From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Voiceless pharyngeal fricative

Consonantal sound represented by ⟨ħ⟩ in IPA

Summary

Consonantal sound represented by ⟨ħ⟩ in IPA

Field	Value
ipa symbol	ħ
ipa number	144
decimal1	295
x-sampa	X\
braille	!
braille2	h
imagefile	IPA Unicode 0x0127.svg

|x-sampa=X\

A voiceless pharyngeal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is an h-bar, . In the transcription of Arabic, Berber (and other Afro-Asiatic languages) as well as a few other scripts, it is often written , .

Typically characterized as fricative in the upper pharynx, similar to , except that the latter is placed at the glottis instead.

Features

Features of a voiceless pharyngeal fricative:

Occurrence

This sound is the most commonly cited realization of the Semitic letter hēth, which occurs in all dialects of Arabic, Classical Syriac, Western Neo-Aramaic, Central Neo-Aramaic, Ge'ez, Tigre, Tigrinya as well as Biblical, Mishnaic and Mizrahi Hebrew. It has also been reconstructed as appearing in Ancient Egyptian, a related Afro-Asiatic language. Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, Ashkenazi Hebrew and most speakers of Modern Hebrew have merged the voiceless pharyngeal fricative with the voiceless velar (or uvular) fricative. However, phonetic studies have shown that the so-called voiceless pharyngeal fricatives of Semitic languages are often neither pharyngeal (but rather epiglottal) nor fricatives (but rather approximants).

Language	Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Abaza	хIахъвы/abq		'stone'
Abkhaz	ҳара/ab		'we'	See Abkhaz phonology
Adyghe	тхьэ/ady/ﺗﺤﻪ		'god'
Afar	dalcu		'striped hyena'
Agul	мухI/agx		'barn'
Amis	tuduh		'burn, roast'	Word-final allophone of //.
Arabic	Standard	ﺣﺎل/ar		'situation'
Essaouira	شلوح (ar)		'chleuh'
Archi	хIал/aqc		'state'
Central Neo-Aramaic	Turoyo	ܡܫܝܚܐ (tru)		'Christ'
Atayal	hiyan		'in/at/on him/her/it'
Avar	xIебецI/av/ﺣﯧﺒﯧﺾ		'earwax'
Azerbaijani	əhdaş		'instrument'
Chechen	xьач/ẋaç/ﺣﺎچ		'plum'
English	Some speakers, mostly of Received Pronunciation	horrible		'horrible'
French	Some speakers	faire		'to do, to make'
Galician	Some dialects	gato		'cat'
Hebrew	Mizrahi	חַשְׁמַל/he		'electricity'
Temani	אֶחָדֿ/aḥoḏ		'one'	Yemenite pronunciation of the letter chet. Merged with in most other dialects. See Yemenite Hebrew
Hindustani	Hindi	ह़ाफ़िज़/ḥāfiz		'hafiz'
Urdu	حافظ/ḥāfiẓ
Judeo-Spanish	Haketia	Ḥaketía		'Haketia'
Jerusalem	ḥakura		'small vegetable garden'	Borrowed from Arabic and Hebrew
Kabardian	кхъухь/ꝗvɦ/ٯّوح		'ship'
Kabyle	ⴰⵃⴻⴼⴼⴰⴼ/aḥeffaf/اﺣـﻔﺎف		'hairdresser'
Kullui			'twenty'	historically derives from and occurs word-finally
Kurdish	Most speakers	ḧol		'environment'
Leonese	Riberan	harina		'flour'
Maltese	Standard	wieħed		'one'
Nuu-chah-nulth	ʔaap-ḥii		'friendly'
Sioux	Nakota	haxdanahâ		'yesterday'
Somali	xood/ﺣٗﻮد/𐒄𐒝𐒆		'cane'	See Somali phonology
Tarifit	tameǧaḥt		'salt'
Ukrainian	нігті/uk		'fingernails'	Allophone of (which may be transcribed ) before voiceless consonants; can be fronted to in some "weak positions". See Ukrainian phonology

Notes

References

{{Citation |orig-year=First published 1981
{{citation
{{citation |author-link=Peter Ladefoged |author-link2=Ian Maddieson
{{cite journal
{{Citation
{{citation

References

{{Harvcoltxt. Ladefoged. Maddieson. 1996
(October 1995). "Fieldwork Studies of Targeted Languages III".
{{Harvcoltxt. Watson. 2002
(1974). "A critical analysis of the teaching of French phonology".
{{Harvcoltxt. Regueira. 1996
(2025-08-06). "ह़". Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
(2025-10-11). "ح". Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
{{Harvcoltxt. Danyenko. Vakulenko. 1995

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

fricative-consonants pharyngeal-consonants pulmonic-consonants voiceless-oral-consonants maltese-language

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Voiceless pharyngeal fricative — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report