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 .
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:
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 , and a specifically approximant with a lowering diacritic .
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.
Occurrence
Fricative or transition
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="2"|Language !! Word !! IPA!! Meaning !! Notes
|-
| Adyghe || Shapsug|| /khyg' || || 'now' || Corresponds to in other dialects.
|-
| colspan="2" |Afar
|daháb
|[dʌhʌb]
|'gold'
|
|-
| colspan="2" | Albanian || || || 'the graces' ||
|-
| colspan="2" |Aleut
|hanix̂
|
|'lake'
|
|-
| Arabic || Modern Standard || /haa'il || || 'enormous' || See Arabic phonology
|-
| rowspan="2" | Assyrian |||Eastern || ܗܝܡܢܘܬܐ hèmanūta || || 'faith' ||
|-
| Western || ܗܪܟܗ harcë || || 'here' ||
|-
| Armenian || Eastern || /hayeren || || 'Armenian language' ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 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
|[[Help:IPA/Astur-Leonese|guaḥe<br>
ḥispiar]]
|[ˈgwahɪ]<br>
[hisˈpjaɾ]
|"kid" <br>
"to steal small quantities of something"
|Some words use ḥ in all dialects.
|-
| colspan="2" | Avar || || || 'oath' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Azeri
| hin
| || 'chicken coop' ||
|-
| colspain="2" | Basque || North-Eastern dialects || || || 'three' || Can be voiced instead.
|-
| colspan="2" | Bengali || /haoua || || 'wind' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Berber || || || 'shoe' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Blackfoot ||
/ <br>
/ <br>
|
|'really!' <br>
'Finished'
|| Allophone of /x/ when it occurs beginning of a word.
|-
| colspan="2" |Cantabrian
|muḥer
|[muˈheɾ]
|'woman'
|F- becomes [h]. In most dialects, -LJ- and -C'L- too. May be also realized as .
|-
| colspan="2" | Catalan || || || 'ha!' || Found in loanwords and interjections. See Catalan phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Chechen || / || || 'this' ||
|-
| rowspan="2" | Chinese || Cantonese || / || ||rowspan=2| 'sea' || See Cantonese phonology
|-
| Taiwanese Mandarin || / || || A velar fricative for Standard Chinese. See Standard Chinese phonology
|-
|colspan=2| Danish || || || 'house' || Often voiced when between vowels. || /hava || || 'climate' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | German || || || 'hatred' || See Standard German phonology
|-
| Greek || Cypriot || /mahazi || || 'shop' || Allophone of before .
|-
| colspan="2" | Hawaiian || || || 'shelf' || See Hawaiian phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Hebrew || /har |||| 'mountain' || /h/ and other glottal consonants tend to elide. See Modern Hebrew phonology
|-
| Hindi ||Standard || || || 'the captains' || Intervocalic allophone of . || || || 'here' || See Luxembourgish phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Malay || || || 'day' ||
|-
| colspan="2" |Malayalam
|സഹകരണം/sahakaranam
|
|'cooperation'
|Only occurs in loanwords. See Malayalam phonology.
|-
| colspan="2" | Mutsun || || || 'dog' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Navajo || || || 'mister' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Norwegian || || || 'hat' || See Norwegian phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Pashto || /ho || || 'yes' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Persian || /haft || || 'seven' || See Persian phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Pirahã || || || 'he' ||
|-
| rowspan="4" | Portuguese || Many Brazilian dialects || || || 'sledgehammer' || rowspan=2 | 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
|-
| colspan="2" | Romanian || || || 'bridle'|| See Romanian phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | 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. || 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.
|-
| colspan="2" | Swedish|| || || 'hat' || See Swedish phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Sylheti || /hamukh || || 'snail' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | 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]
|-
| colspan="2" | Tatar || || || 'air' || See Tatar phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Telugu || పదిహేను/padihēnu || || 'fifteen' || Rarely native, mostly in loanwords. See Telugu language#Phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Thai || /haa |||| 'five'||
|-
| colspan="2" | Turkish || || || 'carpet'|| See Turkish phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Ubykh || align="center" | дуаха
|[dwaha]|| 'prayer' || See Ubykh phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Ukrainian|| || || 'claws' || Sometimes when is devoiced. See Ukrainian phonology.
|-
| Urdu ||Standard|| || || 'understand' || See Vietnamese phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Welsh || || || 'sun' || See Welsh orthography
|-
| colspan="2" | West Frisian|| || || 'corner'||
|-
| colspan="2" | Yi || / || || 'hundred'||
|}
Nasal
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 .
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 .
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="2"|Language !! Word !! IPA !! Meaning !! Notes
|-
| Basque || Souletin dialect || || || 'duck' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Carapana || || || || Allophone of before nasal vowels.
|-
| colspan="2" | Kaingang || || || 'hawk' || Possible word-initial realization of before a nasal vowel.
|-
| colspan="2" | Kwangali || || || Tribulus species ||
|-
|Khoekhoegowab ||Damara dialect || || || 'six' || Free variation
|-
| rowspan="2" | Lisu || Northern dialect || || || rowspan="2" | 'soul' ||
|-
| Southern dialect || || ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Swazi || colspan="3" align="center" | || Distinguishes .
|-
| colspan="2" |Tofa
| || || 'twenty' ||
|}
See also
- Voiced glottal fricative
- Index of phonetics articles