Voiceless pharyngeal fricative

Voiceless pharyngeal fricative
ħ
IPA Number	144
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ħ
Unicode (hex)	U+0127
X-SAMPA	X\
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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⟩.

Typically characterized as 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 abdominal muscles, 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	[tħa]^ⓘ	'god'
Agul		мухI/mukh'	[muħ]	'barn'
Amis[2]		tuduh	[tuɮuħ]	'burn, roast'	Word-final allophone of /ʜ/.
Arabic[3]		ح‍ال/ḥal	[ħaːl]^ⓘ	'situation'	See Arabic phonology
	Essaouira[4]	شلوح (šlūḥ)	[ʃlɵːħ]	'chleuh'
Archi		хIал/kh'al	[ħal]	'state'
Central Neo-Aramaic	Turoyo	ܡܫܝܚܐ (mšìḥo)	[mʃiːħɔ]	'Christ'	Corresponds with [x] in most other dialects.
Atayal		hiyan	[ħijan]	'in/at/on him/her/it'
Avar		xIебецI/kh'ebets'	[ħeˈbetsʼ]	'earwax'
Azerbaijani		əhdaş	[æħd̪ɑʃ]	'instrument'
Chechen		xьач/ẋaç/حـاچ	[ħatʃ]^ⓘ	'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/ḥašmal	[ħaʃˈmal]^ⓘ	'electricity'	Merged with [χ] for most modern speakers. See Modern Hebrew phonology.
	Temani	אֶחָדֿ/aḥoḏ	[æħɔð]	'one'	Yemenite pronunciation of the letter chet. Merged with /χ/ in most other dialects. See Yemenite Hebrew
Kabardian		кхъухь/ꝗvɦ/ڨوح	[q͡χʷəħ]^ⓘ	'ship'
Kabyle		ⴰⵃⴻⴼⴼⴰⴼ/aḥeffaf/احـفاف	[aħəfːaf]	'hairdresser'
Kullui			[biːħ]	'twenty'	/ħ/ historically derives from /s/ and occurs word-finally[8]
Kurdish	Most speakers	ḧol	[ħol]^ⓘ	'environment'	Corresponds to /h/ in some Kurdish dialects
Maltese	Standard	wieħed	[wiːħet]	'one'
Nuu-chah-nulth		ʔaap-ḥii	[ʔaːpˈħiː]	'friendly'
Sioux	Nakota	haxdanahâ	[haħdanahã]	'yesterday'
Somali		xood/حٗـود/𐒄𐒝𐒆	[ħoːd]^ⓘ	'cane'	See Somali phonology
Ukrainian[9]		нігті/nihti	[ˈnʲiħtʲi]	'fingernails'	Allophone of /ʕ/ (which may be transcribed /ɦ/) before voiceless consonants;[9] can be fronted to [x] in some "weak positions".[9] See Ukrainian phonology

See also

• Pharyngeal fricative
• Heth
• Index of phonetics articles
• Guttural
• H with stroke

Notes

1. Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996:167–168)
2. 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.
3. Watson (2002:19)
4. Francisco (2019), p. 89.
5. Collins & Mees (2003), p. 148.
6. Mager, Irene (1974). A critical analysis of the teaching of French phonology (Thesis). OCLC 9841438. ProQuest 193965929.
7. Regueira (1996:120)
8. Thakur 1975, p. 181. sfn error: no target: CITEREFThakur1975 (help)
9. 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.

External links

• List of languages with [ħ] on PHOIBLE