Acquisition of Uvular “ʁ” Across Languages: Introduction to the Issue

The uvular “ʁ” is relatively rare crosslinguistically but occurs in several languages where it is considered a rhotic (r-sound) and in other languages where it is not (e.g., Arabic). In European languages, “ʁ” tends to be highly variable phonetically, ranging from trills to approximants, with fricatives and fricated trills in between, but with unknown ranges and frequency distributions of variants across languages and dialects. The uvular “ʁ” has not yet been addressed in sufficient detail in phonological development or with enough attention to the mastery of adult variation. This special issue presents four studies of monolingual acquisition of “ʁ” in three languages where it is considered rhotic (Canadian French, European Portuguese, German) and one where it is not (Kuwaiti Arabic), examining data from typically developing children and those with protracted phonological development. A fifth article examines developmental “ʁ” data from European Portuguese–French bilingual children. This article introduces the special issue, describing common theoretical and methodological backgrounds and previewing similar and divergent results.