Voiced pharyngeal fricative

Not to be confused with the Cyrillic letter Koppa.
For consonants followed by superscript ˤ, see Pharyngealization.
Voiced pharyngeal fricative
ʕ
IPA number145
Audio sample
Encoding
Entity (decimal)ʕ
Unicode (hex)U+0295
X-SAMPA?\
Braille⠖ (braille pattern dots-235)⠆ (braille pattern dots-23)
Voiced pharyngeal approximant
ʕ̞
Non-syllabic open back unrounded vowel
ɑ̯

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.

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 ⟨꟎⟩ and lower-case ⟨꟏⟩ are pending at Unicode U+A7CE and U+A7CF.

Features

Features of the voiced pharyngeal approximant fricative:

Occurrence

Capital letter ayin
Small letter ayin
Cased forms of the IPA letter in the Pilaga alphabet. They have been accepted by Unicode.

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 [ʕan]ⓘ '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 [ʕivˈriːθ]ⓘ
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

See also

Citations

  1. ^ Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996:167–168)
  2. ^ Thelwall (1990)
  3. ^ Doak, Ivy Grace (1997). Coeur d'Alene grammatical relations (PhD dissertation). Austin: University of Texas.
  4. ^ a b Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996:323)
  5. ^ Basbøll (2005:62)
  6. ^ Grimes, Charles E. (1999). Dardjowidjojo, Soenjono; Nasanius, Yassir (eds.). Implikasi penelitian fonologis untuk cara menulis bahasa-bahasa daerah di Kawasan Timur Indonesia [Implications from phonological research for ways of writing vernacular languages in eastern Indonesia] (PDF). PELBBA 12: Pertemuan Linguistik (Pusat Kajian) Bahasa dan Budaya Atma Jaya Kedua Belas (in Indonesian). Yogyakarta: Kanisius. pp. 173–197.
  7. ^ a b Collins & Mees (2003:201)
  8. ^ a b Dudenredaktion, Kleiner & Knöbl (2015:51)
  9. ^ a b c d Hiller, Markus. "Pharyngeals and 'lax' vowel quality" (PDF). Mannheim: Institut für Deutsche Sprache. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-05-28. Retrieved 2015-02-24.
  10. ^ Bonafont (2006:9)
  11. ^ Mohamed, Noriah (June 2009). "The Malay Chetty Creole Language of Malacca: A Historical and Linguistic Perspective". Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 82 (1 (296)): 60. JSTOR 41493734.
  12. ^ Pattison, Lois Cornelia. "Douglas Lake Okanagan: Phonology and Morphology." University of British Columbia. 1978.

General references