Abstract

In Byzantine writings, the Greek letter rho, which represents the /r/ phoneme, regularly has an aspiration mark in word-initial position and when geminated. Because of closely parallel phenomena in such widely different languages as Brazilian Portuguese and Västergötland Swedish it is suggested as an explanation that the Greek /r/ phoneme had two allophones, a front (apical) one and a back (uvular or velar) one, the latter occurring when the phoneme is word-initial or long.

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