χʷ vs ʁ

Voiceless Uvular Fricative vs Voiced Uvular Fricative

How these sounds differ

χʷ

Voiceless Uvular Fricative

Voicing: voiceless
Place: uvular
Manner: fricative
Class: consonant
In languages: 18 / 500

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Voiced Uvular Fricative

Voicing: voiced
Place: uvular
Manner: fricative
Class: consonant
In languages: 27 / 500

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Cross-linguistic distribution

Languages with χʷ

Languages with both

Languages with ʁ

7 languages in our database contrast both sounds as distinct phonemes. Languages that have one but not the other tend to merge them into a single phoneme — meaning speakers of those languages often struggle to hear the distinction when learning a language that contrasts them.

Has χʷ, not ʁ (11)

Lak Nakh-Daghestanian Haida Haida Squamish Salishan Salish Salishan Nootka Wakashan Kwakiutl Wakashan Tewa Kiowa-Tanoan BELLA COOLA Salishan UPPER CHEHALIS Salishan QUILEUTE Chimakuan SHUSWAP Salishan

Has ʁ, not χʷ (20)

ORMURI Indo-European Aleut Eskimo-Aleut Inuit Eskimo-Aleut Pashto Indo-European North Azerbaijani Turkic Tundra Yukaghir Yukaghir Gilyak Nivkh AHTNA Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit Abipon Guaicuruan Bats Nakh-Daghestanian Hindi-Urdu Indo-European Portuguese (European) Indo-European Egyptian Arabic Afro-Asiatic Uyghur Turkic Modern Hebrew Afro-Asiatic Lebanese Arabic Afro-Asiatic Bukharan Tajik Indo-European Tatar Turkic Georgian Kartvelian Bashkir Turkic