Voiced pharyngeal fricative

Voiced pharyngeal fricative
ʕ
ʕ̝
Image
IPA number	145
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʕ
Unicode (hex)	U+0295
X-SAMPA	?\
Kirshenbaum	H<vcd>
Sound

Voiced pharyngeal approximant
ʕ̞
ɑ̯

The voiced pharyngeal approximant or fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound 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 is known to have a distinct fricative and approximant at this place of articulation. The approximant is sometimes specified as ⟨ʕ̞⟩ or as ⟨ɑ̯⟩.

Features

Features of the voiced pharyngeal 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 pharyngeal, which means it is articulated with the root of the tongue against the back of the throat (the pharynx).
• 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

Pharyngeal consonants are not widespread. Sometimes, a pharyngeal approximant develops from a uvular approximant, as with the rhotic of Danish when it precedes [ɑ]. 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 (not modern 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.

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Adyghe		сэлам алейкум	[sɛlam ʕlejkum]	'hello'
Arabic		عالم	[ʕaːlam]	'world'
Avar		гӀоркь	[ʕortɬʼː]	'handle'
Berber	Kabyle	ɛemmi	[ʕəmːi]	'my (paternal) uncle '	represented as ⟨â⟩ in most other Berber languages
Chechen		Ӏан/jan	[ʕan]	'winter'
Hebrew		עולם	[ʕolam]	'world'	Oriental pronunciation; more commonly pronounced [ʔ]. See Modern Hebrew phonology
Kabardian		сэлам алейкум	[sɛlam ʕlejkum]	'hello'
Kurdish		‘ewr	[ʕɑwr]	'cloud'	Both Sorani and Kurmanji dialects have this sound
Occitan	southern Auvergnat	pala	[ˈpaʕa]	'shovel'
Somali		caadi	[ʕaːdi]	'normal'	See Somali phonology
Sioux	Stoney	marazhud	[maʕazud]	'rain'
Syriac	Turoyo	ܐܰܪܥܳܐ	[arʕo]	'earth (planet)'	ʕ is often not pronounced in Eastern Syriac varieties.

See also

• List of phonetics topics
• Voiced uvular fricative

Bibliography

• Bonafont, Door Rosa (2006), Guia de conversa universitaria amazic-catala/Tamazight-Takatalant amalal usiwel asdawan, University of Barcelona, http://books.google.com/books?id=cG4F8x62X4EC&dq 
• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996), The Sounds of the World's Languages, Oxford: Blackwell, ISBN 0-631-19815-6 
• Thelwall, Robin (1990), "Illustrations of the IPA: Arabic", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 20 (2): 37–41