Acquisition of Uvular /ʁ/ in Typically Developing Kuwaiti Arabic-Speaking Children: A Preliminary Investigation

The current study investigates development of the Kuwaiti Arabic (KA) uvular /ʁ/ and related speech sounds among KA-speaking preschoolers. No previous studies have focused specifically on this topic for KA. Speech samples of nine children (45 words) were audio-recorded through picture naming, targeting /ʁ/, other gutturals, velars, and trilled /r/. A trained speech-language pathologist transcribed the data phonetically, with reliability checks by the authors. PHON 3.5.1 provided a starting point for analysis. Younger children revealed more mismatches in /ʁ/, /q/, /χ/, /ʕ/, and /sˤ/ across word positions, and the older children showed a higher proportion of matches. The older children mismatched the sounds /ʁ/, /ħ/, /ɡ/, and /ðˤ/. The voiceless velar stop /k/ and glottal /h/ had higher match proportions in both groups. This study is the first to focus specifically on how KA-speaking children acquired their uvulars and adjacent speech sounds.