Lemonen, Therese; Ruppel, Klaas; Kolehmainen, Erkki I.; Sandström, Caroline (2006-01-26).
"L2/06-036: Proposal to encode characters for Ordbok över Finlands svenska folkmål in the
UCS" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2006/06036-lma-proposal.pdf) (PDF). Unicode.org.

External links
Media related to R at Wikimedia Commons
The dictionary definition of R at Wiktionary
The dictionary definition of r at Wiktionary

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=R&oldid=949954554"

This page was last edited on 9 April 2020, at 13:21 (UTC).

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