A thread about your alveolar flap, or tap

Pretty sure I'd go with flap -- let's pretend there was never any controversy about this and tell me what your alveolar flap sounds like. There are English speakers from all over the English speaking world here, why not talk about phonology.

The alveolar flap exists in all sorts of other languages, but I thought about this particular sound because of Spotify (the word itself, not the service, although that is fun/interesting too.)

For your reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_flap

1) Native English speaker?

-- If no, what is your first language and where (primarily) did you learn to speak English?

-- If yes, what dialect would you say you speak?

2) An example of a word or two you use it in

Me first I guess

1) yes, NE Ohio, USA
2) sitting pretty

I am not doing this for any formal research reason, btw, I would just like to know what ILX's flaps sound like. I bet there is a pretty big variety?

There's another one: variety

In case you don't want to go to wikipedia

The terms tap and flap may be used interchangeably.

Peter Ladefoged proposed for a while that it may be useful to distinguish between them. However, his usage has been inconsistent, contradicting itself even between different editions of the same text. The last proposed distinction was that a tap strikes its point of contact directly, as a very brief plosive, whereas a flap strikes the point of contact tangentially: "Flaps are most typically made by retracting the tongue tip behind the alveolar ridge and moving it forward so that it strikes the ridge in passing." However, later on, he no longer felt this was a useful distinction to make, and preferred to use the word flap in all cases.

For linguists who do make the distinction, the coronal tap is transcribed as a fish-hook "r", [ɾ], while the flap is transcribed as a small capital "d", [ᴅ], which is not recognized by the IPA. Otherwise, alveolars and dentals are typically called taps, and other articulations flaps. No language contrasts a tap and a flap at the same place of articulation.

This sound is often analyzed (and therefore transcribed) by native English speakers as an 'R-sound' in many foreign languages. For example, the 'Japanese R' in hara, akira, tora, etc. is actually an alveolar tap. In languages where this segment is present but is not a true phoneme, an alveolar tap is often an allophone of either an alveolar stop (/t/ or /d/) or a rhotic consonant like the alveolar trill or alveolar approximant.

About other alveolar sounds, so you can distinguish what I'm not talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKdarTOse6c&feature=related

Around 2 min there's a long bit on "water grader greater better" in between a whole lot of Korean that I don't understand. (Not because it's unintelligible, but because I don't speak Korean)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uHy_JOT70Q

First Gloria at 0:50, no flap
Second at 0:55, major flap!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK34DVYsICY

I think he's taking his Latin pronunciation a little too seriously at points in the song; like, I don't think he'd say "Gloria" with that flap were he not singing (in fact, when I sing Latin most if not all of my Rs are flipped like that as a diction technique).

You might even say it's a strategic flap. That happens.

Oh, also I don't want to harvest people's geographical information or places of birth or anything -- I'm simply curious about your alveolar flap.

anyway:

1. yes, "standard" upper-midwest American English with a few NE colloquialisms here and there (ex: "soda" instead of "pop")
2. double consonant Ts and Ds ("better", "ladder"), aforementioned single Rs when singing

(when singing classical music, I should clarify; I'm not busting out the IPA on "Just Like Heaven")

The one that makes me /skɾiym/ she said

(when singing classical music, I should clarify; I'm not busting out the IPA on "Just Like Heaven")

I don't know man sometimes I like to bust out a couple of IPA's and jam "Just Like Heaven"

this is a IPA symbol for alveolar flap btw
feel free to c/p

ɾ

For the record, the alveolar flap is one of my favorite consonantal sounds. It's versatile, used in a variety of contexts, and carries a lot of interesting sociolinguistic information (for a consonantal sound).

A.k.a. "rolling your Rs," right? The more specific linguistic terms are useful for distinguishing between the trill and the tap outside the U.S., but I'm surprised this common phrase is nowhere on the Wikipedia page.

Rolling is a trill

It's a repeated sound, whereas the flap or tap are not

I understand it with the 'r's', but how are t he double t's in, say, butter also considered a flat/tap?

Because the double t is just an orthographic representation of the sound, which is a flap

Ahh I see, ta!

even if i soften the 't' to a 'd' (spodify, budder), i find it difficult connect that sound to the r/l in that first youtube clip...

That "softening" is actually a flap!

xp: But as the phrase is commonly used and understood, at least in American English so far as I'm aware, you either roll your Rs or you don't--there's no distinction made between a tap and a trill. I'd love to see linguistic exactness enter the common vocabulary though.

The first youtube was to illustrate that those other sounds are NOT the alveolar flap -- not a trill, not an approximant (the US "hard" r), and not a tap. I just posted it for comparison's sake.

A.k.a. "rolling your Rs," right?

Not quite. As La Lechera says, rolling your Rs is a series of these taps in quick succession; the term I've heard as a singer is "flipping your Rs", where you only do it once. Depending on the language, as a singer you often have different contexts where you roll or flip Rs; in English for example, the most common thing I've come across is that single Rs are flipped and double Rs are rolled, but in German singing diction it's pretty common roll all Rs.

The first youtube was to illustrate that those other sounds are NOT the alveolar flap

ah ok! i'll stop muttering taps and flaps under my breath, cara mia, before i get funny looks in the office.

Before you stop, log your flaps!

1) Yes, south of England, Received Pronunciation innit
2) For double Ts et al, probably vary between no flap/flap/full-on glottal stop, depending on context/intent/laziness.

Thank you! Well done.

rolling your Rs is a series of these taps in quick succession

Right, I'm saying that in the absence of better linguistic terms entering common parlance in America, "she rolls her Rs" doesn't have that meaning--it can mean either rolling or flipping. Ask a person on the street in the U.S. what "flipping your Rs" means and they'll think you're talking about selling real estate.

Tbf, there are a lot of things you could ask a person on the street in the US and they would be likely to come up with an inaccurate answer.

What are Fritos made of?

Where is South America?

1. YES BALTIMORE
2. BALTIMORE

Interesting! Can a person from Baltimore tell if someone is not from Baltimore by the way that person pronounces Baltimore?

100%

I think that's true for a lot of place names, but kudos for attaching the significance of nativity to the alveolar flap.

mostly ledge's answer here too but for the sake of completeness

Yes, South of England; not sure what my accent officially is, somewhere on the line between Received Pronunciation and Estuary English but with a hint of West Country (all these are prob the same to Americans anyway)

Mostly do not use this sound (tt/dd between vowels comes out as either fully pronounced or a glottal stop, with not much in between, though occasionally something slightly like this creeps in)

did not know what it was until I looked up wikipedia's examples at forvo.com (I love forvo.com), but US-ian "water" is a good example to me as it is fun to say in a fake American accent

Thank you for your input -- water is a good example!

I didn't really get the distinction until the Baltimore example. But now if I try to say Baltimore with the flap it sounds like a spanish speaker saying Voldemort.

pronunciation of "water bottle" is probably the ultimate American English example of this

water shows vowels really well too, so you get that extra bonus

maybe because of proximity to the highly distinctive flap? even standing near the flap will get you attention, this much is for sure.

LOL, Glaswegian pronunciation of 'water' is like a noise you might hear in kung fu movie

Tell me more about these sounds

Can't do phonetics, but sorta WAAAAAAAAAAHHH-UH-r. Bigget glottal stop in history after the WAAAAAAAAAAHHH.

Glottal stops are so interesting -- I esp. like them as a variant of the flap/alveolar sounds.

Ke$ha likes them too -- listen to her "what?" at 1:18 -- you can totally tell that her mouth is wide open and there's no way she could flap because she can't be bothered to even close her mouth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXNSwkmoWqs

I think that's probably only true of word-final /t/, not intervocalic /t/ in her strange made-up dialect.

As Rab C. Nesbitt once commented, "It's like Strindberg in here. With glottal stops."

Can everyone in the UK identify a glottal stop? My phonetics and phonology professor was from Cornwall and he pretty much never stopped making glottal stop jokes.

I've never seen the show you linked to, but here is an example: (listen to "area" at 1:45) -- I hear an alveolar flap there. Is that accurate?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzQbmV-Og3M

Glottal stops famous in the UK thanks to Estuary English, all part of the wonderful Broken Britain dialogue.

Can everyone in the UK identify a glottal stop?

Everyone might be pushing it. Cockney had glottal stops before Estuary English of course. Most Scottish accents/dialects too (I'm no expert tho). Maybe West Country too.

I still don't get what this is (I read and watched all the things!!!). It is just pronouncing the "t" sound in the middle of "butter" instead of slurring through it like "budder"?

People in the US seem to have an entirely made-up nontechnical vocabulary for talking about sounds -- (see rolling/flipping/"hard"/"soft") I was just wondering if the IPA terms are more commonly used in the UK because generally people are more aware of sociolinguistic phonological cues? Or maybe it's taught in school -- I have no idea.

Glottal stops are everywhere if you look closely enough, even in the US. But that's probably another thread.

Was I accurate in hearing a flap in "area"?

xp to Jenny --

the flap is the "light" /d/ sound USians use instead of the /t/ intervocalically. It's also the sound we tend to make when we pronounce the "r" in Spanish words -- "pero", for instance. Your tongue is whapping up and hitting your alveolar ridge, but not staying there for long (as if you were saying "dog" or another word with a firm alveolar stop/plosive)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolar_plosive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_alveolar_plosive

Can you tell I'm trying to get myself psyched up for this semester? This is what I'm doing instead of working on my syllabus :-/

you've confused me again! i thought the flap was the /d/ sound and the tap was the 'r' - glaswegian 'area' sounds like a tap to me, and distinct from the /d/.

I'm not fluent in Spanish but I live in a spanish influenced part of the country, so any1 who pronounces 'pero' to rhyme with 'arrow' instead of sounding like 'PEH-doh' gets clowned

I'm sorry that I've confused you :(
It would be easier if I could demonstrate.

/d/ is not a flap -- it's a different sound. To be graphic, it's all about what your tongue is doing -- is it just flying up and hitting the alveolar ridge *just* long enough to make contact (flap) or is it staying there a tiny bit longer (t/d). The difference is what makes the variants so interesting, I think.

I loooove this site for teaching this stuff -- it's easy to understand and has little diagrams for what all of your mouth parts are doing when you make a sound
http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/

BUT it's just for standard American English, and doesn't get too far into variants of these standard sounds.

m bison that is good information
what part of the country is that?

btw the alveolar flap is part of what makes me horrid sn so...problematic

me should be MY

sorry!

south Texas!

would it be helpful to distinguish d sounds at the beginning of the word (dog, derriere, dump) vs d sounds inside of words (incident, sadist, kiddos) vs those at the end (god, iPod, food)?

word initial
intervocalic
word final

it is helpful

am I wrong in hearing the tap in intervocalic cases, but the d is voiced for initials and finals?

In American English, yes.

/d/ is always voiced -- that is one of its features -- (/t/ is the voiceless /d/) BUT what you're saying is that /d/ is articulated as a stop rather than a flap/tap.

"Whatever" is another example -- if it's used in rapid normal speech, it's a flap
When it's used like whatEVER by a petulant teen, it's fully articulated

Those are the variants I'm interested in because the flap (or lack of flap) carries meaningful information about the speaker.

lack of flap indicating total bitchiness in this case

yes! lol minutiae, but yes.

I can't do an alveolar trill to save my life so I fake the double-r in Spanish with an alveolar flap.

That's because you know how to work the system...the phonological system :-D

so if i'm understanding this concept right, this is how i say "water" (i'm from new jersey)

was hoping this thread would have tits

donna - yes
latham green - tits no, but titties yes

I am imagining them right now! mmmm! nice!

Following phonology links around on Wikipedia, I found a cool A/B comparison that lets you hear the aspirated/unaspirated stop distinction in English:

night rate

nitrate

Awesome!

What, you're not going to share?

I closed the browser window and I can't remember what page it was on!

Okay! I get it.

1. I am a native speaker. I don't know about dialect as now it is kind of a smash up due to living lots of places with distinctly different ways of speaking.
2. I'm a flapper. I don't think I ever tap unless I am talking funny on purpose.

Hazel - that is a pity because it sounded interesting. Glad you saw this thread though!!
Jenny - nice work. Most speakers of American English are pretty hardcore flappers, so one of us one of us.

I've decided that I'm going to bring back this accent:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/08/language-mystery-when-did-americans-stop-sounding-this-way/243326/

I'll make a million dollars doing voiceover work for movies with retro news real scenes.

1) Yes, south-east of England, somewhere between RP and Estuary
2) As far as I know I never use this sound

was hoping this thread would have tits

I was thinking lower. *Those* flaps.

Apparently I had the cutest and strongest rolling r in existence. But I also lisped. Mother cured latter and out went the rolling r.

Nathalie, you're...Belgian, right? Did you learn English concurrently with Dutch? French? Tell me about your language learning.

N, B, and S -- If you don't identify the alveolar flap in your dialect, what does it sound like to you when other people use it? (I realize you may not have an opinion about this, just wondering)

1) yes - new york city, although people tell me my accent is more hudson valley/collegiate new england
2) "adiposity" (relevant to my interests cuz i just had a bowl of cereal)

get bent -- are there two flaps in adiposity or one?

i pronounce the t as a d.

so two flaps: a[flap]iposi[flap]y

thank you for your input!

that is highly untechnical notation btw, sorry

N, B, and S -- If you don't identify the alveolar flap in your dialect, what does it sound like to you when other people use it? (I realize you may not have an opinion about this, just wondering)

A bit like a /d/?

again, a flap is like the alveolar plosive (/d/) but it's more of a...flap, like your tongue is not as committed to staying on your alveolar ridge, and it just *flaps* up and hits it lightly

hand motion illustrates this better than words, tbh

like your tongue just goes

*flap*

instead of using the alveolar ridge like a diving board

I'm been thinking about this and for some words, it's barely even a flap. More of a fla. It's a wonder anybody can understand me at all.

Amanda I would interested in your take on the accent of my homeland. If I can find a representative video clip, can I post it here for your commentary? Or maybe start an "Ask a Linguist" thread?

This is a useful link for geographical phonological variants in American English: http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/home.html

LABOV 4 LYFE

The problem I have trying to read about linguistics is that it's highly technical and written in part in a different alphabet (IPA) that I don't understand. I am trying to read about the Philadelphia dialect and it is half awesome (when they include recognizable words as examples of how things sound) and half infuriating (when they don't).

Also that map has nothing on my homeland. :( I just suspect we might be linguistically interesting because we're in the middle of a couple of different geographical areas with distinct dialects (Philadelphia, Baltimore, the south).

I meant to say - in the middle of those regions but none of those dialects entirely correctly describes the accent.

Although I'd settle for knowing the technical term for the fucked up way Mid Atlatic ppl pronounce home and phone and probate code.

This is way off topic. Sorry A. I will back away from your flaps!

hi dere out of context thread

Oh I knew what I was doing with that one.

Sorry Jenny -- maybe there is research being done as we speak on the Luxembourg of the Atlantic coast :)

my flaps are your flaps, per the thread title
haha

linguistics -- so sexy!

cunning, etc

Colonel Angus

Actually, maybe I do use it, in place of a /t/ if I'm speaking quickly in things like "what if...?" "but it..."

I didn't really get the distinction until the Baltimore example. But now if I try to say Baltimore with the flap it sounds like a spanish speaker saying Voldemort.

― the wheelie king (wk), Wednesday, August 10, 2011 8:17 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

haha my gf calls baltimore voldemort cause of how i say it

And don't forget the nasal tap!

Aw yeah, good one! Hi 5, homie!!

Do we have any nasal tappers here?

Many Americans in casual speech ought to do it! Check this awesome example sound file:

A sentence about a center for dentists...

Oh, that's awesome. I hear that all the time.

If you don't want to click on the link: A sennence about a cenner for dennists on the allanic ocean

i just said that sentence out loud and i think i mix it up w/r/t pronouncing the t and not. i definitely say either "atlantic" or "atlannic" but never "allanic."

i may have transposed that word incorrectly?
ignore that part

"sennence" may be midwestern. i use the "t." but "cenner for dennists" sounds like something i might do in casual speech.

Maybe midwestern, but I think this variable may be sociocultural in addition to geographical. I am midwestern and I would never say sennence.

This thread is a bit over my head. I'm trying to apply that crazy sound from the Wikipedia page to every day use. The way an American tries to roll his r's without succeeding is what I'm gathering here.

From my days of radio, it was pointed out that I have a tendency to divide the syllables in "Clinton" between the 'n' and the 't'. Could be an alveolar tap at work.

I say "Benton" the same way too.

i'm a nasal tapper, i think. a moderate one i guess. there's definitely plasticity in the frequency and degree i use the nasal tap. tired/drunk/speaking a bit faster than usual. or just the flow of whatever it is in particular i'm saying at the time. i would probably say "center for dennists" most of the time, but "cenner for dennists" could come out, too, for example. but i think i say "dentist" whenever in singular form. idk!

from MN for the record

I pronounce the hell out of the t in sentence, center, and dentist.

When I say "dentist" in regular speech, it's probably more like "dennis-ed" a la with a nasal tap but I also have a background in linguistics so I am aware that how I actually pronounce words on a day-to-day basis is, as Rumsfeld says, a known unknown.

Den-tissed.

my consonants are more or less defined, i used to say "water" with a glottal stop in the middle (classic irish midlands, that) but don't anymore. oh wait, except for "R" which the rest of the English-speaking world pronounces as "arrr" (if they're spelling out for example) but which I & everyone I know say as "orr" (as in the word 'or', not 'ore'). fuck knows what that is though?

re: glottal stops - m.i.a makes use of hers a lot, particularly in lovalot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVpp4ubSh-k

Actually, maybe I do use it, in place of a /t/ if I'm speaking quickly in things like "what if...?" "but it..."

yeah, my first thought was that this was not really a thing in Britisherland, but I can see that a quick, quiet one creeps in accidentally to "gotta" etc... possibly even "Britain" too for that matter.

The really pronounced d-like versions instead of r are confusing to me; on some of them I would totally transcribe it as a d, and I'm not sure I can make that noise without saying "d" instead. e.g. any of the three Portuguese pronunciations here: http://www.forvo.com/word/cara/#pt

(I might not know what I'm talking about, I got a bit confused with the introduction of nasal taps as well - most of the wikipedia examples of a nasal tap were what I thought we were already talking about)

Pleasant Plains, is what you're describing the same sound you hear when people say "no she di'int"? If so, that is a glottal stop!

No, but to me, that's what other people sound like when they say "Benton".

Here is a pretty good Sussex County, DE accent example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9mVVjhObfE

in the first 44 seconds of that video, which is all i feel like watching before i make dinner,

i hear nasal tapping (invenned)
and a lot of philly (particularly in words like "load")

in standard AE, "load" has a diphthong - /ow/
in his dialect, the vowels seem to be less rounded

that's my 45 second analysis

Nathalie, you're...Belgian, right? Did you learn English concurrently with Dutch? French? Tell me about your language learning.

Oh no, I learned Flemish first. English from about the age of 8 probably. On my own, from television, because there's subtitling so it was easy to link the words. My parents never realized until I spoke to a client in our shop. I tend to pick up languages quite easily. Also accents. I tend to mimic accents. I hate and love this at the same time. I can't seem to "hold onto" them but otoh it helps me as well.

That said, some friend said I pronounced "the" the wrong way. Made me sad as I thought I was perfect, but alas no it seems that that sound gives it away.

I was taught french (and german) in school but I am not as good as with English and Dutch, sadly. Also learned a bit of Japanese ;

Nowadays they already expose kids to french from about four/five years old. They play french songs during class. I absolutely love this! Other parents moan that it should be English, but French is an official language (as is German) so why English (before French)?

I adore languages.

omg huge lol @ 45 or so

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY2R_K3NFPo&feature=youtu.be

Languages that evolve at high elevations are more likely to include a type of sound called an ejective consonant that's easier to make when the air is thinner, new research shows.

that is SUPER cool

language is a means to an end, might as well take the path of least resistance

i haven't been following the "she rolls her 'r' too much" vanessa ruiz brouhaha too closely because it makes me angry and basically i think anyone who criticizes multilingual people for pronouncing proper nouns naturally is an ignoramus BUT

i have been disappointed because in the coverage i have encountered, there was no "The Flap about the Flap" headline-- if it's about her pronunciation of /r/, it's most likely related to the flap, not the trill (aka the "rolling" r that people gave her shit about)

missed opportunities, jokers!

If you would like to hear the word "button" pronounced with a very distinguishable flap, listen to this program https://www.wbez.org/shows/curious-city/mixed-signals-do-chicagos-crosswalk-buttons-actually-work/3776a8f6-af50-496a-beb8-741c4b3abbe0

i have heard many people insert a glottal stop in that position, but this flap is really noticeable

That's a nice idiosyncrasy. I do hear the glottal stop in "button" from lots of people and can't figure out if it's a regionalism or what.

I don't think people from the south ever use a glottal stop in button - I tend to associate it with Yankees but it's obviously not a coastal thing, I dunno

I think I derive more satisfaction from hearing/noticing the differences than I do from placing them -- I'll leave that up to the pros

Buddin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4dx42YzQCE

Does your first language influence your trombone playing?

awesome link

https://dood.al/pinktrombone

yikes

I love that thing so much

are we at a tipping point with flapping in the word "important"? i think the flap may be dominant but have no data nor interest in collecting it lol

I've noticed the undergrads I work with taking this all the way to a glottal stop along with not schwa-ing the final vowel!

like, me:
/ɪmpɔrtənt/

them:
/ɪmpɔɾɛnt/ or /ɪmpɔʔɛnt/

(I probably use the tap a lot too... but really I just swallow the entire last syllable so when they hit that final vowel with stress it really stands out to me)

My accent naturally skips out the first T in important, please acknowledge that we are valid! It’s very impor—-ant to me.

i say impor'n'

I've noticed the undergrads I work with taking this all the way to a glottal stop along with not schwa-ing the final vowel!

this is partially why i have noticed it, working with first year college students and listening to their podcasts

gyac ur glottal stop is hella valid

i forgot i started this thread for the flap until this morning
i guess it wasn't very impordent

i say impor'n'

Wait crüt are you from the South

Everything is valid

I pronounce the first t but not the second

Buster Posey the absolute king of saying important with 0 Ts

imPOR’an’

“You’re not as important as you think you are”

If Buster Posey is able to say that, you should be able to have that realization as well. pic.twitter.com/wNgdZAHdQg

— The Catching Academy (@CatchingAcademy) November 4, 2021

Wait crüt are you from the South

yep! I'm from Georgia. I don't have a super thick accent but it's "there"

Never heard about this. Does it break down to:

=flap = short pause on t sound
=tap = longer pause on t sound

?

buster posey's pronunciation o(t)m

I am from the Irish midlands and we notoriously have a flat accent that mirrors the landscape. I make more of an effort to enunciate now cos the third time someone looked at me and said “I’ve never heard someone say ‘cutting’ like that,” it got old.

xp onnamoney

Never heard about this. Does it break down to:

=flap = short pause on t sound
=tap = longer pause on t sound

?

not really -- flap and tap are essentially the same and it's not a durational feature (nothing to do with pauses that i am aware of)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_dental_and_alveolar_taps_and_flaps

important is super variable for me, it's often like that clip without the rhoticity but I do any combination of aspirating or glottalising either one or both of the t's but I basically never flap idk what rules govern this

enunciating/aspirating the first t in important sounds really aggressive!

but i guess not as aggressive as going full glottal reduplication a la
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0Ux0A4OHSo

I think I do that when I want the importance of it to be taken note of which is a whole complicated sociolinguisic thing. if I do it with both t's I'm probably really pissed off and it makes me sound super petulant

lol if you super enunciate cause you’re pissed you need to add an extra syllable like ITS IMPORTANT-UH

I am from the Irish midlands and we notoriously have a flat accent

sorry, whats a fleah hacksen?

Don’t get me started on how you talk

confession: I notice this most in conversations about /kɪʔɛnz/