Voiced glottal fricative

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 Template:Angbr IPA, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is h\.

In many languages, has no inherent 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. It may have real glottal constriction in a number of languages (such as Finnish), making it a fricative.

Northern Wu languages such as Shanghainese contrast the voiced and voiceless glottal fricatives. The two glottal fricatives pattern like plosives.

Features

Features of the voiced glottal fricative:

• Its phonation is breathy voiced, or murmured, which means the vocal cords are loosely vibrating, with more air escaping than in a modally voiced sound. It is sometimes referred to as a "voiced h". Strictly speaking this is incorrect, as there is no voicing.
• 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, most phoneticians no longer consider to be a fricative. True fricatives may have a murmured phonation in addition to producing friction elsewhere. However, the term "fricative" is generally retained for the historical reasons.
• It may have a glottal place of articulation. However, it may have no fricative articulation, making the term glottal mean that it is articulated by the vocal folds, but this is the nature of its phonation rather than a separate articulation. 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 , and accordingly has only the place of articulation of these surrounding vowels.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Afrikaans	Standard			'why'
Azeri	Standard	/		'solid'
Albanian	Northern Tosk			'and immediately the traveller'	Occasional allophone of in connected speech.
Basque	Northeastern dialects			'here'	Can be voiceless Template:IPAblink instead.
Czech				'head'	See Czech phonology
Danish				'I wonder if it has rained.'	Common allophone of between vowels. See Danish phonology
Dutch				'hate'	See Dutch phonology
English	Australian	behind		'behind'	Allophone of between voiced sounds. See Australian English phonology and English phonology
	Received Pronunciation
	Broad South African	hand		'hand'	Some speakers, only before a stressed vowel.
Estonian				'money'	Allophone of between voiced sounds. See Estonian phonology and Finnish phonology
Finnish
French	Quebec			'to eat'	Limited to a minority of speakers. Can also be realized as a voiceless Template:IPAblink.
Hebrew		מַהֵר‎	{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "maheʁ.ogg" not found}}Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'fast'	Occurs as an allophone of between voiced sounds. See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindustani		/		'am'	See Hindustani phonology
Hungarian	Some speakers			'so'	Intervocalic allophone of . Occurs as voiceless for other speakers. See Hungarian phonology
Japanese	Some speakers	少し話して / sukoshi hanashiteTemplate:Sfnp		'speak a little bit'
Indonesian	Some speakers	bahan		'ingredient'
Kalabari		hóín		'introduction'
Korean		/		'travel'	Occurs as an allophone of between voiced sounds. See Korean phonology
Limburgish				'heart'	The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect. See Maastrichtian dialect phonology
Lithuanian				'humour'	Often pronounced instead of [ɣ]. See Lithuanian phonology
Marathi				'garland'
Odia		/haḷa		'plough'
Nepali				'solution'	See Nepali phonology
Parkari Koli				'desolate, deserted'
Polish	Podhale dialect			'fire hydrant'	Contrasts with Template:IPAslink. Standard Polish possesses only . See Polish phonology
	Kresy dialect
Portuguese	Many Brazilian dialects			'this youth' (m.)	Allophone of . are marginal sounds to many speakers, particularly out of Brazil. See Portuguese phonology and guttural R
	Many speakers			'chopsticks'
	Some Brazilian dialects			'same'	Corresponds to either or (depending on dialect) in the syllable coda. Might also be deleted.
	Cearense dialect			'people'	Debuccalized from , or .
	Mineiro dialect			'to sleep'	Before other voiced consonants, otherwise realized as .
Punjabi		/		'air'
Riffian Berber				'to go down'
Romanian	Transylvanian dialectsTemplate:Sfnp			'coat'	Corresponds to Template:IPAblink in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology
Sanskrit		हस्त / hasta		'hand'	See Sanskrit phonology
Silesian		hangrys		'gooseberry'
Slovak			{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "SK-hora.ogg" not found}}Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'mountain'	See Slovak phonology
Slovene	Littoral dialects				This is a general feature of all Slovene dialects west of the Škofja Loka–Planina line. Corresponds to in other dialects. See Slovene phonology
	Rovte dialects
	Rosen Valley dialect
Sylheti		/		'dried fish'
Telugu				'Consonant'
Ukrainian				'voice'	Also described as pharyngeal Template:IPAblink. See Ukrainian phonology
Wu	Shanghainese	/		'language'	See Northern Wu phonology
	Suzhounese	/		'fourth day of a Western month'
Zulu				'horse'

See also

• Creaky-voiced glottal approximant

External links

• Template:Phoible