| Voiceless epiglottal fricative | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ʜ | |||
| IPA number | 172 | ||
| Audio sample | |||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity(decimal) | ʜ | ||
| Unicode(hex) | U+029C | ||
| X-SAMPA | H\ | ||
| Braille |   | ||
| |||
Avoiceless epiglottal fricative, orvoiceless pharyngeal trill,[1] is a type ofconsonantal sound, used in somespokenlanguages. The symbol in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʜ⟩, asmall capital version of the Latin letterh. The glyph ishomoglyphic with the lowercaseCyrillic letterEn (н).
Although the official name in the IPA for this sound has always been avoiceless epiglottal fricative since it was introducedin 1989,laryngoscopic studies byJohn Esling have found that both epiglottal andpharyngeal consonants are pharyngeal inplace of articulation, and are affected inmanner by thearyepiglottic folds andlarynx height; he therefore proposed the reclassification of ⟨ʜ⟩ as thetrilled counterpart of ⟨ħ⟩, noting both asfricatives,[2] and later described realizations of ⟨ʜ⟩ ranging from a fricative, to a trill, to a fricative trill.[3] Esling furthered this reclassification with a modified version of the IPA chart, merging pharyngeal and epiglottal consonants into a single column, placing ⟨ʜ⟩ as a trill and ⟨ħ⟩ as a fricative.[1]
InDahalo, ⟨ʜ⟩ is reported to havepartial voicing intervocalically, resulting in the consonant appearing as apartially voiced epiglottal approximant, which can be transcribed with theextIPA symbol for partial voicing as ⟨ʜ̬᪽⟩. This is distinguished from a fullyvoiced epiglottal approximant in having a less dramatic effect on thefundamental frequency (F0).[4]
Features of a voiceless epiglottal fricative:
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agul[5] | мехӏ | [mɛʜ] | 'whey' | ||
| Amis[6] | tihi | [tiʜiʔ] | 'spouse' | The epiglottal consonants in Amis have proven hard to describe, with some describing it not as epiglottal, but a pharyngeal fricative or even as a uvular consonant. SeeAmis phonology | |
| Arabic[7] | Iraqi[8] | حَي | [ʜaj] | 'alive' | Corresponds to/ħ/⟨ح⟩ inStandard Arabic. SeeArabic phonology |
| Bengali | খড় | [ʜↄɾ] | 'straw' | Mainly realized as such in very eastern regions; often also debuccalized or phonetically realised as/x/. Corresponds to/kʰ/ in western and central dialects. SeeBengali phonology | |
| Chechen | хьо | [ʜʷɔ] | 'you' | ||
| Dahalo | [ʜaːɗo] | 'arrow' | |||
| Haida | x̱ants | [ʜʌnt͡s] | 'shadow' | ||
| Somali[9] | xoor | [ʜoːɾ] | 'bubble' | Realization of /ħ/ for some speakers.[9] SeeSomali phonology | |
