Voiceless pharyngeal fricative
The voiceless pharyngeal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is an h-bar, ⟨ħ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is X\. In the transcription of Arabic, Berber (and other Afro-Asiatic languages) as well as a few other scripts, it is often written ⟨Ḥ⟩, ⟨ḥ⟩.
| Voiceless pharyngeal fricative | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ħ | |||
| IPA Number | 144 | ||
| Audio sample | |||
|
source · help | |||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) | ħ | ||
| Unicode (hex) | U+0127 | ||
| X-SAMPA | X\ | ||
| Braille |   | ||
| |||
Typically characterized as a fricative in the upper pharynx, it is often characterized as a whispered [h].
Features
Features of the voiceless pharyngeal fricative:
- Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
- Its place of articulation is pharyngeal, which means it is articulated with the tongue root against the back of the throat (the pharynx).
- 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 air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
- It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
- The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and diaphragm, as in most sounds.
Occurrence
This sound is the most commonly cited realization of the Semitic letter hēth, which occurs in all dialects of Arabic, Classical Syriac, as well as Biblical and Tiberian Hebrew but only a minority of speakers of Modern Hebrew. It has also been reconstructed as appearing in Ancient Egyptian, a related Afro-Asiatic language. Modern non-Oriental Hebrew has merged the voiceless pharyngeal fricative with the voiceless velar (or uvular) fricative. However, phonetic studies have shown that the so-called voiceless pharyngeal fricatives of Semitic languages are often neither pharyngeal (but rather epiglottal) nor fricatives (but rather approximants).[1]
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abaza | хIахъвы, (kh'akh"vy) | [ħaqʷə] | 'stone' | ||
| Abkhaz | ҳара (khara) | [ħaˈra] | 'we' | See Abkhaz phonology | |
| Adyghe | тхьэ (tkh'ė) | ⓘ | 'god' | ||
| Agul | мухI (mukh') | [muħ] | 'barn' | ||
| Amis[2] | tuduh | [tuɮuħ] | 'burn, roast' | Word-final allophone of /ʜ/. | |
| Arabic[3] | حال (ḥal) | ⓘ | 'situation' | See Arabic phonology | |
| Essaouira[4] | شلوح (šlūḥ) | [ʃlɵːħ] | 'chleuh' | ||
| Archi | хIал (kh'al) | [ħal] | 'state' | ||
| Assyrian | Western | ܡܫܝܚܐ (mšìḥo) | [mʃiːħɔ] | 'Christ' | Corresponds with [x] in most other dialects. |
| Avar | xIебецI (kh'ebets') | [ħeˈbetsʼ] | 'earwax' | ||
| Azerbaijani | əhdaş | [æħd̪ɑʃ] | 'instrument' | ||
| Chechen | xьач (ẋaç) | ⓘ | 'plum' | ||
| English | Some speakers, mostly of Received Pronunciation[5] | horrible | [ħɒɹɪbəl] | 'horrible' | Glottal [h] for other speakers.[5] See English phonology |
| French[6] | Some speakers | faire | [feː(ă)ħ] | 'to do/ to make' | |
| Galician[7] | Some dialects | gato | [ˈħatʊ] | 'cat' | Corresponds to /ɡ/ in other dialects. See gheada |
| Hebrew | Mizrahi | חַשְׁמַל (hashmal) | ⓘ | 'electricity' | Merged with [χ] for most modern speakers. See Modern Hebrew phonology. |
| Jarawa[8] | [ħiɽu] | 'black' | |||
| Kabardian | кхъухь (kkh"ukh') | ⓘ | 'ship' | ||
| Kabyle | ⴰⵃⴻⴼⴼⴰⴼ aḥeffaf احفاف | [aħəfːaf] | 'hairdresser' | ||
| Kullui | [biːħ] | 'twenty' | /ħ/ historically derives from /s/ and occurs word-finally[9] | ||
| Kurdish | Most speakers | ḧol | ⓘ | 'environment' | Corresponds to /h/ in some Kurdish dialects |
| Maltese | Standard | wieħed | [wiħːet] | 'one' | |
| Nuu-chah-nulth | ʔaap-ḥii | [ʔaːpˈħiː] | 'friendly' | ||
| Sioux | Nakota | haxdanahâ | [haħdanahã] | 'yesterday' | |
| Somali | xood | ⓘ | 'cane' | See Somali phonology | |
| Ukrainian[10] | нігті (nihti) | [ˈnʲiħtʲi] | 'fingernails' | Allophone of /ʕ/ (which may be transcribed /ɦ/) before voiceless consonants;[10] can be fronted to [x] in some "weak positions".[10] See Ukrainian phonology | |
Notes
- Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996:167–168)
- Maddieson, Ian; Wright, Richard (October 1995). "The Vowels and Consonants of Amis — A Preliminary Phonetic Report" (PDF). Fieldwork Studies of Targeted Languages III. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics Volume 91. pp. 45–65.
- Watson (2002:19)
- Francisco (2019), p. 89.
- Collins & Mees (2003), p. 148.
- Mager, Irene (1974). A critical analysis of the teaching of French phonology (Thesis). OCLC 9841438. ProQuest 193965929.
- Regueira (1996:120)
- Kumar, Pramod (2012). Descriptive and typological study of Jarawa (Thesis). S2CID 60302041.
- Thakur 1975, p. 181.
- Danyenko & Vakulenko (1995:12)
References
- Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (2003) [First published 1981], The Phonetics of English and Dutch (5th ed.), Leiden: Brill Publishers, ISBN 978-90-04-10340-5
- Danyenko, Andrii; Vakulenko, Serhii (1995), Ukrainian, Lincom Europa, ISBN 978-3-929075-08-3
- Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996), The sounds of the World's Languages, Oxford: Blackwell, ISBN 978-0-631-19815-4
- Regueira, Xose (1996). "Galician". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 26 (2): 119–122. doi:10.1017/s0025100300006162. S2CID 241094214.
- Watson, Janet (2002), The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic, New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-824137-9
- Francisco, Felipe Benjamin (2019). O dialeto árabe de Essaouira: documentação e descrição de uma variedade do sul do Marrocos [The Arabic Dialect of Essaouira: Documentation and Description of a Southern Moroccan Variety] (PhD) (in Portuguese). São Paulo: University of São Paulo. doi:10.11606/T.8.2019.tde-29102019-180034. S2CID 214469852.
