Voiceless glottal fricative

Voiceless glottal fricative
IPA number	146
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	h
Unicode (hex)	U+0068
X-SAMPA	h
Braille	⠓ (braille pattern dots-125)

Voiceless glottal approximant

A voiceless glottal fricative, sometimes called a voiceless glottal transition or an aspirate, is a type of sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English-speakers as the "h" sound in "hut". The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is Template:Angbr IPA.

A sound may have real glottal constriction in a number of languages (such as Arabic), making it a true fricative. However, in many languages that have it, it only patterns like a fricative or approximant phonologically, and lacks the usual phonetic characteristics of a consonant. In such languages, has no inherent place or manner of articulation, as well as lacking the height and backness of a vowel. Thus it has been described as neither consonant nor vowel but simply voiceless phonation:

[ and ] have been described as voiceless or breathy voiced counterparts of the vowels that follow them [but] the shape of the vocal tract [...] is often simply that of the surrounding sounds. [...] Accordingly, in such cases it is more appropriate to regard and as segments that have only a laryngeal specification, and are unmarked for all other features. There are other languages [such as Hebrew and Arabic] which show a more definite displacement of the formant frequencies for , suggesting it has a [glottal] constriction associated with its production.

An effort was undertaken at the Kiel Convention in 1989 to move glottal fricatives, both voiceless and voiced, to the approximant cells of the IPA chart. A specifically fricative sound may be indicated with a raising diacritic Template:Angbr IPA, and a specifically approximant with a lowering diacritic Template:Angbr IPA.

The Shanghainese language, among others, contrasts voiced and voiceless glottal fricatives.

Features

Features of the voiceless glottal fricative:

• In some languages, it has the constricted manner of articulation of a fricative. However, in many if not most it is a transitional state of the glottis or an approximant, with no manner of articulation other than its phonation type. Because there is no other constriction to produce friction in the vocal tract in the languages they are familiar with, many phoneticians no longer consider to be a fricative. However, the term "fricative" is generally retained for historical reasons.
• It may have a glottal place of articulation. However, it may have no fricative articulation, in which case the term 'glottal' only refers to the nature of its phonation, and does not describe the location of the stricture nor the turbulence. All consonants except for the glottals, and all vowels, have an individual place of articulation in addition to the state of the glottis. As with all other consonants, surrounding vowels influence the pronunciation , and has sometimes been presented as a voiceless vowel, having the place of articulation of these surrounding vowels.
• Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
• It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the median–lateral dichotomy does not apply.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Fricative or transition

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Adyghe	Shapsug	/khyg'		'now'	Corresponds to in other dialects.
Afar		daháb	[dʌhʌb]	'gold'
Albanian				'the graces'
Aleut		hanix̂		'lake'
Arabic	Modern Standard	/haa'il		'enormous'	See Arabic phonology
Assyrian	Eastern	ܗܝܡܢܘܬܐ hèmanūta		'faith'
	Western	ܗܪܟܗ harcë		'here'
Armenian	Eastern	/hayeren		'Armenian language'
Asturian	South-central dialects	ḥuerza		'force'	F- becomes [h] before -ue/-ui in south-central dialects. May be also realized as [ħ, ʕ, ɦ, x, χ]
	Eastern dialects	ḥacer	[haˈθeɾ]	"to do"	F- becomes [h] in oriental dialects. May be also realized as [ħ, ʕ, ɦ, x, χ]
	All dialects	guaḥe ḥispiar	[ˈgwahɪ] [hisˈpjaɾ]	"kid" "to steal small quantities of something"	Some words use ḥ in all dialects.
Avar				'oath'
Azeri		hin		'chicken coop'
Basque	North-Eastern dialects			'three'	Can be voiced [ɦ] instead.
Bengali		/haoua		'wind'
Berber				'shoe'
Blackfoot		/ /		'really!' 'Finished'	Allophone of /x/ when it occurs beginning of a word.
Cantabrian		muḥer	[muˈheɾ]	'woman'	F- becomes [h]. In most dialects, -LJ- and -C'L- too. May be also realized as .
Catalan				'ha!'	Found in loanwords and interjections. See Catalan phonology
Chechen		/		'this'
Chinese	Cantonese	/		'sea'	See Cantonese phonology
	Taiwanese Mandarin	/			A velar fricative [x] for Standard Chinese. See Standard Chinese phonology
Danish				'house'	Often voiced [ɦ] when between vowels. See Danish phonology
English		high		'high'	See English phonology and H-dropping
Esperanto				'home'	See Esperanto phonology
Eastern Lombard	Val Camonica			'Brescia'	Corresponds to /s/ in other varieties.
Estonian				'tooth'	See Estonian phonology
Faroese				'she'
Finnish				'tooth'	See Finnish phonology
French	Belgian			'pannier'	Found in the region of Liège. See French phonology
Galician	Occidental, central, and some oriental dialects	gato	[ˈhätʊ]	'cat'	Realization of [g] in some dialects. May be also realized as . See gheada.
Georgian		/hava		'climate'
German				'hatred'	See Standard German phonology
Greek	Cypriot	/mahazi		'shop'	Allophone of before .
Hawaiian				'shelf'	See Hawaiian phonology
Hebrew		/har		'mountain'	/h/ and other glottal consonants tend to elide. See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindi	Standard	/ham		'we'	See Hindustani phonology
Hmong		Template:Script/Pahawh Hmong /		'to honor'
Hungarian				'right'	See Hungarian phonology
Irish		shroich		'reached'	Appears as the lenited form of 'f', 's' and 't', as well as grammatical pre-aspiration of vowels, & occasionally word-initial as 'h' in borrowed words. See Irish phonology.
Italian	Tuscan			'the captains'	Intervocalic allophone of . See Italian phonology
Japanese		/		'bare skin'	See Japanese phonology
Javanese		ꦩꦲ/Maha		The expert, Almighty one
Kabardian		/ tkhyl"khė		'books'
Kazakh		шаһар / şahar		'city'
Khmer		/ /		'spicy' 'old'	See Khmer phonology
Korean		/		'waist'	See Korean phonology
Lakota				'voice'
Lao		/haa		'five'
Leonese				'boy'
Lezgian		/hek		'glue'
Luxembourgish				'here'	See Luxembourgish phonology
Malay				'day'
Malayalam		സഹകരണം/sahakaranam		'cooperation'	Only occurs in loanwords. See Malayalam phonology.
Mutsun				'dog'
Navajo				'mister'
Norwegian				'hat'	See Norwegian phonology
Pashto		/ho		'yes'
Persian		/haft		'seven'	See Persian phonology
Pirahã				'he'
Portuguese	Many Brazilian dialects			'sledgehammer'	Allophone of . are marginal sounds to many speakers, particularly out of Brazil. See Portuguese phonology.
	Most dialects			'Honda'
	Minas Gerais (mountain dialect)			'art'
	Colloquial Brazilian (some dialects)			'drizzle'	Corresponds to either or (depending on dialect) in the syllable coda. Might also be deleted.
Quechua	Standard	hatun		'big'	The elderly still maintain the pronunciation of , but the young changed the pronunciation to . See Quechuan phonology
Romanian				'bridle'	See Romanian phonology
Scottish Gaelic				'topsail'	Lenited form of /t/, /s/, see Scottish Gaelic phonology
Serbo-Croatian	Croatian			'hops'	Allophone of when it is initial in a consonant cluster. See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Spanish	Andalusian, Canarian, and Extremaduran Spanish			'fig'	Corresponds to Old Spanish /h/, which was developed from Latin /f/ but muted in other dialects.
	Many dialects			'bishop'	Allophone of at the end of a syllable. See Spanish phonology
	Some dialects			'pony'	Corresponds to in other dialects.
Swedish				'hat'	See Swedish phonology
Sylheti		/hamukh		'snail'
Tagalog				'quiet'	See Tagalog phonology
Tamil	Indian Tamil	பகை/pakai		'hate'	Intervocalic singular /k/ has debuccalized for most except in Brahmin and Sri Lankan Tamil. In total it can be [kʰ x ɡ ɣ ɣʰ h]
Tatar				'air'	See Tatar phonology
Telugu		పదిహేను/padihēnu		'fifteen'	Rarely native, mostly in loanwords. See Telugu language#Phonology
Thai		/haa		'five'
Turkish				'carpet'	See Turkish phonology
Ubykh		дуаха	[dwaha]	'prayer'	See Ubykh phonology
Ukrainian				'claws'	Sometimes when [ɦ] is devoiced. See Ukrainian phonology.
Urdu	Standard	/ham		'we'	See Hindi-Urdu phonology
Vietnamese				'understand'	See Vietnamese phonology
Welsh				'sun'	See Welsh orthography
West Frisian				'corner'
Yi		/		'hundred'

Nasal

Nasalized voiceless glottal approximant

A nasalized voiceless glottal fricative or approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is Template:Angbr IPA.

Occurrence

The sound is nasalized in several languages, apparently due to a connection between glottal and nasal sounds called rhinoglottophilia. Examples of languages where the only h-like sound is nasalized are Krim, Lisu, and Pirahã.

More rarely, a language will contrast oral and nasal . Two such languages are neighboring Bantu languages of Angola and Namibia, Kwangali and Mbukushu. In these languages, vowels following are nasalized, though nasal vowels do not occur elsewhere. A distinction is also reported from Wolaytta, though in that case the nasal is rare. Swazi distinguishes .

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Basque	Souletin dialect			'duck'
Carapana				'god'	Allophone of before nasal vowels.
Kaingang				'hawk'	Possible word-initial realization of before a nasal vowel.
Kwangali				Tribulus species
Khoekhoegowab	Damara dialect			'six'	Free variation
Lisu	Northern dialect			'soul'
	Southern dialect
Swazi					Distinguishes .
Tofa				'twenty'

See also

• Voiced glottal fricative
• Index of phonetics articles

References

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External links

• Template:Phoible
• Template:Phoible