Guttural R - Slavic Languages

Slavic Languages

In Slavic languages, the alveolar trill predominates, with the uvular rhotic generally seen as a defective pronunciation. An exception are the languages of the Sorbian minority in Saxony, eastern Germany, which are typically spoken with a uvular trill rhotic due to German influence. The uvular rhotic may also be found in a small minority in Silesia and other German-influenced regions of Poland and also Slovenia, but is overall quite rare even in these regions. It can also be perceived as an ethnic marker of Jewishness, particularly in Russian where Eastern European Jews often carried the uvular rhotic from their native Yiddish into their pronunciation of Russian.