The voiced pharyngeal approximant or fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʕ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ?\. Epiglottals and epiglotto-pharyngeals are often mistakenly taken to be pharyngeal.
| Voiced pharyngeal fricative | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ʕ | |||
| IPA Number | 145 | ||
| Audio sample | |||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) | ʕ | ||
| Unicode (hex) | U+0295 | ||
| X-SAMPA | ?\ | ||
| Braille |   | ||
| |||
| Voiced pharyngeal approximant | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ʕ̞ | |||
| |||
Although traditionally placed in the fricative row of the IPA chart, [ʕ] is usually an approximant. The IPA symbol itself is ambiguous, but no language is known to make a phonemic distinction between fricatives and approximants at this place of articulation.
The IPA letter ⟨ʕ⟩ is caseless. Capital ⟨⟩ and lower-case ⟨⟩ are pending at Unicode U+A7CE and U+A7CF.
Features
Features of the voiced pharyngeal approximant fricative:
- Its manner of articulation varies between approximant and fricative, which means it is produced by narrowing the vocal tract at the place of articulation, but generally not enough to produce much turbulence in the airstream. Languages do not distinguish voiced fricatives from approximants produced in the throat.
- 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 voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
- 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
Pharyngeal consonants are not widespread. Sometimes, a pharyngeal approximant develops from a uvular approximant. Many languages that have been described as having pharyngeal fricatives or approximants turn out on closer inspection to have epiglottal consonants instead. For example, the candidate /ʕ/ sound in Arabic and standard Hebrew (not modern Hebrew – Israelis generally pronounce this as a glottal stop) has been variously described as a voiced epiglottal fricative, an epiglottal approximant,[1] or a pharyngealized glottal stop.[2]
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abaza | гӀапынхъамыз/g'apynkh"amyz | [ʕaːpənqaːməz] | 'March' | ||
| Arabic | اَلْـعَـرَبِيَّةُ/al-ʽarabiyya | [alʕaraˈbijːa] | 'Arabic' | See Arabic phonology | |
| Assyrian | Eastern | ܬܪܥܐ/täroa | [tʌrʕɑ] | 'door' | The majority of the speakers will pronounce the word as [tʌrɑ]. |
| Western | [tʌrʕɔ] | ||||
| Avar | гӀоркь/g'ork' | [ʕortɬʼː] | 'handle' | ||
| Chechen | Ӏан/jan/عـآن | ⓘ | 'winter' | ||
| Coeur d'Alene[3] | stʕin | [stʕin] | 'antelope' | ||
| Danish | Standard[4] | ravn | [ʕ̞ɑ̈wˀn] | 'raven' | An approximant;[4] also described as uvular [ʁ].[5] See Danish phonology |
| Dhao[6] | [ʕaa] | 'and' | Phonetic status is not clear, but it has "extremely limited distribution". It may not be pronounced at all or be realized as a glottal stop. | ||
| Dutch | Limburg[7] | rad | [ʕ̞ɑt] | 'wheel' | An approximant; a possible realization of /r/.[7] Realization of /r/ varies considerably among dialects. See Dutch phonology |
| German | Some speakers[8] | Mutter | [ˈmutɔʕ̞] | 'mother' | An approximant; occurs in East Central Germany, Southwestern Germany, parts of Switzerland and in Tyrol.[8] See Standard German phonology |
| Swabian dialect[9] | ändard | [ˈend̥aʕ̞d̥] | 'changes' | An approximant.[9] It's an allophone of /ʁ/ in nucleus and coda positions;[9] pronounced as a uvular approximant in onsets.[9] | |
| Hebrew | Iraqi | עִבְרִית/ʿivrît | [ʕibˈriːθ] | 'Hebrew language' | See Modern Hebrew phonology |
| Sephardi | [ʕivˈɾit] | ||||
| Yemenite | ⓘ | ||||
| Ingush | Iаддал | [ʕaddal] | 'Archer' | ||
| Kabyle[10] | ɛemmi | [ʕəmːi] | 'my (paternal) uncle' | ||
| Kurdish | Kurmanji | ewr/'ewr | [ʕɜwr] | 'cloud' | The sound is usually not written in the Latin alphabet, but ⟨'⟩ can be used. |
| Luwati | قلـعـة | [qilʕa] | 'castle' | Used in Arabic loanwords | |
| Malay | Kedah | باکـر/bakar | [ba.kaʕ] | 'burn' | Allophone of /r/ as word-final coda. Could be voiced velar fricative [ɣ] for some speakers.[11] |
| Occitan | Southern Auvergnat[citation needed] | pala | [ˈpaʕa] | 'shovel' | See Occitan phonology |
| Somali | cunto/𐒋𐒚𐒒𐒂𐒙 | [ʕuntɔ] | 'food' | See Somali phonology | |
| Sioux | Stoney | marazhud | [maʕazud] | 'rain' | |
| Ukrainian | голос | [ˈʕɔlos] | 'voice' | Also described as glottal [ɦ]. See Ukrainian phonology | |
See also
Citations
General references
- Basbøll, Hans (2005), The Phonology of Danish, Taylor & Francis, ISBN 0-203-97876-5
- Bonafont, Door Rosa (2006), Guia de conversa universitaria amazic-catala/Tamazight-Takatalant amalal usiwel asdawan, University of Barcelona, ISBN 9788447531141
- Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (2003) [First published 1981], The Phonetics of English and Dutch (5th ed.), Leiden: Brill Publishers, ISBN 9004103406
- Danylenko, Andrii; Vakulenko, Serhii (1995), Ukrainian, Lincom Europa, ISBN 9783929075083
- Dudenredaktion; Kleiner, Stefan; Knöbl, Ralf (2015) [First published 1962], Das Aussprachewörterbuch (in German) (7th ed.), Berlin: Dudenverlag, ISBN 978-3-411-04067-4
- Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
- Thelwall, Robin (1990). "Arabic". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 20 (2): 37–41. doi:10.1017/S0025100300004266. S2CID 243640727.