Voiced epiglottal fricative

Voiced epiglottal fricative
ʢ
ʢ̝
IPA number	174
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʢ
Unicode (hex)	U+02A2
X-SAMPA	<\
Braille
Image
Sound

Voiced epiglottal approximant
ʢ
ʢ̞
Sound

The voiced epiglottal fricative or approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʢ⟩.

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 varies between approximant and fricative, which means it is produced by narrowing the vocal tract at the place of articulation, but generally not enough to produce much turbulence in the airstream. Languages do not distinguish voiced fricatives from approximants produced in the throat.
• Its place of articulation is epiglottal, which means it is articulated with the aryepiglottic folds against the epiglottis.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• 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
Arabic	Some dialects	تَعَشَّى	[tɑʢɑʃʃæ]	'to have supper'	Corresponds to /ʕ/ in Standard Arabic and other varieties. See Arabic phonology

Few languages distinguish between pharyngeal and epiglottal fricatives, and in fact the fricatives in Arabic are routinely described as "pharyngeal." However, according to Peter Ladefoged, the Burkikhan dialect of the Aghul language has both (as well as an epiglottal stop).

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

Bibliography

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