A 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, . In the transcription of Arabic, Berber (and other Afro-Asiatic languages) as well as a few other scripts, it is often written , .
Typically characterized as fricative in the upper pharynx, similar to , except that the latter is placed at the glottis instead.
Features
Features of a voiceless pharyngeal fricative:
Occurrence
This sound is the most commonly cited realization of the Semitic letter hēth, which occurs in all dialects of Arabic, Classical Syriac, Western Neo-Aramaic, Central Neo-Aramaic, Ge'ez, Tigre, Tigrinya as well as Biblical, Mishnaic and Mizrahi Hebrew. It has also been reconstructed as appearing in Ancient Egyptian, a related Afro-Asiatic language. Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, Ashkenazi Hebrew and most speakers of Modern Hebrew have 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).
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="2" | Language !! Word !! IPA !! Meaning !! Notes
|-
| colspan="2" | Abaza || / || || 'stone' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Abkhaz || / || || 'we' || See Abkhaz phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Adyghe || //|| || 'god' ||
|-
| colspan="2" |Afar
|dalcu
|
|'striped hyena'
|
|-
| colspan="2" | Agul || / || || 'barn' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Amis || || || 'burn, roast' || Word-final allophone of //.
|-
| rowspan="2" | Arabic
| Standard|| /|| || 'situation' || See Arabic phonology
|-
|Essaouira
| ()
|
|'chleuh'
|
|-
| colspan="2" | Archi || / || || 'state' ||
|-
| Central Neo-Aramaic || Turoyo || () || || 'Christ' || Corresponds with [x] in most other dialects.
|-
| colspan="2" |Atayal
|
|
|'in/at/on him/her/it'
|
|-
| colspan="2" | Avar || //|| || 'earwax' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Azerbaijani || || || 'instrument' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Chechen || //|| || 'plum' ||
|-
| English || Some speakers, mostly of Received Pronunciation || horrible || || 'horrible' || Glottal for other speakers. See English phonology
|-
| French || Some speakers|| || || 'to do, to make' ||
|-
| Galician || Some dialects || || || 'cat' || Corresponds to in other dialects. See Galician phonology and gheada
|-
| rowspan="2"| Hebrew || Mizrahi || / || || 'electricity' || Merged with for most modern speakers. See Modern Hebrew phonology.
|-
|Temani||/aḥoḏ||||'one'||Yemenite pronunciation of the letter chet. Merged with in most other dialects. See Yemenite Hebrew
|-
| rowspan="2" |Judeo-Spanish
|Haketia
| || || 'Haketia' || Borrowed from Arabic and Hebrew
|-
|Jerusalem
| || || 'small vegetable garden' || Borrowed from Arabic and Hebrew
|-
| colspan="2" | Kabardian || // || || 'ship' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Kabyle || //|| || 'hairdresser' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Kullui || || || 'twenty' || historically derives from and occurs word-finally
|-
| Kurdish || Most speakers || || || 'environment' || Corresponds to in some Kurdish dialects
|-
|Leonese
|Riberan
|
|
|'flour'
|-
| Maltese || Standard || || || 'one' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Nuu-chah-nulth || || || 'friendly' ||
|-
| Sioux || Nakota || || || 'yesterday' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Somali || // || || 'cane' || See Somali phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Tarifit || '|| || 'salt' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Ukrainian || / || || 'fingernails' || Allophone of (which may be transcribed ) before voiceless consonants;