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Voiceless uvular fricative

Consonantal sound represented by ⟨χ⟩ in IPA

Summary

Consonantal sound represented by ⟨χ⟩ in IPA

Field	Value
ipa symbol	χ
ipa symbol2	ꭓ
ipa number	142
decimal1	967
x-sampa	X
braille	46
braille2	12346
imagefile	IPA Unicode 0x03C7.svg

|x-sampa=X

A voiceless uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound that is used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is either a Latin or Greek-style chi, . The historical IPA symbol for this sound was , a turned small capital R, and was officially changed to in 1928. In Americanist phonetic notation the sound is represented by (ex with underdot), or sometimes by (ex with caron). In broad transcription it may be transcribed , or if rhotic.

Features

Features of a voiceless uvular fricative:

Occurrence

Language	Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Afrikaans	goed		'good'	Varies between a fricative and a fricative trill when word-initial. See Afrikaans phonology.
Armenian	խաղ hy		'game'
Azerbaijani		sancaq		'pin'
Breton	Some speakers	c'hwec'h		'six'
Chuvash	хăна / cv		'guest'
Danish	Standard	pres		'pressure'
English	Scouse	clock		'clock'
neck		'neck'
Welsh	Amlwch		'Amlwch'	Occurs only in loanwords from Welsh; usually transcribed in IPA with . See English phonology
White South African	gogga		'insect'	Less commonly velar , occurs only in loanwords from Afrikaans and Khoisan. Usually transcribed in IPA with . See White South African English phonology and English phonology.
French	très		'very'	Allophone of in contact with voiceless consonants. See French phonology
German	Standard	Dach		'roof'
Chemnitz dialect	Rock		'skirt'	In free variation with , , and . Does not occur in coda.
Lower Rhine	Wirte		'hosts'	In free variation with between a vowel and a voiceless coronal consonant.
Hebrew	מֶלֶךְ / he		'king'	Usually a fricative trill. See Modern Hebrew phonology.
Luxembourgish	Zuch		'train'	See Luxembourgish phonology.
Portuguese	General Brazilian	rompimento		'rupture' (noun)
Ripuarian	ach		'eight'	Allophone of after back vowels. Fronted to or after front vowels and consonants. It may be transcribed in IPA with . See Colognian phonology, Kerkrade dialect phonology and Hard and soft G in Dutch
Spanish	Ponce dialect	perro		'dog'
Tlingit	-dáx̱		'from, out of'	Occurs plain, labialised, ejective, and labialised ejective.
Turkmen	gahar		'snow'
Welsh	chwech		'six'	See Welsh phonology.
Yiddish	איך yi		'I'	See Yiddish phonology.

Fricative trill

Most languages claimed to have a voiceless uvular fricative may actually have a voiceless uvular fricative trill (a simultaneous and ). Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996) note that there is "a complication in the case of uvular fricatives in that the shape of the vocal tract may be such that the uvula vibrates."

Although they are not normally differentiated in studies, languages in which they have been (Hebrew, Wolof, as well as the northern and central varieties of European Spanish) have been found to specifically possess the fricative trill. The fricative-trill can be transcribed as (a devoiced and raised uvular trill) in IPA. It is found as either the fortis counterpart of (which itself is voiceless at least in Northern Standard Dutch: ) or the sole dorsal fricative in Northern SD and regional dialects and languages of the Netherlands (Dutch Low Saxon and West Frisian) spoken above the rivers Rhine, Meuse and Waal (sometimes termed the Rotterdam–Nijmegen Line). A plain fricative that is articulated slightly further front, as either medio-velar or post-palatal is typical of dialects spoken south of the rivers (mainly Brabantian and Limburgish but excluding Ripuarian and the dialect of Bergen op Zoom), including Belgian SD. In those dialects, the voiceless uvular fricative trill is one of the possible realizations of the phoneme . See Hard and soft G in Dutch for more details.

The frication in the fricative trill variant sometimes occurs at the middle or the back of the soft palate (termed velar or mediovelar and post-velar, respectively), rather than the uvula itself. This is the case in Northern Standard Dutch as well as some varieties of Arabic, Limburgish and Madrid Spanish. It may thus be appropriate to call those variants voiceless (post)velar-uvular fricative trill as the trill component is always uvular (velar trills are not physically possible). The corresponding IPA symbol is (a devoiced, raised and advanced uvular trill, where the "advanced" diacritic applies only to the fricative portion of the sound). Thus, in cases where a dialectal variation between voiceless uvular and velar fricatives is claimed the main difference between the two may be the trilling of the uvula as frication can be velar in both cases - compare Northern Dutch acht 'eight' (with a postvelar-uvular fricative trill) with Southern Dutch or , which features a non-trilled fricative articulated at the middle or front of the soft palate.

For a voiceless pre-uvular fricative (also called post-velar), see voiceless velar fricative.

Language	Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Afrikaans	goed		'good'	Varies between a fricative and a fricative trill when word-initial. See Afrikaans phonology.
Arabic	خضراء ar		'green' (f.)	Fricative trill with velar frication. May be transcribed in IPA with . See Arabic phonology
Dutch	Gussenhoven	1999	p=74}}	acht	'eight'
Belgian	brood		'bread'	Voiced when following a vowel. Realization of varies considerably among dialects. See Dutch phonology
English	Scouse	clock		'clock'
neck		'neck'
Hebrew	מֶלֶךְ / he		'king'	Usually a fricative trill. See Modern Hebrew phonology.
Limburgish	Some dialects	waor		'was'
Low German	Gussenhoven	1999	p=74}}	acht	'eight'
Spanish	European	ojo		'eye'
Upper Sorbian	brach		'fault'	Fricative trill.
West Frisian	berch		'mountain'	ɣ}}. Never occurs in word-initial positions. May be transcribed in IPA with . See West Frisian phonology
Wolof	ñax		'grass'	Fricative trill.

Notes

References

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References

{{harvcoltxt. Association Phonétique Internationale. 1928
(5 December 2011). "John Wells's phonetic blog: velar or uvular?".
{{Harvcoltxt. Bowerman. 2004. /x/ (see {{Harvcoltxt. Lass. 2002. [χ] rather than the velar."
{{Harvcoltxt. Hall. 1993. Kohler. 1990
"ProQuest Document View - The Spanish of Ponce, Puerto Rico: A phonetic, phonological, and intonational analysis".
"Castilian Spanish - Madrid by Klaus Kohler".
{{Harvcoltxt. Collins. Mees. 2003. Goeman. Van de Velde. 2001 have also found that frication is much more commonly in the velar region in dialects and language varieties with "hard G", though they do not distinguish between trilled and non-trilled fricatives in their study.
{{Harvcoltxt. Verhoeven. 1994. Tops. 2009

Wikipedia Source

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fricative-consonants uvular-consonants pulmonic-consonants voiceless-oral-consonants median-consonants

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