Correspondence: Professor Dr Marwa Mahmoud Saleh, 9 El-Obour Buildings, Salah Salem Street, Heliopolis 11371, Cairo, Egypt. E-mail: elbokl@hotmail. com or marwa.saleh7@gmail.com (Received 7 May 2012; accepted 24 April 2013) ORIGINAL ARTICLE Spectrographic analysis of Egyptian Cairene /r/: Is it a trill or a tap? MARWA SALEH 1 , MONA HEGAZI 1 , RANIA MAKRAM 2 , RASHA SHOEIB 1 , AMAL SAYED 1 & SALLY TAHER 1 1 Phoniatric Unit, Department of Otolaryngology, Ain Shams University, Cairo, and 2 Phoniatric Unit, Department of Otolaryngology, Tanta University, Tanta, Egypt Abstract The /r/ phoneme is variable in manner and place of articulation, and difficult to correct worldwide. Variability could exist within the same language. The objective of this study was to determine whether Egyptian Cairene /r/ was a trill or a tap and, if both forms were present, whether they were affected by word position or adjacent vowels/consonants. The information obtained was intended to improve correction of /r/ in faulty articulation. Spectrographic analysis was done for 50 Cairene subjects, who produced /r/ in different word positions in carrier phrases. Results have shown presence of both forms in the speech of every subject, but taps were more common than trills. Trills were more common in geminated /r/, in word-medial syllable final position, especially when preceded with /e/, /æ/ or /, and in word-medial syllable initial position, especially when preceded by non-back consonants. Key words: Egyptian phonology, /r/ sound, spectrographic analysis Introduction Variability is a specific feature of /r/ production. Whether in manner or in place of articulation, lit- erature has assigned many descriptions to this inter- national sound. In manner, it has been described as liquid, glide, central approximant, fricative, trill, or tap/flap. In place, it has been referred to as involving bilabial, dental, alveolar, palatal, or uvular territories according to the language (1–6). In classical Arabic, the /r/ is trilled; produced by repetitive movement of the tongue against the coro- nal passive articulator (7). Another form exists in Arabic dialects, and this is the tap/flap. A tap is a single rapid percussive movement, which could be considered as one beat of a trill. A flap is similar, but the tongue tip is curled upward and hits the alveolar ridge on its way to the floor of the mouth. Mitchell (8) contends that many Arabic speakers preserve the trilled /r/ for careful speech, but other- wise regularly use taps. Amayreh and Dyson (9) describe Jordanian Arabic /r/ as containing both forms: the tap and the trill. In the Egyptian language, /r/ was described as a trill by Harrell (10) and as a flap by Omar (11). Harrell also described it as the commonest secondary emphatic sound. This ‘emphasis’ is brought about by pharyngeal constriction; an articulatory feature that could be acquired if a consonant accompanies an emphatic vowel. This shows how /r/ is easily influ- enced by neighboring sounds. A consonant that also has vocalic properties in English, /r/ is both + ve consonantal and + ve sono- rant. Ristuccia et al. (6) have drawn attention to its vocalic nature and to the difficulty experienced by speech–language pathologists worldwide in cor- recting this sound when misarticulated. Thus /r/ is a phoneme, variable in manner, and consequently elusive when corrected. Aim The aim of this study is to clarify the following items, in order to improve correction of Egyptian phoneme /r/ in faulty articulation: Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology, 2015; 40: 30–35 ISSN 1401-5439 print/ISSN 1651-2022 online © 2013 Informa UK, Ltd. DOI: 10.3109/14015439.2013.800907