Voiced glottal fricative | |||
---|---|---|---|
ɦ | |||
IPA number | 147 | ||
Audio sample | |||
Encoding | |||
Entity (decimal) | ɦ | ||
Unicode (hex) | U+0266 | ||
X-SAMPA | h\ | ||
Braille | |||
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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 ⟨ɦ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is h\
.
In many languages, /ɦ/ 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.[1] It may have real glottal constriction in a number of languages (such as Finnish[2]), making it a fricative.
Northern Wu languages such as Shanghainese contrast the voiced and voiceless glottal fricatives.[3] The two glottal fricatives pattern like plosives.[4][5]