Voiceless epiglottal trill

Consonantal sound represented by ⟨ʜ⟩ in IPA

Voiceless pharyngeal trill
(voiceless epiglottal fricative)

IPA Number 172

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Encoding

Entity (decimal) ʜ

Unicode (hex) U+029C

X-SAMPA H\

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The voiceless epiglottal or pharyngeal trill, or voiceless epiglottal fricative,^[1] is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʜ⟩, a small capital version of the Latin letter h, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is H\.

The glyph is homoglyphic with the lowercase Cyrillic letter En (н).

Features

Features of the voiceless epiglottal trill/fricative:

Its manner of articulation is trill, which means it is produced by directing air over an articulator so that it vibrates.
Its place of articulation is epiglottal, which means it is articulated with the aryepiglottic folds against the epiglottis.
Its phonation is voiceless, which means it 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.
It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Agul^[2]		мехӏ	[mɛʜ]	'whey'
Amis^[3]		tihi	[tiʜiʔ]	'spouse'	The epiglottal consonants in Amis have proven hard to describe, with some describing it not as epiglottal, but a pharyngeal fricative or even as a uvular consonant. See Amis phonology
Arabic^[4]	Iraqi^[5]	حَي	[ʜaj]	'alive'	Corresponds to /ħ/ ⟨ح⟩ in Standard Arabic. See Arabic phonology
Bengali		খড়	[ʜↄɾ]	'straw'	Mainly realized as such in very eastern regions; often also debuccalized or phonetically realised as /x/. Corresponds to /kʰ/ in western and central dialects. See Bengali phonology
Chechen		хьо	[ʜʷɔ]	'you'
Dahalo			[ʜaːɗo]	'arrow'
Haida		x̱ants	[ʜʌnt͡s]	'shadow'
Somali^[6]		xoor	[ʜoːɾ]	'bubble'	Realization of /ħ/ for some speakers.^[6] See Somali phonology

Notes

^ Esling, John (2010). "Phonetic Notation". In Hardcastle; Laver; Gibbon (eds.). The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences (2nd ed.). p. 695.
^ Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996:167–168)
^ Maddieson, Ian; Wright, Richard (October 1995). "The Vowels and Consonants of Amis — A Preliminary Phonetic Report" (PDF). UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics. 91: Fieldwork Studies of Targeted Languages III: 45–65.
^ Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996:167–168)
^ Hassan, Zeki; Esling, John; Moisik, Scott; Crevier-Buchman, Lise (2011). "Aryepiglottic trilled variants of /ʕ, ħ/ in Iraqi Arabic" (PDF). Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. pp. 831–834. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-03-19.
^ ^a ^b Gabbard, Kevin M. (2010). A Phonological Analysis of Somali and the Guttural Consonants (PDF) (BA thesis). Ohio State University. p. 14.

References

Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.

External links

List of languages with [ʜ] on PHOIBLE

International Phonetic Alphabet (chart)

IPA topics

IPA	International Phonetic Association History of the alphabet Extensions for disordered speech (extIPA) Voice Quality Symbols (VoQS) Journal of the IPA (JIPA)
Special topics	Cursive forms Case variants Obsolete and nonstandard symbols Naming conventions Sinological extensions World Orthography IPA chart for English dialects
Encodings	ASCII encodings SAMPA X-SAMPA Kirshenbaum TIPA Phonetic symbols in Unicode IPA number IPA Braille

Consonants

Pulmonic consonants

Place →	Labial					Coronal										Dorsal					Laryngeal
Manner ↓	Bilabial		Labiodental		Linguolabial		Dental		Alveolar		Postalveolar		Retroflex		Palatal		Velar		Uvular		Pharyngeal/epiglottal		Glottal
Nasal	m̥	m	ɱ̊	ɱ		n̼			n̥	n			ɳ̊	ɳ	ɲ̊	ɲ	ŋ̊	ŋ	ɴ̥	ɴ
Plosive	p	b	p̪	b̪	t̼	d̼			t	d			ʈ	ɖ	c	ɟ	k	ɡ	q	ɢ	ʡ		ʔ
Sibilant affricate									ts	dz	t̠ʃ	d̠ʒ	tʂ	dʐ	tɕ	dʑ
Non-sibilant affricate	pɸ	bβ	p̪f	b̪v			t̪θ	d̪ð	tɹ̝̊	dɹ̝	t̠ɹ̠̊˔	d̠ɹ̠˔			cç	ɟʝ	kx	ɡɣ	qχ	ɢʁ	ʡʜ	ʡʢ	ʔh
Sibilant fricative									s	z	ʃ	ʒ	ʂ	ʐ	ɕ	ʑ
Non-sibilant fricative	ɸ	β	f	v	θ̼	ð̼	θ	ð	θ̠	ð̠	ɹ̠̊˔	ɹ̠˔	ɻ̊˔	ɻ˔	ç	ʝ	x	ɣ	χ	ʁ	ħ	ʕ	h	ɦ
Approximant				ʋ						ɹ				ɻ		j		ɰ						ʔ̞
Tap/flap		ⱱ̟		ⱱ		ɾ̼			ɾ̥	ɾ			ɽ̊	ɽ						ɢ̆		ʡ̆
Trill	ʙ̥	ʙ							r̥	r			ɽ̊r̥	ɽr					ʀ̥	ʀ	ʜ	ʢ
Lateral affricate									tɬ	dɮ			tꞎ	d𝼅	c𝼆	ɟʎ̝	k𝼄	ɡʟ̝
Lateral fricative									ɬ	ɮ			ꞎ	𝼅	𝼆	ʎ̝	𝼄	ʟ̝
Lateral approximant										l				ɭ		ʎ		ʟ		ʟ̠
Lateral tap/flap									ɺ̥	ɺ			𝼈̥	𝼈		ʎ̆		ʟ̆

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Symbols to the right in a cell are voiced, to the left are voiceless. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible.

Non-pulmonic consonants

		BL	LD	D	A	PA	RF	P	V	U	EG
Ejective	Stop	pʼ			tʼ		ʈʼ	cʼ	kʼ	qʼ	ʡʼ
	Affricate		p̪fʼ	t̪θʼ	tsʼ	t̠ʃʼ	tʂʼ		kxʼ	qχʼ
	Fricative	ɸʼ	fʼ	θʼ	sʼ	ʃʼ	ʂʼ	ɕʼ	xʼ	χʼ
	Lateral affricate				tɬʼ			c𝼆ʼ	k𝼄ʼ	q𝼄ʼ
	Lateral fricative				ɬʼ
Click (top: velar; bottom: uvular)	Tenuis	kʘ qʘ		kǀ qǀ	kǃ qǃ		k𝼊 q𝼊	kǂ qǂ
	Voiced	ɡʘ ɢʘ		ɡǀ ɢǀ	ɡǃ ɢǃ		ɡ𝼊 ɢ𝼊	ɡǂ ɢǂ
	Nasal	ŋʘ ɴʘ		ŋǀ ɴǀ	ŋǃ ɴǃ		ŋ𝼊 ɴ𝼊	ŋǂ ɴǂ	ʞ
	Tenuis lateral				kǁ qǁ
	Voiced lateral				ɡǁ ɢǁ
	Nasal lateral				ŋǁ ɴǁ
Implosive	Voiced	ɓ			ɗ		ᶑ	ʄ	ɠ	ʛ
Implosive	Voiceless	ɓ̥			ɗ̥		ᶑ̊	ʄ̊	ɠ̊	ʛ̥

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Co-articulated consonants

Labial–alveolar

Labial–velar

Fricative/approximant

ɥ̊

Labial–palatal

Labial–velar

Sj-sound (variable)

Lateral approximant

Velarized alveolar

Labial–velar

Labial–alveolar

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Other	Nasal labial–velar approximant [w̃] Nasal palatal approximant [j̃] Voiceless bidental fricative [h̪͆] Voiceless bilabially post-trilled dental stop [t̪ʙ̥] Voiceless nasal glottal approximant [h̃]