[File:Uvular rhotics in Europe.png|thumb|300px|Distribution of guttural R (e.g. ) in Continental Europe in the mid-20th century. ]] In common parlance, "guttural R" is the phenomenon whereby a rhotic consonant (an "R-like" sound) is produced in the back of the vocal tract (usually with the uvula) rather than in the front portion thereof and thus as a guttural consonant. Due to strong association with French, guttural R is sometimes thought of as "French R". Such terms are normally avoided in linguistic description in part due to their imprecision. Speakers of languages with guttural R typically regard guttural and coronal rhotics to be alternative pronunciations of the same phoneme, despite articulatory differences. Similar consonants are found in other parts of the world, but they often have little to no cultural association or interchangeability with coronal rhotics (such as , , and ) and are (perhaps) not rhotics at all.