Voiceless glottal fricative

Voiceless glottal fricative
h
Image
IPA number	146
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	h
Unicode (hex)	U+0068
X-SAMPA	h
Kirshenbaum	h
Sound

The voiceless glottal transition, commonly called a "fricative", 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 ⟨h⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is h.

Although [h] has been described as a voiceless vowel, because in many languages it lacks the place and manner of articulation of a prototypical consonant, it also lacks the height and backness of a prototypical vowel:

[h and ɦ] have been described as voiceless or breathy voiced counterparts of the vowels that follow them [but] the shape of the vocal tract […] is often simply that of the surrounding sounds. […] Accordingly, in such cases it is more appropriate to regard h and ɦ as segments that have only a laryngeal specification, and are unmarked for all other features. There are other languages [such as Hebrew and Arabic] which show a more definite displacement of the formant frequencies for h, suggesting it has a [glottal] constriction associated with its production.

Features

Features of the "voiceless glottal fricative":

• In some languages, it has the constricted manner of articulation of a fricative. However, in many if not most it is a transitional state of the glottis, with no manner of articulation other than its phonation type. Because there is no other constriction to produce friction in the vocal tract in the languages they are familiar with, many phoneticians no longer consider [h] to be a fricative. However, the term "fricative" is generally retained for historical reasons.
• It may have a glottal place of articulation. However, it may have no fricative articulation, in which case the term 'glottal' only refers to the nature of its phonation, and does not describe the location of the stricture nor the turbulence. All consonants except for the glottals, and all vowels, have an individual place of articulation in addition to the state of the glottis. As with all other consonants, surrounding vowels influence the pronunciation [h], and [h] has sometimes been presented as a voiceless vowel, having the place of articulation of these surrounding vowels.
• Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
• 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	Standard	هاتِف	[ˈhaːt̪if]	'telephone'	See Arabic phonology
Armenian		հայերեն	[hɑjɛɾɛn]	'Armenian'
Asturian		guaḥe	[ɣwahe]	'child'	Mainly present in eastern dialects
Avar		гьа	[ha]	'oath'
Basque	North-Eastern dialects	hirur	[hiɾur]	'three'
Chechen		хIара/hara	[hɑrɐ]	'this'
Chinese	Cantonese	河/ho4	[hɔː]	'river'	See Cantonese phonology
Coptic		ϩρα	[ehra]	'face'
Dutch	Some Hollandic dialects	haat	[haːt]	'hate'	Realized as [ɦ] in other dialects. See Dutch phonology
English		high	[ˈhaɪ]	'high'	See English phonology
Faroese		hon	[hoːn]	'she'
Finnish		hammas	[hɑmːɑs]	'tooth'	See Finnish phonology
Georgian		ჰავა	[hɑvɑ]	'climate'
German		Hass	[has]	'hatred'	See German phonology
Hawaiian		haka	[haka]	'shelf'	See Hawaiian phonology
Hebrew		הר	[haʁ]	'mountain'	See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindi	Standard	हम	[ˈhəm]	'we'	See Hindi-Urdu phonology
Hmong		hawm	[haɨ̰]	'to honor'
Hungarian		helyes	[hɛjɛʃ]	'right'	See Hungarian phonology
Japanese		すはだ/suhada	[sɯhada]	'bare skin'	See Japanese phonology
Korean		호랑이/horang-i	[hoɾaŋi]	'tiger'	See Korean phonology
Kabardian		тхылъхэ	[tχɪɬhɑ]	'books'
Lao		ຫ້າ	[haː˧˩]	'five'
Leonese		guaje	[wahe]	'boy'
Malay		hari	[hari]	'day'
Navajo		hastiin	[hàsd̥ìːn]
Norwegian		hatt	[hɑtː]	'hat'	See Norwegian phonology
Pashto		هو	[ho]	'yes'
Persian		هفت	[hæft]	'seven'	See Persian phonology
Pirahã		hi	[hì]	'he'
Portuguese	Brazilian	carro	[ˈkahʊ]	'car'	Also realized as a velar or uvular fricative. See Portuguese phonology
Romanian		hăţ	[həts]	'bridle'	See Romanian phonology
Spanish	Many dialects	obispo	[o̞ˈβihpo̞]	'bishop'	Allophone of /s/. See Spanish phonology
	Some dialects	jaca	[ˈhaka]	'pony'	corresponds to /x/ in other dialects.
Thai		ห้า	[haː˥˩]	'five'
Turkish		halı	[häˈɫɯ]	'carpet'	See Turkish phonology
Ubykh		[dwaha]		'prayer'	See Ubykh phonology
Urdu	Standard	ہم	[ˈhəm]	'we'	See Hindi-Urdu phonology
Vietnamese		hiểu	[hjew˧˩˧]	'understand'	See Vietnamese phonology
Welsh		haul	[ˈhaɨl]	'sun'	See Welsh orthography
West Frisian		hoeke	[hukə]	'corner'
Yi		ꉐ/hxa	[ha˧]	'hundred'

See also

• List of phonetics topics
• Voiceless nasal glottal fricative

Bibliography

• Barbosa, Plínio A.; Albano, Eleonora C. (2004), "Brazilian Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (2): 227–232, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001756 
• Kohler, Klaus (1999), "German", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association:A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge University Press, pp. 86–89, ISBN 0521637511 
• Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell 
• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8. 
• Laufer, Asher (1991), "Phonetic Representation: Glottal Fricatives", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 21 (2): 91–93 
• Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma.; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 255–259, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001373 
• Shosted, Ryan K.; Vakhtang, Chikovani (2006), "Standard Georgian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 36 (2): 255–264, doi:10.1017/S0025100306002659 
• Thelwall, Robin (1990), "Illustrations of the IPA: Arabic", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 20 (2): 37–41 
• Thompson, Laurence (1959), "Saigon phonemics", Language 35 (3): 454–476, doi:10.2307/411232, JSTOR 411232