Voiced pharyngeal fricative

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IPA – number	145
IPA – text	ʕ
IPA – image
Entity	ʕ
X-SAMPA	?\
Kirshenbaum	H<vcd>
Sound sample (help·info)

The voiced pharyngeal approximant/fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents it is ʕ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ?\.

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 has a distinct fricative and approximant at this place of articulation.

Features

Features of the voiced pharyngeal 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 pharyngeal which means it is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx.
• 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

Pharyngeal consonants are not widespread. Many languages claiming to have 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 (Israelis of eastern European background generally pronounce this as a glottal stop) has been variously described as a voiced epiglottal fricative, an epiglottal approximant, or a pharyngealized glottal stop.

Thelwall (1990) argues that Arabic descriptions of a voiced pharyngeal fricative are incorrect and that Arabic varieties instead possess a pharyngealized glottal stop ([ʔˤ]. An epiglottal fricative has also been reported.^[1]

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
• Thelwall, Robin (1990), "Illustrations of the IPA: Arabic", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 20 (2): 37-41