Voiceless glottal fricative

consonantal sound

The voiceless glottal fricative is a type of consonant. The letter for this sound in the International Phonetic Alphabet is ⟨h⟩. The X-SAMPA symbol for this sound is ⟨h⟩. The English language has this sound, and it is the sound represented by the "h" in hear and have.

Voiceless glottal fricative
h
IPA Number146
Encoding
Entity (decimal)h
Unicode (hex)U+0068
X-SAMPAh

Features

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  • The airstream mechanism is pulmonic. This means that this sound is produced by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.
  • The phonation is voiceless. This means that this sound 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.
  • The place of articulation (where the sound is produced) is glottal. This means that this sound is produced at the vocal cords (vocal folds) and by the vocal cords.
  • The manner of articulation (how the sound is produced) is fricative. This means that this sound is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, to make turbulence.

Examples

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Language Word IPA Meaning
Adyghe Shapsug хыгь/khyg' [həɡʲ] 'now'
Albanian hire [hiɾɛ][stress?] 'the graces'
Arabic Modern Standard[1] هائل/haa'il [ˈhaːʔɪl] 'enormous'
Assyrian Eastern ܗܝܡܢܘܬܐ hèmanūta [heːmaːnuːta] 'faith'
Western ܗܪܟܗ harcë [hεrcɪ] 'here'
Armenian Eastern[2] հայերեն/hayeren  [hɑjɛɾɛn]  'Armenian'
Asturian South-central dialects uerza [ˈhweɾθɐ] 'force'
Oriental dialects acer [haˈθeɾ] "to do"
Avar гьа [ha] 'oath'
Azeri hin [hɪn] 'chicken coop'
Basque North-Eastern dialects[3] hirur [hiɾur] 'three'
Bengali হাওয়া/haoua [hao̯a] 'wind'
Berber aherkus [ahərkus] 'shoe'
Cantabrian muer [muˈheɾ] 'woman'
Catalan ehem [eˈhẽm] 'ha!'
Chechen хӏара / hara [hɑrɐ] 'this'
Chinese Cantonese / hói  [hɔːi̯˧˥] 'sea'
Taiwanese Mandarin / hǎi [haɪ̯˨˩˦]
Danish[4] hus [ˈhuːˀs] 'house'
English high [haɪ̯] 'high'
Esperanto hejmo [ˈhejmo] 'home'
Eastern Lombard Val Camonica Bresa [ˈbrɛha] 'Brescia'
Estonian hammas [ˈhɑmˑɑs] 'tooth'
Faroese hon [hoːn] 'she'
Finnish hammas [ˈhɑmːɑs] 'tooth'
French Belgian hotte [hɔt] 'pannier'
Galician Occidental, central, and some oriental dialects gato [ˈhätʊ] 'cat'
Georgian[5] ავა/hava [hɑvɑ] 'climate'
German[6] Hass [has] 'hatred'
Greek Cypriot[7] μαχαζί/mahazi [mahaˈzi] 'shop'
Hawaiian[8] haka [ˈhɐkə] 'shelf'
Hebrew הַר/har [häʁ̞] 'mountain'
Hindi Standard[1] हम/ham [ˈhəm] 'we'
Hmong hawm [haɨ̰] 'to honor'
Hungarian helyes [ˈhɛjɛʃ] 'right'
Irish shroich [hɾˠɪç] 'reached'
Italian Tuscan[9] i capitani [iˌhäɸiˈθäːni] 'the captains'
Japanese すはだ / suhada [sɨᵝhada] 'bare skin'
Javanese ꦩꦲ/Maha [mɔhɔ] The expert, Almighty one
Kabardian тхылъхэ/ tkhyl"khė [tχɪɬhɑ] 'books'
Khmer ហឹរ / hœ̆r
ចាស់ / chăs
[hər]
[cah]
'spicy'
'old'
Korean 하루 / haru [hɐɾu] 'day'
Lakota ho [ho] 'voice'
Lao ຫ້າ/haa [haː˧˩] 'five'
Leonese guaje [ˈwahe̞] 'boy'
Lezgian гьек/g'ek [hek] 'glue'
Limburgish Some dialects[10][11] hòs [hɔːs] 'glove'
Luxembourgish[12] hei [hɑ̝ɪ̯] 'here'
Malay hari [hari] 'day'
Mutsun hučekniš [hut͡ʃɛkniʃ] 'dog'
Navajo hastiin [hàsd̥ìːn] 'mister'
Norwegian hatt [hɑtː] 'hat'
Pashto هو/ho [ho] 'yes'
Persian هفت/haft [hæft] 'seven'
Pirahã hi [hì] 'he'
Portuguese Many Brazilian dialects[13] marreta [maˈhetɐ] 'sledgehammer'
Most dialects Honda [ˈhõ̞dɐ] 'Honda'
Minas Gerais (mountain dialect) arte [ˈahtʃ] 'art'
Colloquial Brazilian[14][15] chuvisco [ɕuˈvihku] 'drizzle'
Romanian hăț [həts] 'bridle'
Scottish Gaelic ro-sheòl [ɾɔˈhɔːɫ] 'topsail'[16]
Serbo-Croatian Croatian[17] hmelj [hmê̞ʎ̟] 'hops'
Spanish[18] Andalusian and Extremaduran Spanish higo [ˈhiɣo̞] 'fig'
Many dialects obispo [o̞ˈβ̞ihpo̞] 'bishop'
Some dialects jaca [ˈhaka] 'pony'
Swedish hatt [ˈhatː] 'hat'
Sylheti ꠢꠣꠝꠥꠇ/hamukh [hamux] 'snail'
Thai ห้า/haa [haː˥˩] 'five'
Turkish halı [häˈɫɯ] 'carpet'
Ubykh дуаха [dwaha] 'prayer'
Ukrainian кігті [ˈkiht⁽ʲ⁾i] 'claws'
Urdu Standard[1] ہم/ham [ˈhəm] 'we'
Vietnamese[19] hiểu [hjew˧˩˧] 'understand'
Welsh haul [ˈhaɨl] 'sun'
West Frisian hoeke [ˈhukə] 'corner'
Yi / hxa [ha˧] 'hundred'


  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Thelwall (1990:38)
  2. Dum-Tragut (2009:13)
  3. Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina (2003:24)
  4. Grønnum (2005:125)
  5. Shosted & Chikovani (2006:255)
  6. Kohler (1999:86–87)
  7. Arvaniti (1999:175)
  8. Ladefoged (2005:139)
  9. Hall (1944:75)
  10. Heijmans & Gussenhoven (1998:107)
  11. Peters (2006:117)
  12. Gilles & Trouvain (2013:67–68)
  13. Barbosa & Albano (2004:5–6)
  14. (in Portuguese) Pará Federal University – The pronunciation of /s/ and its variations across Bragança municipality's Portuguese Archived 2013-07-07 at the Wayback Machine
  15. (in Portuguese) Rio de Janeiro Federal University – The variation of post-vocallic /S/ in the speech of Petrópolis, Itaperuna and Paraty Archived 2017-12-15 at the Wayback Machine
  16. "ro-sheòl". www.faclair.com. Retrieved 1 April 2021.
  17. Landau et al. (1999:68)
  18. Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté (2003:258)
  19. Thompson (1959:458–461)

References

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