The voiceless nasal glottal approximant is a type of consonantal sound, a nasal approximant, used in some oral languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨h̃⟩, that is, an h with a tilde.
| Voiceless nasal glottal approximant | |
|---|---|
| h̃ |
Occurrence
The h 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 /h/ and nasal /h̃/. Two such languages are neighboring Bantu languages of Angola and Namibia, Kwangali and Mbukushu. In these languages, vowels following /h̃/ are nasalized, though nasal vowels do not occur elsewhere. A distinction is also reported from Wolaytta, though in that case the nasal is rare.
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basque | Souletin dialect[1] | ahate | [ãˈh̃ãte] | 'duck' | |
| Carapana[2] | hʉ̃gẽ́ | [h̃ĩŋɛ̃́] | 'god' | Allophone of [h] before nasal vowels. | |
| Kaingang[3] | hũg | [h̃ũŋ] | 'hawk' | Possible word-initial realization of /h/ before a nasal vowel.[3] | |
| Kwangali[4] | nhonho | [h̃õh̃õ] | Tribulus species | ||
| Khoekhoegowab | Damara dialect | hû | [h̃ũː] | 'six' | Free variation[clarification needed] |
| Tofa[5] | иʔһён[citation needed] | [iʔh̃jon] | 'twenty' | no separate letter for /h̃/, the same letter is used as the one for /h/.[citation needed] | |
Notes
References
- Hualde, José Ignacio; Ortiz de Urbina, Jon (2003), A Grammar of Basque, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, ISBN 3-11-017683-1
- Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996), The Sounds of the World's Languages, Oxford: Blackwell, ISBN 0-631-19815-6
- Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho De Valhery (2009), "Fonologia e prosódia do Kaingang falado em cacique doble", Anais do SETA (3): 675–685