Voiceless glottal fricative

A voiceless glottal fricative, sometimes called a voiceless glottal transition or an aspirate,^[1]^[2] 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 â¨hâ©.

IPA number146

Entity (decimal)h

Unicode (hex)U+0068

X-SAMPAh

Quick facts h, hÍ ...

Voiceless glottal fricative

h

hÍ

IPA number 146

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Entity (decimal) h

Unicode (hex) U+0068

X-SAMPA h

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Quick facts hÌ, Audio sample ...

Voiceless glottal approximant
hÌ
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A [h] 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, [h] 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:

[h and É¦] have been described as voiceless or breathy voiced counterparts of the vowels that follow them [but] the shape of the vocal tract [...] is often simply that of the surrounding sounds. [...] Accordingly, in such cases it is more appropriate to regard h and É¦ as segments that have only a laryngeal specification, and are unmarked for all other features. There are other languages [such as Hebrew and Arabic] which show a more definite displacement of the formant frequencies for h, suggesting it has a [glottal] constriction associated with its production.^[3]

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.^[4]^[5] A specifically fricative sound may be indicated with a raising diacritic â¨hÌâ©, and a specifically approximant with a lowering diacritic â¨hÌâ©.

The Shanghainese language, among others, contrasts voiced and voiceless glottal fricatives.^[6]

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^[who?] no longer consider [h] 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 [h], and [h] has sometimes been presented as a voiceless vowel, having the place of articulation of these surrounding vowels.
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 that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the medianâlateral dichotomy does not apply.
Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Fricative or transition

More information Language, Word ...

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Adyghe	Shapsug	ÑÑÐ³Ñ/khyg'	[hÉÉ¡Ê²]	'now'	Corresponds to [x] in other dialects.
Afar		dahÃ¡b	[dÊhÊb]	'gold'
Albanian		hire	[ËhiÉ¾É]	'the graces'
Aleut		hanixÌ	[ËhaniÏ]	'lake'
Arabic	Modern Standard^[7]	ÙØ§Ø¦Ù/haa'il	[ËhaËÊÉªl]	'enormous'	See Arabic phonology
Assyrian	Eastern	ÜÜÜ¡Ü¢ÜÜ¬Ü hÃ¨manÅ«ta	[heËmaËnuËta]	'faith'
Assyrian	Western	ÜÜªÜÜ harcÃ«	[hÎµrcÉª]	'here'
Armenian	Eastern^[8]	Õ°Õ¡ÕµÕ¥ÖÕ¥Õ¶/hayeren	[hÉjÉÉ¾Én]^â	'Armenian language'
Asturian	South-central dialects	á¸¥uerza	[ËhweÉ¾Î¸É]	'force'	F- becomes [h] before -ue/-ui in south-central dialects. May be also realized as [Ä§, Ê, É¦, x, Ï]
	Eastern dialects	á¸¥acer	[haËÎ¸eÉ¾]	"to do"	F- becomes [h] in oriental dialects. May be also realized as [Ä§, Ê, É¦, x, Ï]
	All dialects	guaá¸¥e á¸¥ispiar	[ËgwahÉª] [hisËpjaÉ¾]	"kid" "to steal small quantities of something"	Some words use á¸¥ in all dialects.
Avar		Ð³ÑÐ°	[ha]	'oath'
Azeri		hin	[hÉªn]	'chicken coop'
Basque	North-Eastern dialects^[9]	hirur	[hiÉ¾ur]	'three'	Can be voiced [É¦] instead.
Bengali		à¦¹à¦¾à¦à¦¯à¦¼à¦¾/haoua	[haoÌ¯a]	'wind'
Berber		aherkus	[ahÉrkus]	'shoe'
Blackfoot^[10]		áá³á¡á¹á³ / hÃ¡nnia! áá³á¡ / hann	[hÊÌnËja] [hÊnË]	'really!' 'Finished'	Allophone of /x/ when it occurs beginning of a word.
Cantabrian		muá¸¥er	[muËheÉ¾]	'woman'	F- becomes [h]. In most dialects, -LJ- and -C'L- too. May be also realized as [Ä§, Ê, É¦, x, Ï].
Catalan		ehem	[eËháº½m]	'ha!'	Found in loanwords and interjections. See Catalan phonology
Chechen		ÑÓÐ°ÑÐ° / hara	[hÉrÉ]	'this'
Chinese	Cantonese	æµ· / hÃ³i	[hÉËiÌ¯Ë§Ë¥]^â	'sea'	See Cantonese phonology
Chinese	Taiwanese Mandarin	æµ· / hÇi	[haÉªÌ¯Ë¨Ë©Ë¦]	'sea'	A velar fricative [x] for Standard Chinese. See Standard Chinese phonology
Danish^[11]		hus	[ËhuËËs]	'house'	Often voiced [É¦] when between vowels.^[11] See Danish phonology
English		high	[haÉªÌ¯]	'high'	See English phonology and H-dropping
Esperanto		hejmo	[Ëhejmo]	'home'	See Esperanto phonology
Eastern Lombard	Val Camonica	Bresa	[ËbrÉha]	'Brescia'	Corresponds to /s/ in other varieties.
Estonian		hammas	[ËhÉmËÉs]	'tooth'	See Estonian phonology
Faroese		hon	[hoËn]	'she'
Finnish		hammas	[ËhÉmËÉs]	'tooth'	See Finnish phonology
French	Belgian	hotte	[hÉt]	'pannier'	Found in the region of LiÃ¨ge. See French phonology
Galician	Occidental, central, and some oriental dialects	gato	[ËhÃ¤tÊ]	'cat'	Realization of [g] in some dialects. May be also realized as [Ä§, É¦, Ê, x, Ï, Ê, É¡Ê°]. See gheada.
Georgian^[12]		á°ááá/hava	[hÉvÉ]	'climate'
German^[13]		Hass	[has]	'hatred'	See Standard German phonology
Greek	Cypriot^[14]	Î¼Î±ÏÎ±Î¶Î¯/mahazi	[mahaËzi]	'shop'	Allophone of /x/ before /a/.
Hawaiian^[15]		haka	[ËhÉkÉ]	'shelf'	See Hawaiian phonology
Hebrew		×Ö·×¨/har	[hÃ¤ÊÌ]	'mountain'	/h/ and other glottal consonants tend to elide. See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindi	Standard^[7]	à¤¹à¤®/ham	[ËhÉm]	'we'	See Hindustani phonology
Hmong		ð¬ð¬°ð¬ / hawm	[haÉ¨Ë¨Ë©]	'to honor'
Hungarian		helyes	[ËhÉjÉÊ]	'right'	See Hungarian phonology
Irish		shroich	[hÉ¾Ë ÉªÃ§]	'reached'	Appears as the lenited form of 'f', 's' and 't', as well as grammatical pre-aspiration of vowels, & occasionally word-initial as 'h' in borrowed words. See Irish phonology.
Italian	Tuscan^[16]	i capitani	[iËhÃ¤É¸iËÎ¸Ã¤Ëni]	'the captains'	Intervocalic allophone of /k/.^[16] See Italian phonology
Japanese		ç´ è / suhada	[sÉ¨áµhada]	'bare skin'	See Japanese phonology
Javanese		ê¦©ê¦²/Maha	[mÉhÉ]	The expert, Almighty one
Kabardian		ÑÑÑÐ»ÑÑÑ/ tkhyl"khÄ	[tÏÉªÉ¬hÉ]	'books'
Kazakh		ÑÐ°Ò»Ð°Ñ / Åahar	[ÊahÉr]	'city'
Khmer		á á¹á / hÅÌr áá¶áá / chÄs	[hÉr] [cah]	'spicy' 'old'	See Khmer phonology
Korean		íë¦¬ / heori	[hÊÉ¾i]	'waist'	See Korean phonology
Lakota		ho	[ho]	'voice'
Lao		àº«à»àº²/haa	[haËË§Ë©]	'five'
Leonese		guaje	[ËwaheÌ]	'boy'
Lezgian		Ð³ÑÐµÐº/hek	[hek]	'glue'
Luxembourgish^[17]		hei	[hÉÌÉªÌ¯]	'here'	See Luxembourgish phonology
Malay		hari	[hari]	'day'
Malayalam		à´¸à´¹à´à´°à´£à´/sahakaranam	[sÉÉ¦ÉÉ¡ÉÉ¾ÉÉ³Ém]	'cooperation'	Only occurs in loanwords. See Malayalam phonology.
Mutsun		huÄekniÅ¡	[hutÍ¡ÊÉkniÊ]	'dog'
Navajo		hastiin	[hÃ sdÌ¥Ã¬Ën]	'mister'
Norwegian		hatt	[hÉtË]	'hat'	See Norwegian phonology
Pashto		ÙÙ/ho	[ho]	'yes'
Persian		ÙÙØª/haft	[hÃ¦ft]	'seven'	See Persian phonology
PirahÃ£		hi	[hÃ¬]	'he'
Portuguese	Many Brazilian dialects^[18]	marreta	[maËhetÉ]	'sledgehammer'	Allophone of /Ê/. [h, É¦] are marginal sounds to many speakers, particularly out of Brazil. See Portuguese phonology.
	Most dialects	Honda	[ËhÃµÌdÉ]	'Honda'
	Minas Gerais (mountain dialect)	arte	[ËahtÊ]	'art'
	Colloquial Brazilian (some dialects)^[19]^[20]	chuvisco	[ÉuËvihku]	'drizzle'	Corresponds to either /s/ or /Ê/ (depending on dialect) in the syllable coda. Might also be deleted.
Quechua	Standard	hatun	[hatuÅ]	'big'	The elderly still maintain the pronunciation of /h/, but the young changed the pronunciation to /x/. See Quechuan phonology
Romanian		hÄÈ	[hÉts]	'bridle'	See Romanian phonology
Scottish Gaelic		ro-sheÃ²l	[É¾ÉËhÉËÉ«]	'topsail'^[21]	Lenited form of /t/, /s/, see Scottish Gaelic phonology
Serbo-Croatian	Croatian^[22]	hmelj	[hmÃªÌÊÌ]	'hops'	Allophone of /x/ when it is initial in a consonant cluster.^[22] See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Spanish^[23]	Andalusian, Canarian, and Extremaduran Spanish	higo	[ËhiÉ£oÌ]	'fig'	Corresponds to Old Spanish /h/, which was developed from Latin /f/ but muted in other dialects.
	Many dialects	obispo	[oÌËÎ²ÌihpoÌ]	'bishop'	Allophone of /s/ at the end of a syllable. See Spanish phonology
	Some dialects	jaca	[Ëhaka]	'pony'	Corresponds to /x/ in other dialects.
Swedish		hatt	[ËhatË]	'hat'	See Swedish phonology
Sylheti		ê ¢ê £ê ê ¥ê /hamukh	[hamux]	'snail'
Tagalog		tahimik	[tÉËhimÉªk]	'quiet'	See Tagalog phonology
Tamil	Indian Tamil	à®ªà®à¯/pakai	[pÉhÉ(iÌ¯)]	'hate'	Intervocalic singular /k/ has debuccalized for most except in Brahmin and Sri Lankan Tamil. In total it can be [kÊ° x É¡ É£ É£Ê° h]^[24]
Tatar		Ò»Ð°Ð²Ð°/hawa	[hawa]	'air'	See Tatar phonology
Telugu		à°ªà°¦à°¿à°¹à±à°¨à±/padihÄnu	[pÉdÌªiheËnu]	'fifteen'	Rarely native, mostly in loanwords. See Telugu language#Phonology
Thai		à¸«à¹à¸²/haa	[haËË¥Ë©]	'five'
Turkish		halÄ±	[hÃ¤ËÉ«É¯]	'carpet'	See Turkish phonology
Ubykh		Ð´ÑÐ°ÑÐ°	[dwaha]	'prayer'	See Ubykh phonology
Ukrainian		ÐºÑÐ³ÑÑ	[Ëkihtâ½Ê²â¾i]	'claws'	Sometimes when [É¦] is devoiced. See Ukrainian phonology.
Urdu	Standard^[7]	ÛÙ/ham	[ËhÉm]	'we'	See Hindi-Urdu phonology
Vietnamese^[25]		hiá»u	[hjewË§Ë©Ë§]	'understand'	See Vietnamese phonology
Welsh		haul	[ËhaÉ¨l]	'sun'	See Welsh orthography
West Frisian		hoeke	[ËhukÉ]	'corner'
Yi		ê / hxa	[haË§]	'hundred'

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Nasal

Quick facts Nasalized voiceless glottal approximant, hÌ ...

Nasalized voiceless glottal approximant
hÌ
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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 â¨hÌâ©.

Occurrence

The /h/ sound is nasalized in several languages, apparently due to a connection between glottal and nasal sounds called rhinoglottophilia.^{[citation needed]} Examples of languages where the only h-like sound is nasalized are Krim, Lisu, and PirahÃ£.

More rarely, a language will contrast oral /h/ and nasal /hÌ/. Two such languages are neighboring Bantu languages of Angola and Namibia, Kwangali and Mbukushu. In these languages, vowels following /hÌ/ 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 /h, hÌ, É¦, É¦Ì/.

More information Language, Word ...

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Basque	Souletin dialect^[26]	ahate	[Ã£ËhÌÃ£te]	'duck'
Carapana^[27]		hÊÌgáº½Ì	[hÌÄ©ÅÉÌÌ]	'god'	Allophone of [h] before nasal vowels.
Kaingang^[28]		hÅ©g	[hÌÅ©Å]	'hawk'	Possible word-initial realization of /h/ before a nasal vowel.^[28]
Kwangali^[29]		nhonho	[hÌÃµhÌÃµ]	Tribulus species
Khoekhoegowab	Damara dialect	hÃ»	[hÌÅ©Ë]	'six'	Free variation^{[clarification needed]}
Lisu	Northern dialect^[30]	han	[hÌaË§]	'soul'
Lisu	Southern dialect^[31]	ê¦ê»	[hÌÉË¦]	'soul'
Swazi		^{[example needed]}			Distinguishes /h, hÌ, É¦, É¦Ì/.
Tofa^[32]		Ð¸ÑÒ»ÑÐ½	[iÊhÌjon]	'twenty'

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Notes

References

Arvaniti, Amalia (1999), "Cypriot Greek" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 29 (2): 173â178, doi:10.1017/S002510030000654X, S2CID 163926812
Barbosa, PlÃnio A.; Albano, Eleonora C. (2004), "Brazilian Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (2): 227â232, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001756
Bradley, David (1994). A Dictionary of the Northern Dialect of Lisu (China and Southeast Asia). Pacific Linguistics. ISBN 978-0-858834-23-1.
Bradley, David (2006). Southern Lisu Dictionary. STEDT. ISBN 978-0-944613-43-6.
Dum-Tragut, Jasmine (2009), Armenian: Modern Eastern Armenian, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Garellek, Marc; Chai, Yuan; Huang, Yaqian; Van Doren, Maxine (19 July 2021). "Voicing of glottal consonants and non-modal vowels". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 53 (2): 309. doi:10.1017/S0025100321000116. ISSN 0025-1003.
Gilles, Peter; Trouvain, JÃ¼rgen (2013), "Luxembourgish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43 (1): 67â74, doi:10.1017/S0025100312000278
GrÃ¸nnum, Nina (2005), Fonetik og fonologi, Almen og Dansk (3rd ed.), Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, ISBN 87-500-3865-6
Hall, Robert A. Jr. (1944). "Italian phonemes and orthography". Italica. 21 (2). American Association of Teachers of Italian: 72â82. doi:10.2307/475860. JSTOR 475860.
Hualde, JosÃ© Ignacio; Ortiz de Urbina, Jon, eds. (2003), A grammar of Basque, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, ISBN 3-11-017683-1
Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho De Valhery (2009), "Fonologia e prosÃ³dia do Kaingang falado em cacique doble", Anais do SETA (3): 675â685
Kohler, Klaus (1999), "German", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge University Press, pp. 86â89, ISBN 0-521-63751-1
Ladefoged, Peter (1990). "Some proposals concerning glottal consonants". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 20 (2): 24â25.
Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell
Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
Landau, Ernestina; LonÄariÄ, Mijo; Horga, Damir; Å kariÄ, Ivo (1999), "Croatian", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 66â69, ISBN 0-521-65236-7
Laufer, Asher (1991), "Phonetic Representation: Glottal Fricatives", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 21 (2): 91â93, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004448, S2CID 145231104
MartÃnez-CeldrÃ¡n, Eugenio; FernÃ¡ndez-Planas, Ana Ma; Carrera-SabatÃ©, Josefina (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (2): 255â259, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001373
Shosted, Ryan K.; Chikovani, Vakhtang (2006), "Standard Georgian" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 36 (2): 255â264, doi:10.1017/S0025100306002659
Smyth, Herbert Weir (1920). A Greek Grammar for Colleges. American Book Company. Retrieved 1 January 2014 â via CCEL.
Thelwall, Robin (1990), "Illustrations of the IPA: Arabic", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 20 (2): 37â41, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004266, S2CID 243640727
Thompson, Laurence (1959), "Saigon phonemics", Language, 35 (3): 454â476, doi:10.2307/411232, JSTOR 411232
Wright, Joseph; Wright, Elizabeth Mary (1925). Old English Grammar (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.

Voiceless glottal fricative

Features

Occurrence

Fricative or transition

Nasal

Occurrence

See also

Notes

References

External links

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