R-coloured vowels are vowels with an immediate change in quality when followed by the consonant /r/. These vowels occur in less than 1% of the languages of the world. Though they are rare, they occur in rhotic varieties of English, Brazilian Portuguese, and Mandarin Chinese.
R-coloured vowels occur in most rhotic varieties of English, including Canadian, American and Irish. Here are examples of English words with r-coloured vowels:
car
early
force
start
war
Other names for r-coloured vowels are rhotacized vowels, rhotic vowels and retroflex vowels. R-coloured vowels are analyzed as one vowel modified by the rhotic consonant. In non-rhotic varieties of English such as Received Pronunciation r-coloured vowels do not occur.
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