Re: [tied] English and Germanic r.

> English has a voised dental spirant as in "they". This spirant has
> an accoustic effect very similar to the apical trill.
> The use of a retroflex approximant r, makes the difference between
> the two phonemes clearer.

Do I dare to guess you are not a native English speaker? The two phonemes
are not confused in English, even in the speech of people who replace <th>
by something else.

Peter