Voiceless velar fricative

Voiceless velar fricative
x
IPA number	140
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Entity (decimal)	x
Unicode (hex)	U+0078
X-SAMPA	x
Kirshenbaum	x
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The voiceless velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It was part of the consonant inventory of Old English and can still be found in some dialects of English, most notably in Scottish English, e.g. in loch, broch or saugh (willow).

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨x⟩, the Latin and English letter x. It is also used in broad transcription instead of the symbol ⟨χ⟩, the Greek chi, (or, more properly, ⟨ꭓ⟩, the Latin chi) for the voiceless uvular fricative.

There is also a voiceless post-velar fricative (also called pre-uvular) in some languages. For voiceless pre-velar fricative (also called post-palatal), see voiceless palatal fricative.

Features

Features of the voiceless velar fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.

• Its place of articulation is velar, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) at the soft palate.

• 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.

• 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 lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Varieties

Occurrence

The voiceless velar fricative and its labialized variety are traditionally postulated to have occurred in Proto-Germanic, the ancestor of the Germanic languages, as the reflex of the Proto-Indo-European voiceless palatal and velar stops and the labialized voiceless velar stop. Thus Proto-Indo-European *ḱr̥nom "horn" and *kʷód "what" became Proto-Germanic *hurnan and *hwat, where *h and *hw were likely to be [x] and [xʷ]. This sound change is part of Grimm's law.

In Modern Greek, the voiceless velar fricative (with its allophone the voiceless palatal fricative [ç], occurring before front vowels) originated from the Ancient Greek voiceless aspirated stop /kʰ/ in a sound change that lenited Greek aspirated stops into fricatives.

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Abaza		хьзы	[xʲzǝ]	'name'
Adyghe		хы	[xəː]	'six'
Afrikaans	Some speakers[1]	goed	[xut]	'good'	Usually uvular [χ] instead.[1] See Afrikaans phonology
Aleut	Atkan dialect	alax	[ɑlɑx]	'two'
Arabic	Modern Standard	خضراء	[xadˤraːʔ]	'green' (f.)	May be velar, post-velar or uvular, depending on dialect.[2] See Arabic phonology
Assamese		অসমীয়া/Ôxômiya	[ɔxɔmija]	'Assamese'
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic		kha	[xaː]	'one'
Avar		чeхь/ҫeẋ	[tʃex]	'belly'
Azerbaijani		xoş/хош/خوش	[xoʃ]	'pleasant'
Basque	Some speakers[3]	jan	[xän]	'to eat'	Either velar or post-velar.[3] For other speakers it's [j ~ ʝ ~ ɟ].[4]
Breton		hor c'hi	[or xiː]	'our dog'
Bulgarian		тихо/tiho	[ˈt̪ixo]	'quietly'	Described as having "only slight friction" ([x̞]).[5]
Chinese	Mandarin	河/hé	[xɤ˧˥]	'river'	See Standard Chinese phonology
Czech		chlap	[xlap]	'guy'	See Czech phonology
Danish	Southern Jutlandic	kage	[ˈkʰæːx]	'cake'	See Sønderjysk dialect
Dutch	Standard Belgian[6][7]	acht	[ɑxt]	'eight'	May be post-palatal [ç̠] instead.[7] See Dutch phonology
	Southern accents[7][8]
	Standard Northern[8]		[ɑx̠t]		Post-velar; may be uvular [χ] instead.[8] Also described as a post-velar trill fricative [ʀ̝̊˖].[9] See Dutch phonology
English	Scottish	loch	[ɫɔx]	'loch'	Younger speakers may merge this sound with /k/.[10][11] See Scottish English phonology
	Scouse[12]	book	[bʉːx]	'book'	A syllable-final allophone of /k/ (lenition).
	Some American speakers	yech	[jɛx]	'yech'	See English phonology
Esperanto		monaĥo	[monaxo]	'monk'	See Esperanto phonology
Eyak		duxł	[tʊxɬ]	'traps'
French		jota	[xɔta]	'jota'	Occurs only in loanwords (from Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, etc.). See French phonology
Georgian[13]		ჯოხი/joxi	[ˈdʒɔxi]	'stick'
German		Buch	[buːx]	'book'	See Standard German phonology
Greek		τέχνη/téchnî	[ˈte̞xni]	'art'	See Modern Greek phonology
Hebrew		מִיכָאֵל/	[mixaʔel]	'Michael'	See Ancient Hebrew phonology
Hindustani		ख़ुशी/خوشی	[xʊʃiː]	'happiness'	See Hindustani phonology
Hungarian		sahhal	[ʃɒxːɒl]	'with a shah'	See Hungarian phonology
Irish		deoch	[dʲɔ̝̈x]	'drink'	See Irish phonology
Kabardian		хы	[xəː]	'sea'
Korean		흠집/heumjip	[xɯmd͡ʑip̚]	'flaw'	Allophone of /h/ before /ɯ/. See Korean phonology
Limburgish[14][15]		loch	[lɔx]	'air'	The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect.
Lithuanian		choras	[ˈxɔrɐs̪]	'choir'	Occurs only in loanwords (usually international words)
Lojban		xatra	[xatra]	'letter'
Luxembourgish[16]		Zuch	[t͡sux]	'train'	Also described as uvular [χ].[17] See Luxembourgish phonology
Macedonian		Охрид/Ohrid	[ˈɔxrit]	'Ohrid'	See Macedonian phonology
Malay		akhir	[a:xir]	'last', 'end'	Often mispronounced as [h] by some Indonesians.
Manx		aashagh	[ˈɛːʒax]	'easy'
Norwegian	Urban East[18]	hat	[xɑːt]	'hate'	Possible allophone of /h/ near back vowels; can be voiced [ɣ] between two voiced sounds.[18] See Norwegian phonology
Persian		خواهر	[xɒːhær]	'sister'	See Persian phonology
Polish[19]		chleb	[xlɛp]	'bread'	Also (in great majority of dialects) represented by ⟨h⟩. See Polish phonology
Portuguese	Fluminense	arte	[ˈaxtɕi]	'art'	In free variation with [χ], [ʁ], [ħ] and [h] before voiceless consonants
	General Brazilian[20]	arrasto	[ɐ̞ˈxastu]	'I drag'	Some dialects, corresponds to rhotic consonant /ʁ/. See Portuguese phonology
Punjabi		ਖ਼ਬਰ	[xəbəɾ]	'news'
Romanian		hram	[xräm]	'church'	Allophone of /h/. See Romanian phonology
Russian[21]		хороший/khorošij	[xɐˈr̠ʷo̞ʂɨ̞j]	'good'	See Russian phonology
Scottish Gaelic[22]		drochaid	[ˈt̪ɾɔxɪtʲ]	'bridge'	See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Serbo-Croatian		храст / hrast	[xrâːst]	'oak'	See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Slovak		chlap	[xlap]	'guy'
Somali		khad	[xad]	'ink'	See Somali phonology
Spanish[23]	Latin American[24]	ojo	[ˈo̞xo̞]	'eye'	May be glottal instead;[24] in northern and central Spain it is often post-velar[24][25][26] or uvular.[26][27] See Spanish phonology
	Southern Spain[24]
Turkish[28]		ıhlamur	[ɯxlamuɾ]	'linden'	Allophone of /h/.[28] See Turkish phonology
Xhosa		rhoxisa	[xɔkǁiːsa]	'to cancel'
Ukrainian		хлопець/chlopeć	[ˈxɫɔ̝pɛt͡sʲ]	'boy'	See Ukrainian phonology
Uzbek[29]					Post-velar.[29] Occurs in environments different than word-initially and pre-consonantally, otherwise it's pre-velar.[29]
Vietnamese[30]		không	[xəwŋ͡m˧]	'not'	See Vietnamese phonology
West Frisian		túch	[tyx]	'dust'	Allophone of /χ/, only occurring after close vowels ([i], [y] and [u])
Yaghan		xan	[xan]	'here'
Yi		ꉾ/he	[xɤ˧]	'good'
Yiddish		איך/ikh	[ix]	'I'	See Yiddish phonology
Zapotec	Tilquiapan[31]	mejor	[mɘxoɾ]	'better'	Used primarily in loanwords from Spanish

See also

• Guttural
• Index of phonetics articles

References

Bibliography