Voiced epiglottal fricative

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IPA – number	174
IPA – text	ʢ
IPA – image
Entity	ʢ
X-SAMPA	<\
Kirshenbaum
Sound sample (help·info)

The voiced epiglottal approximant/fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ʢ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is <\.

Although traditionally placed in the fricative row of the IPA chart, [ʢ] is usually an approximant. The IPA symbol itself is ambiguous, but no language has a distinct fricative and approximant at this place of articulation. Sometimes the lowering diacritic is used to specify that the manner is approximant: [ʢ̞].

Features

Features of the voiced epiglottal approximant/fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is approximant, or occasionally fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a channel at the place of articulation that is not usually narrow enough to cause turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is epiglottal which means it is articulated with the aryepiglottic folds against the epiglottis.
• Its phonation type is voiced, which means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
• Because it is pronounced in the throat, without a component in the mouth, the central/lateral dichotomy does not apply.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

Occurrence

See also

• List of phonetics topics

References

Bibliography

• Ladefoged, Peter & Ian Maddieson (1996), The Sounds of the World's Languages, Blackwell, ISBN 0-631-19815-6