Voiceless glottal fricative
For consonants followed by the superscript ʰ, see Aspirated consonant.
| Voiceless glottal fricative | |
|---|---|
| h | |
| IPA number | 146 |
| Encoding | |
| Entity (decimal) |
h |
| Unicode (hex) | U+0068 |
| X-SAMPA |
h |
| Kirshenbaum |
h |
| Braille |
 |
| Sound | |
 source · help | |
The voiceless glottal transition, commonly called the voiceless glottal fricative and sometimes called the aspirate,[1][2] is a type of sound used in some spoken languages that patterns like a fricative or approximant consonant phonologically, but often lacks the usual phonetic characteristics of a consonant. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨h⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is h.
Although [h] has been described as a voiceless vowel, because in many languages it lacks the place and manner of articulation of a prototypical consonant, it also lacks the height and backness of a prototypical vowel:
[h and ɦ] 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 ɦ 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]
Lamé language contrasts voiceless and voiced glottal fricatives.[4]
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, 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 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 air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
- Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the central–lateral dichotomy does not apply.
- The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.
Occurrence
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adyghe | Shapsug | хыгь | [həɡʲ] | 'now' | Corresponds to [x] in other dialects. |
| Arabic | Standard[5] | هائل | [ˈhaːʔɪl] | 'enormous' | See Arabic phonology |
| Armenian | Eastern[6] | հայերեն |  [hɑjɛɾɛn] | 'Armenian' | |
| Assyrian Neo-Aramaic | haymanoota | [haymaːnuːtʰa] | 'faith' | ||
| Asturian | guaḥe | [ˈɣwahe̞] | 'child' | Mainly present in eastern dialects. | |
| Avar | гьа | [ha] | 'oath' | ||
| Basque | North-Eastern dialects[7] | hirur | [hiɾur] | 'three' | Can also be [ɦ]. |
| Bengali | হাওয়া | [hawa] | 'wind' | ||
| Berber | aherkus | [ahǝrkus] | 'shoe' | ||
| Chechen | хIара / hara | [hɑrɐ] | 'this' | ||
| Chinese | Cantonese | 河 ho4 | [hɔː] | 'river' | See Cantonese phonology |
| Danish[4] | hus | [ˈhuːˀs] | 'house' | Often voiced [ɦ] when between vowels.[4] See Danish phonology | |
| Dutch | Northern Netherlands[8] | rood | [hoːt] | 'red' | An extremely rare realization of /r/, occurring only once in Verstraten & Van de Velde (2001) corpus. Realization of /r/ varies considerably among dialects. See Dutch phonology |
| Friesland | haat | [haːt] | 'hate' | Word-initial allophone of /ɦ/. | |
| Holland | Some dialects. Corresponds to [ɦ] in standard Dutch. | ||||
| Limburg | |||||
| English | high | [haɪ̯] | 'high' | See English phonology and H-dropping | |
| Eastern Lombard | Val Camonica | Bresa | [brɛhɔ] | 'Brescia' | Corresponds to /s/ in other varieties. |
| Faroese | hon | [hoːn] | 'she' | ||
| Finnish | hammas | [hɑmːɑs] | 'tooth' | See Finnish phonology | |
| French | Belgian | hotte | [ˈhɔt] | 'pannier' | Found in the region of Liège. |
| Georgian[9] | ჰავა | [hɑvɑ] | 'climate' | ||
| German[10] | Hass | [has] | 'hatred' | See German phonology | |
| Greek | Cypriot[11] | μαχαζί | [mahaˈzi] | 'shop' | Allophone of /x/ before /a/. |
| Hawaiian[12] | haka | [haka] | 'shelf' | See Hawaiian phonology | |
| Hebrew | הר | [haʁ] | 'mountain' | See Modern Hebrew phonology | |
| Hindi | Standard[5] | हम | [ˈhəm] | 'we' | See Hindustani phonology |
| Hmong | hawm | [haɨ̰] | 'to honor' | ||
| Hungarian | helyes | [hɛjɛʃ] | 'right' | See Hungarian phonology | |
| Italian | Tuscan[13] | i capitani | [iˌhäɸiˈθäːni] | 'the captains' | Intervocalic allophone of /k/; it may be an approximant [h̞] instead. See Italian phonology |
| Japanese | すはだ suhada | [su͍hada] | 'bare skin' | See Japanese phonology | |
| Korean | 호랑이 horang-i | [ho̞ɾɐŋi] | 'tiger' | See Korean phonology | |
| Kabardian | тхылъхэ | [tχɪɬhɑ] | 'books' | ||
| Lao | ຫ້າ | [haː˧˩] | 'five' | ||
| Leonese | guaje | [ˈwahe̞] | 'boy' | ||
| Lezgian | гьек | [hek] | 'glue' | ||
| Malay | hari | [hari] | 'day' | ||
| Mutsun | hučekniš | [hut͡ʃɛkniʃ] | 'dog' | ||
| Navajo | hastiin | [hàsd̥ìːn] | |||
| Norwegian | hatt | [hɑtː] | 'hat' | See Norwegian phonology | |
| Pashto | هو | [ho] | 'yes' | ||
| Persian | هفت | [hæft] | 'seven' | See Persian phonology | |
| Pirahã | hi | [hì] | 'he' | ||
| Portuguese | General Brazilian[14] | rápido | [ˈhapidu] | 'fast', 'quick' | Some of the rhotic consonants in most dialects; main rhotic in some. Corresponds to phoneme /ʁ/. |
| Timorese | Mesolect/basilect, /ʁ/ in acrolect. See Portuguese phonology and languages of East Timor | ||||
| Romanian | hăţ | [həts] | 'bridle' | See Romanian phonology | |
| Serbo-Croatian | Croatian[15] | хмељ / hmelj | [hmê̞ʎ̟] | 'hops' | Allophone of /x/ when it is initial in a consonant cluster.[15] See Serbo-Croatian phonology |
| Spanish[16] | Andalusian | higo | [ˈhiɣo̞] | 'fig' | Corresponds to Old Spanish /h/, which was developed from Latin /f/ but muted in other dialects. |
| Many dialects | obispo | [o̞ˈβ̞ihpo̞] | 'bishop' | Allophone of /s/. See Spanish phonology | |
| Some dialects | jaca | [ˈhaka] | 'pony' | Corresponds to /x/ in other dialects. | |
| Swedish | hatt | [ˈhatː] | 'hat' | See Swedish phonology | |
| Thai | ห้า | [haː˥˩] | 'five' | ||
| Turkish | halı | [häˈɫɯ] | 'carpet' | See Turkish phonology | |
| Ubykh | [dwaha] | 'prayer' | See Ubykh phonology | ||
| Urdu | Standard[5] | ہم | [ˈhəm] | 'we' | See Hindi-Urdu phonology |
| Vietnamese[17] | hiểu | [hjew˧˩˧] | 'understand' | See Vietnamese phonology | |
| Welsh | haul | [ˈhaɨl] | 'sun' | See Welsh orthography | |
| West Frisian | hoeke | [ˈhukə] | 'corner' | ||
| Yi | ꉐ hxa | [ha˧] | 'hundred' | ||
See also
- Voiced glottal fricative
- Voiceless nasal glottal fricative
- Index of phonetics articles
References
- ↑ Smyth (1920, §16: description of stops and h)
- ↑ Wright & Wright (1925, §7h: initial h)
- ↑ Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996:325–326)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Grønnum (2005:125)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Thelwall (1990:38)
- ↑ Dum-Tragut (2009:13)
- ↑ Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina (2003:24)
- ↑ Verstraten & Van de Velde (2001:50–51)
- ↑ Shosted & Chikovani (2006:255)
- ↑ Kohler (1999:86–87)
- ↑ Arvaniti (1999:175)
- ↑ Ladefoged (2005:139)
- ↑ Hall (1944:75)
- ↑ Barbosa & Albano (2004:5–6)
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Landau et al. (1999:68)
- ↑ Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté (2003:258)
- ↑ Thompson (1959:458–461)
Bibliography
- Arvaniti, Amalia (1999), "Cypriot Greek" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association 29 (2): 173–178, doi:10.1017/S002510030000654X
- Barbosa, Plínio A.; Albano, Eleonora C. (2004), "Brazilian Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (2): 227–232, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001756
- Dum-Tragut, Jasmine (2009), Armenian: Modern Eastern Armenian, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company
- Grønnum, 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 (American Association of Teachers of Italian) 21 (2): 72–82. doi:10.2307/475860. JSTOR 475860.
- Hualde, José Ignacio; Ortiz de Urbina, Jon, eds. (2003), A grammar of Basque, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, ISBN 3-11-017683-1
- Kohler, Klaus (1999), "German", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association:A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge University Press, pp. 86–89, ISBN 0-521-63751-1
- Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell
- Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8.
- Landau, Ernestina; Lončarić, Mijo; Horga, Damir; Škarić, Ivo (1999), "Croatian", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 66–69, ISBN 0-521-65236-7
- Laufer, Asher (1991), "Phonetic Representation: Glottal Fricatives", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 21 (2): 91–93, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004448
- Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma.; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 255–259, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001373
- Shosted, Ryan K.; Chikovani, Vakhtang (2006), "Standard Georgian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 36 (2): 255–264, doi:10.1017/S0025100306002659
- Smyth, Herbert Weir (1920). A Greek Grammar for Colleges. American Book Company. Retrieved 1 January 2014 – via CCEL.
- Thelwall, Robin (1990), "Illustrations of the IPA: Arabic", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 20 (2): 37–41, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004266
- Thompson, Laurence (1959), "Saigon phonemics", Language 35 (3): 454–476, doi:10.2307/411232, JSTOR 411232
- Verstraten, Bart; Van de Velde, Hans (2001), "Socio-geographical variation of /r/ in standard Dutch", in Van de Velde, Hans; van Hout, Roeland, 'r-atics (PDF), Brussels: Etudes & Travaux, pp. 45–61, ISSN 0777-3692
- Wright, Joseph; Wright, Elizabeth Mary (1925). Old English Grammar (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
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