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Voiceless velar fricative
Consonantal sound represented by ⟨x⟩ in IPA
Consonantal sound represented by ⟨x⟩ in IPA
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| ipa symbol | x |
| ipa number | 140 |
| decimal | 120 |
| xsampa | x |
| braille | x |
| imagefile | IPA Unicode 0x0078.svg |
A voiceless velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to many people as the German "ch" sound in "Bach". It was part of the consonant inventory of Old English and can still be found in some modern dialects of English, most notably in Scottish English, for example in loch, broch and ''sau'''gh''''' (willow).
The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , the Latin letter x. It is also used in broad transcription instead of the symbol , the Greek chi, for the voiceless uvular fricative.
There is also a voiceless post-velar fricative (also called pre-uvular) in some languages, which can be transcribed as or . For voiceless pre-velar fricative (also called post-palatal), see voiceless palatal fricative.
Features
Features of a voiceless velar fricative:
Occurrence
A voiceless velar fricative and its labialized variety are postulated to have occurred in Proto-Germanic, the ancestor of the Germanic languages, as the reflex of the Proto-Indo-European voiceless palatal and velar stops and the labialized voiceless velar stop. Thus Proto-Indo-European ḱr̥nom "horn" and kʷód "what" became Proto-Germanic *hurnan and *hwat, where *h and *hw were likely and . This sound change is part of Grimm's law.
In Modern Greek, a voiceless velar fricative originated from the Ancient Greek voiceless aspirated stop in a sound change that lenited all Greek aspirated stops to fricatives.
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abaza | хьзы /xzë | 'name' | ||||
| Adyghe | хы /xë | 'six' | ||||
| Afrikaans | groot | 'big' | More often realized as uvular [ ~ ]. See Afrikaans phonology | |||
| Albanian | gjuha | 'language' | Allophone of . See Albanian phonology | |||
| Aleut | Atkan dialect | alax | 'two' | |||
| Arabic | Modern Standard | ﺧﻀراء | 'green' (f.) | |||
| Assamese | অসমীয়া/oxomia | 'Assamese' | ||||
| Assyrian | ܚܡܫܐ xemša | 'five' | ||||
| Avar | чeхь / čex | 'belly' | ||||
| Azerbaijani | xoş / хош/ﺧﻮش | 'pleasant' | ||||
| Basque | Some speakers | jan | 'to eat' | |||
| Blackfoot | ᖻᖳᐦᓱᖽᐧ / bla | 'my grandparents' | Sometimes /x/ becomes allophone /h/ in beginning of words like "hánnia!" Really! Or becomes allphone /ç/ after i/ii like ihkitsika seven. | |||
| Brahui | ﺧﻦ/xan | 'eye' | Corresponds to /x/ in Kurukh and /q/ in Malto. | |||
| Breton | hor c'hi | 'our dog' | ||||
| Bulgarian | тихо / tiho | 'quietly' | Described as having "only slight friction" (). | |||
| Catalan | kharja | 'kharja' | Found in loanwords and interjections. See Catalan phonology | |||
| Chechen | хан / xan | 'time' | ||||
| Chinese | Mandarin | 河 / hé | 'river' | |||
| Czech | chlap | 'guy' | See Czech phonology | |||
| Danish | Southern Jutlandic | kage | [ˈkʰaːx] | 'cake' | ||
| Dutch | Standard Belgian | loochen | 'deny' | |||
| Gussenhoven | 1999 | p=74}} | ||||
| English | Scottish | *loch* | 'loch' | |||
| Irish | *lough* | 'lough' | Occurs only in Gaelic borrowings. See Irish English phonology | |||
| Scouse | *book* | 'book' | A syllable-final allophone of (lenition). | |||
| Esperanto | monaĥo | 'monk' | See Esperanto phonology | |||
| Estonian | jah | 'yes' | Allophone of . See Estonian phonology | |||
| Eyak | duxł | 'traps' | ||||
| Finnish | kahvi | 'coffee' | Allophone of . See Finnish phonology | |||
| French | jota | 'jota' | Occurs only in loanwords (from Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, etc.). See French phonology | |||
| Georgian | ჯოხი / joxi | 'stick' | ||||
| German | Buch | 'book' | See Standard German phonology | |||
| Greek | τέχνη / téchnî | 'art' | See Modern Greek phonology | |||
| Hebrew | Biblical | מִיכָאֵל/Michael | 'Michael' | |||
| Hindustani | Hindi | ख़ुशी/xuśī | 'happiness' | |||
| Urdu | ﺧوشی/xuśī | |||||
| Hungarian | sahhal | 'with a shah' | See Hungarian phonology | |||
| Icelandic | október | 'October' | See Icelandic phonology | |||
| Indonesian | khas | 'typical' | Occurs in Arabic loanwords. Often pronounced as [h] or [k] by some Indonesians. See Indonesian phonology | |||
| Irish | deoch | 'drink' | See Irish phonology | |||
| Japanese | マッハ / mahha | 'Mach' | Allophone of . See Japanese phonology | |||
| Kabardian | хы / khy | 'sea' | ||||
| Kazakh | ханзада / hanzada | 'prince' | ||||
| Korean | 흥정 / heungjeong | 'bargaining' | Allophone of before . See Korean phonology | |||
| Kurdish | xanî | 'house' | See Kurdish phonology | |||
| Kurukh | कुँड़ुख़/kũṛux | 'Kurukh' | Corresponds to /x/ in Brahui and /q/ in Malto. | |||
| Limburgish | loch | 'air' | The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect. See Maastrichtian dialect phonology and Hard and soft G in Dutch | |||
| Lishan Didan | Urmi Dialect | חלבא / xalwa | 'milk' | |||
| Lithuanian | choras | 'choir' | Occurs only in loanwords (usually international words) | |||
| Lojban | xatra | 'letter' | ||||
| Macedonian | Охрид / Ohrid | 'Ohrid' | See Macedonian phonology | |||
| Malay | اﺧير / akhir | 'last', 'end' | Occurs in Arabic loanwords. Often pronounced as [h] or [k]. See Malay phonology | |||
| *khidmat* | 'service' | Allophone of /kʰ/. See Malay phonology | ||||
| Manx | aashagh | 'easy' | ||||
| Nepali | आँखा/ā̃khā | 'eye' | Allophone of . See Nepali phonology | |||
| Norwegian | Urban East | hat | 'hate' | |||
| Pashto | اخته / axta | 'occupied' | See Pashto phonology | |||
| Persian | دُخـتَر / doxtär | 'daughter' | See Persian phonology | |||
| Polish | chleb | 'bread' | Also (in great majority of dialects) represented orthographically by . See Polish phonology | |||
| Portuguese | Fluminense | arte | 'art' | |||
| General Brazilian | rosa | 'rose' | Some dialects. An allophone of . See Portuguese phonology | |||
| Punjabi | Gurmukhi | ਖ਼ਬਰ/xabar | 'news' | |||
| Shahmukhi | ﺧﺒر/xabar | |||||
| Romanian | hram | 'patronal feast of a church' | Allophone of . See Romanian phonology | |||
| Russian | хороший / horošij | 'good' | See Russian phonology | |||
| Scottish Gaelic | drochaid | 'bridge' | See Scottish Gaelic phonology | |||
| Serbo-Croatian | храст / hrast | 'oak' | See Serbo-Croatian phonology | |||
| Slovak | chlap | 'guy' | ||||
| Slovene | Standard | pohlep | 'greed' | |||
| Some dialects | bog | 'god' | Allophone of before voiceless obstruents or pause. See Slovene phonology | |||
| Somali | khad | 'ink' | Also occurs allophone of /q/ in Arabic loan words. See Somali phonology | |||
| Spanish | Latin American | ojo | 'eye' | |||
| Southern Spain | ||||||
| Sylheti | ꠈꠛꠞ/xobor | 'news' | ||||
| Tachelhit | ixf | [ixf] | 'head' | |||
| Taqbaylit | axaṭar | [ɑχɑtˤɑr] | 'because' | |||
| Tagalog | bakit | 'why' | Allophone of in intervocalic positions. See Tagalog phonology | |||
| Tamil | Brahmin Tamil, Sri Lankan Tamil (non-standard) | பகை/*pakai* | 'hate' | |||
| Toda | pax | 'smoke' | ||||
| Turkish | ıhlamur | 'linden' | Allophone of . See Turkish phonology | |||
| Turkmen | hile | 'cunning' (noun) | ||||
| Tyap | kham | 1. 'calabash'; 2. 'prostitute' | ||||
| Xhosa | rhoxisa | 'to cancel' | ||||
| Ukrainian | хлопець / hlopeć | 'boy' | See Ukrainian phonology | |||
| Uzbek | oxirgi | 'last' | Post-velar. Occurs in environments different from word-initially and pre-consonantally, otherwise it is pre-velar. | |||
| Vietnamese | không | 'no', 'not', 'zero' | See Vietnamese phonology | |||
| Yaghan | xan | 'here' | ||||
| Yi | ꉾ / he | 'good' | ||||
| Zapotec | Tilquiapan | mejor | 'better' |
Notes
References
- {{citation |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20131211020607/http://www.kent.ac.uk/secl/ell/staff/amalia-arvaniti/docs/Greek%20Phonetics%20-%20The%20State%20of%20the%20Art.pdf |archive-date = 2013-12-11
- {{citation |doi-access=free
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- {{citation |orig-year=First published 1981
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- {{citation |access-date=2015-10-20 |archive-date=2017-10-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171011044945/http://gep.ruhosting.nl/carlos/gussenhoven_aarts.pdf |url-status=dead
- {{citation
- {{citation |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lULWOT1o0SsC
- {{citation |author-link1=José Ignacio Hualde
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- {{citation |editor-last1=Sayahi |editor-first1=Lotfi |editor-last2=Westmoreland |editor-first2=Maurice |chapter-url=http://www.lingref.com/cpp/wss/2/paper1147.pdf
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References
- "Blackfoot Pronunciation and Spelling Guide". Native-Languages.org.
- (1999). "Handbook of the International Phonetic Association". Cambridge University Press.
- {{Harvcoltxt. Verhoeven. 2005
- {{Harvcoltxt. Collins. Mees. 2003
- {{Harvcoltxt. Gussenhoven. 1999
- "Annexe 4: Linguistic Variables".
- "University of Essex :: Department of Language and Linguistics :: Welcome". Essex.ac.uk.
- {{Harvcoltxt. Wells. 1982
- (December 1991). "Japanese". Journal of the International Phonetic Association.
- {{Harvcoltxt. Gussenhoven. Aarts. 1999
- {{Harvcoltxt. Peters. 2006
- Oftedal, M. (1956) ''The Gaelic of Leurbost''. Oslo. Norsk Tidskrift for Sprogvidenskap.
- {{Harvcoltxt. Hamond. 2001. Scipione. Sayahi. 2005
- {{Harvcoltxt. Göksel. Kerslake. 2005
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