Voiced glottal fricative

Voiced glottal fricative
ɦ
IPA Number147
Audio sample
Encoding
Entity (decimal)ɦ
Unicode (hex)U+0266
X-SAMPAh\
Braille⠦ (braille pattern dots-236)⠓ (braille pattern dots-125)

The voiced glottal fricative, sometimes called breathy-voiced glottal transition, is a type of sound used in some spoken languages which 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 ⟨ɦ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is h\.

In many languages, [ɦ] has no place or manner of articulation. Thus, it has been described as a breathy-voiced counterpart of the following vowel from a phonetic point of view. However, its characteristics are also influenced by the preceding vowels and whatever other sounds surround it. Therefore, it can be described as a segment whose only consistent feature is its breathy voice phonation in such languages.[1] It may have real glottal constriction in a number of languages (such as Finnish[2]), making it a fricative.

Northern Wu languages such as Shanghainese contrast the voiced and voiceless glottal fricatives.[3] The two glottal fricatives pattern like plosives.[4][5]

  1. ^ Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996:325–326)
  2. ^ Laufer (1991:91)
  3. ^ Qian 2003, pp.14-16.
  4. ^ Gu, Qin (2008). "最新派上海市区方言语音的研究分析" [A Study and Analysis on the Phonology of Newest Period Urban Shanghainese]. 东方语言学 (2). Shanghai Normal University.
  5. ^ Koenig, Laura L.; Shi, Lu-Feng (2014). "3aSC18: Measures of spectral tilt in Shanghainese stops and glottal fricatives". The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Providence. doi:10.1121/1.4877532.