Voiced pharyngeal fricative

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 Template:Angbr IPA, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ?\. Epiglottals and epiglotto-pharyngeals are often mistakenly taken to be pharyngeal.

Although traditionally placed in the fricative row of the IPA chart, is usually an approximant. The IPA symbol itself is ambiguous, but no language is known to make a phonemic distinction between fricatives and approximants at this place of articulation.

The IPA letter Template:Angbr IPA is caseless. Capital Template:Angbr and lower-case Template:Angbr are pending at Unicode U+A7CE and U+A7CF.

Features

Features of the voiced pharyngeal approximant fricative:

Occurrence

Template:Multiple image Pharyngeal consonants are not widespread. Sometimes, a pharyngeal approximant develops from a uvular approximant. Many languages that have been described as having pharyngeal fricatives or approximants turn out on closer inspection to have epiglottal consonants instead. For example, the candidate sound in Arabic and standard Hebrew (not modern Hebrew – Israelis 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
Abaza		/Template:Transliteration		'March'
Afar		damaqtu	[dʌmʌʕtu]	'male baboon'
Arabic		/Template:Transliteration		'Arabic'	See Arabic phonology
Assyrian	Eastern	/Template:Transliteration		'door'	The majority of the speakers will pronounce the word as .
	Western
Avar		/Template:Transliteration/		'handle'
Chechen		//	{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "Ce-Ӏан.oga" not found}}Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'winter'
Coeur d'Alene				'antelope'
Danish	Standard		]	'raven'	An approximant; also described as uvular Template:IPAblink. See Danish phonology
Dhao				'and'	Phonetic status is not clear, but it has "extremely limited distribution". It may not be pronounced at all or be realized as a glottal stop.
Dutch	Limburg			'wheel'	An approximant; a possible realization of . Realization of varies considerably among dialects. See Dutch phonology
German	Some speakers			'mother'	An approximant; occurs in East Central Germany, Southwestern Germany, parts of Switzerland and in Tyrol. See Standard German phonology
	Swabian dialect			'changes'	An approximant. It's an allophone of in nucleus and coda positions; pronounced as a uvular approximant in onsets.
Hebrew	Iraqi	/Template:Transliteration		'Hebrew language'	See Modern Hebrew phonology
	Sephardi
	Yemenite		{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "Hebrew Language.ogg" not found}}Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler
Ingush			[ʕaddal]	'Archer'
Judaeo-Spanish	Haketia			'lazy'	Borrowed from Arabic and Hebrew
Kabyle				'my (paternal) uncle'
Kurdish	Kurmanji	/		'cloud'	The sound is usually not written in the Latin alphabet, but Template:Angbr can be used.
Khalaj	Standard			'side'
Luwati				'castle'	Used in Arabic loanwords
Malay	Kedah	/		'burn'	Allophone of as word-final coda. Could be voiced velar fricative [[[:Template:IPA link]]] for some speakers.
Maltese				'tomorrow'
Mehri		/		'eye'
Nuu-chah-nulth		ʕiiniƛ		'dog'	May be a plosive
Occitan	Southern Auvergnat			'shovel'	See Occitan phonology
Okanagan		ʕaymt		'angry'
Somali		/		'food'	See Somali phonology
Sioux	Stoney			'rain'
Ukrainian				'voice'	Also described as glottal Template:IPAblink. See Ukrainian phonology

See also

• Modifier letter left half ring
• Index of phonetics articles
• Voiced uvular fricative
• Glottal stop
• Ayin

General references

• Template:SOWL

External links

• Template:Phoible