Voiced glottal fricative

For consonants followed by superscript ʱ, see Breathy voice.

Voiced glottal fricative
ɦ
IPA Number	147
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɦ
Unicode (hex)	U+0266
X-SAMPA	h\
Braille
Image

The breathy-voiced glottal transition, commonly called a voiced glottal 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 ⟨ɦ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is h\.

In many languages, [ɦ] has no place or manner of articulation. For this reason, 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, so 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.

Lamé language contrasts voiceless and voiced glottal fricatives.

Features

Features of the voiced glottal fricative:

• Its phonation type is breathy voiced, or murmured, which means the vocal cords are loosely vibrating, with more air escaping than in a modally voiced sound.
• 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 [ɦ] 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 [ɦ], and accordingly [ɦ] has only the place of articulation of these surrounding vowels.
• 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
Basque	Northeastern dialects	hemen	[ɦemen]	'here'	Can be voiceless [h] instead.
Chinese	Wu	閒話	[ɦɛɦʊ]	'language'
Czech		hora	[ˈɦora]	'mountain'	See Czech phonology
Danish		Mon det har regnet?	[mɔ̽n d̥e̝ ɦɑ̈ ˈʁ̞ɑ̈jnð̩]	'I wonder if it has rained?'	Common allophone of /h/ between vowels. See Danish phonology
Dutch		haat	[ɦaːt]	'hate'	See Dutch phonology
English	Broad South African	hand	[ˈɦænd]	'hand'	Some speakers, only before a stressed vowel.
	Received Pronunciation	behind	[bɪˈɦaɪnd]	'behind'	Some speakers, only between vowels. See English phonology
Finnish		raha	[rɑɦɑ]	'money'	Allophone of /h/ between voiced sounds. See Finnish phonology
Hebrew		מהר	<phonos file="maheʁ.ogg">[mäɦe̞ʁ]</phonos>	'fast'	See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindustani		हूँ / ہوں	[ɦu᷉]	'am'	See Hindustani phonology
Kalabari		hóín	[ɦóĩ́]	'introduction'
Korean		방학/banghak	[pɐŋɦɐk̚]	'vacation'	Occurs only after /ŋ/. See Korean phonology
Limburgish	Some dialects	hart	[ɦɑ̽ʀ̝t]	'heart'	Voiceless [h] in other dialects. The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect.
Lithuanian		humoras	[ˈɦʊmɔrɐs̪]	'humour'	Often pronounced instead of [ɣ]. See Lithuanian phonology
Polish	Podhale dialect	hydrant	[ˈɦɘ̟d̪rän̪t̪]	'fire hydrant'	Contrasts with /x/. Standard Polish possesses only /x/. See Polish phonology
	Kresy dialect
Portuguese	Many Brazilian dialects	esse rapaz	[ˈesi ɦəˈpajs]	'this youth' (m.)	Allophone of /ʁ/. [h, ɦ] are marginal sounds to many speakers, particularly out of Brazil. See Portuguese phonology and guttural R
	Many speakers	hashi	[ɦɐˈʃi]	'chopsticks'
	Colloquial Brazilian	mesmo	[ˈmeɦmu]	'same'	Corresponds to either /s/ or /ʃ/ (depending on dialect) in the syllable coda. Might also be deleted.
Punjabi		ਹਵਾ	[ɦə̀ʋä̌ː]	'air'
Romanian	Transylvanian dialects	haină	[ˈɦainə]	'coat'	Corresponds to [h] in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology
Silesian		hangrys	[ˈɦaŋɡrɨs]	'gooseberry'
Slovak		hora	<phonos file="SK-hora.ogg">[ˈɦo̞ɾa]</phonos>	'mountain'
Slovene	Littoral dialects	hora	[ˈɦɔra]	'mountain'	This is a general feature of all Slovene dialects west of the Škofja Loka–Planina line. Corresponds to [ɡ] in other dialects.
	Rovte dialects
Zulu		ihhashi	[iːˈɦaːʃi]	'horse'
Ukrainian		голос	[ˈɦɔlɔs]	'voice'	Also described as [ʕ]. See Ukrainian phonology

See also

• Creaky-voiced glottal approximant