Voiceless epiglottal fricative

The voiceless epiglottal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ʜ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is H\.

[edit] Features

Features of the voiceless epiglottal fricative:

Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
Its place of articulation is epiglottal which means it is articulated with the epiglottis against the back of the pharynx
Its phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
Because it is pronounced in the throat, without a component in the mouth, the central/lateral dichotomy does not apply.
The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

Dahalo has /ʜ/ as a phoneme; between vowels it is realized as an approximant ([ʢ]).

In some dialects of Arabic, the pharyngeal consonants /ħ/ and /ʕ/ are phonetically epiglottal ([ʜ] and [ʢ], respectively).

Haida has /ʜ/ as a phoneme; in some dialects it is realized as an epiglottal trill.

The Northeast Caucasian language Agul contrasts voiceless epiglottal and pharyngeal fricatives, as seen in the near-minimal pair /muħ/ "barn" vs. /mɛʜ/ "whey".<ref>Ladefoged, Peter, Ian Maddieson. The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell, 167–68. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.</ref>

Consonants (List, table)