R

R, 18th letter of the English alphabet. The capital, or uppercase, R first appeared in its modern form in the Roman alphabet as an adaptation of the Greek letter rhō. The Greek character corresponded to the Phoenician resh, which was in turn developed from an Egyptian hieroglyph.

The written letter r represents a great variety of sounds, according to the language in which it is used. Most common are the trilled lingual sound appearing in Spanish and Italian and the uvular r sound in Parisian French. In several languages, including Sanskrit, Czech, and Serbo-Croatian, r may be be used as a vowel as well as a consonant; for example, Trst for Trieste.

The r sound in English is pronounced in a number of ways, depending upon its position in a word and upon the accepted pronunciation in various parts of the English-speaking world.