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 ?\
. Epiglottals and epiglotto-pharyngeals are often mistakenly taken to be pharyngeal.
Voiced pharyngeal fricative | |||
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ʕ | |||
IPA Number | 145 | ||
Audio sample | |||
source · help | |||
Encoding | |||
Entity (decimal) | ʕ | ||
Unicode (hex) | U+0295 | ||
X-SAMPA | ?\ | ||
Braille | |||
|
Voiced pharyngeal approximant | |||
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ʕ̞ | |||
|
Non-syllabic open back unrounded vowel | |
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ɑ̯ |
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 make a phonemic distinction between fricatives and approximants at this place of articulation.
The IPA letter ⟨ʕ⟩ is caseless. Capital ⟨⟩ and lower-case ⟨⟩ are pending at Unicode U+A7CE and U+A7CF.
Features of the voiced pharyngeal approximant fricative:
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 /ʕ/ 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,[1] or a pharyngealized glottal stop.[2]
Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Abaza | гӀапынхъамыз/g'apynkh"amyz | [ʕaːpənqaːməz] | 'March' | ||
Arabic | اَلْـعَـرَبِيَّةُ/al-ʽarabiyya | [alʕaraˈbijːa] | 'Arabic' | See Arabic phonology | |
Assyrian | Eastern | ܬܪܥܐ/täroa | [tʌrʕɑ] | 'door' |
The majority of the speakers will pronounce the word as [tʌrɑ]. |
Western | [tʌrʕɔ] | ||||
Avar | гӀоркь/g'ork' | [ʕortɬʼː] | 'handle' | ||
Chechen | Ӏан/jan/عـآن | 'winter' | |||
Coeur d'Alene[3] | stʕin | [stʕin] | 'antelope' | ||
Danish | Standard[4] | ravn | [ʕ̞ɑ̈wˀn] | 'raven' | An approximant;[4] also described as uvular [ʁ].[5] See Danish phonology |
Dhao[6] | [ʕaa] | '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[7] | rad | [ʕ̞ɑt] | 'wheel' | An approximant; a possible realization of /r/.[7] Realization of /r/ varies considerably among dialects. See Dutch phonology |
German | Some speakers[8] | Mutter | [ˈmutɔʕ̞] | 'mother' | An approximant; occurs in East Central Germany, Southwestern Germany, parts of Switzerland and in Tyrol.[8] See Standard German phonology |
Swabian dialect[9] | ändard | [ˈend̥aʕ̞d̥] | 'changes' | An approximant.[9] It's an allophone of /ʁ/ in nucleus and coda positions;[9] pronounced as a uvular approximant in onsets.[9] | |
Hebrew | Iraqi | עִבְרִית/ʿivrît | [ʕibˈriːθ] | 'Hebrew language' | See Modern Hebrew phonology |
Sephardi | [ʕivˈɾit] | ||||
Yemenite | |||||
Ingush | Iаддал | [ʕaddal] | 'Archer' | ||
Judaeo-Spanish | Haketia | ˁagzan | [ʕaɡˈzan] | 'lazy' | Borrowed from Arabic and Hebrew |
Kabyle[10] | ɛemmi | [ʕəmːi] | 'my (paternal) uncle' | ||
Kurdish | Kurmanji | ewr/'ewr | [ʕɜwr] | 'cloud' | The sound is usually not written in the Latin alphabet, but ⟨'⟩ can be used. |
Khalaj | Standard | yâan | [jɑːɑ̯n] | 'side' | |
Luwati | قلـعـة | [qilʕa] | 'castle' | Used in Arabic loanwords | |
Malay | Kedah | باکـر/bakar | [ba.kaʕ] | 'burn' | Allophone of /r/ as word-final coda. Could be voiced velar fricative [ɣ] for some speakers.[11] |
Occitan | Southern Auvergnat[citation needed] | pala | [ˈpaʕa] | 'shovel' | See Occitan phonology |
Okanagan[12] | ʕaymt | [ʕajmt] | 'angry' | ||
Somali | cunto/𐒋𐒚𐒒𐒂𐒙 | [ʕunto] | 'food' | See Somali phonology | |
Sioux | Stoney | marazhud | [maʕazud] | 'rain' | |
Ukrainian | голос | [ˈʕɔlos] | 'voice' | Also described as glottal [ɦ]. See Ukrainian phonology |