R Facts For Kids

R (uppercase) and r (lowercase) are letters we use in English and many other languages. They are the eighteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, which is the set of letters used to write English. The letter usually stands for the sound you hear at the start of words like run, rabbit, and red. Letters are tools that help us turn sounds into writing, and R is one of the sounds called a consonant because it uses the tongue and mouth to shape the sound. You will see R in lots of words and names all around the world.

People call the letter ar when they say its name out loud. The name is said like the word "car" at the end. Long ago, in Latin, the letter had a different name, er, which sounded a little like the word "air." Over time, the name changed in Middle English to the form we use now, "ar." In some places, like parts of Ireland, people might say the name with a slightly different vowel sound. When you talk about more than one of the letter, you can say "ars."

Very long ago, letters began as pictures. The shape that became R started as a picture of a head in Semitic alphabets. The word for head was something like rêš in those languages, and people used that word to name the letter. This way of naming—using a word that starts with the sound the letter makes—is called acrophony. From that picture and name, the letter changed into the Greek letter rho and later into the Latin R. Over many years, picture-like marks turned into the letter shapes we know today.

When people wrote quickly by hand, the small letter r went through many changes. In Roman cursive, a fast handwriting, letters were looped and joined so writing could move across the page. Later, a rounder book style called uncial made letters easier to read in books. By the ninth century, a clearer writing called Carolingian minuscule was used across Europe. In these changes, the bottom of the r’s loop was often left open so it flowed into the leg or tail. That flowing shape was then simplified into the small arc or hook many people write today.

R is the letter we use for the sound you hear in words like "red" and "run." In most kinds of English the R is said clearly, but in some accents people do not pronounce R at the end of a word or before another consonant. This is called a "non-rhotic" accent. For example, someone might say "car" like "cah." Even when it is not heard, R can still change how the vowel before it sounds.

The letter R is also one of the common letters in English — it appears often in writing, so it helps make many words.

R appears in many languages, but it does not always sound the same. In some languages it is a strong trill that sounds a bit like a purr, in others it is a quick tap (a very short sound made by the tongue), and sometimes it is softer like in English. Some languages show a trilled sound by writing "rr" — for example, Spanish uses "rr" in perro (dog) but a single "r" in pero (but).

In a few languages R can even change toward another sound. For example, in Haitian Creole the R can be weak and sometimes sound close to a W.

R in the Latin alphabet grew from older letters used long ago. It comes from the Greek letter rho, and before that from even older alphabet shapes. Early Latin writing sometimes drew a form that looked like the letter P with a small change; over time that extra stroke became the small tail we use today.

Because letters change slowly, you can spot relatives of R in old inscriptions and in the difference between the uppercase R and the rounded lowercase r we use now.

R is used for more than just sounds. In movie ratings, an "R" label means a film is meant for adults and that children should have a parent with them. There are also many special versions of R with little marks called diacritics, like Ŕ, Ř, and ɍ. These marked letters help show different sounds or spellings in other languages.

People also use R in codes and symbols — for example, dictionaries and language tools use special R signs to show how to say a word, and maps or lists sometimes use letters like R to label things.