Voiced epiglottal fricative

A voiced epiglottal fricative, or voiced pharyngeal trill,^[1] is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʢ⟩.

Voiced epiglottal fricative
ʢ
IPA number	174
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʢ
Unicode (hex)	U+02A2
X-SAMPA	<\
Braille
Image

Voiced epiglottal approximant
ʢ̞
Audio sample
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Although the official name in the IPA for this sound has always been a voiced epiglottal fricative since it was introduced in 1989, laryngoscopic studies by John Esling have found that both epiglottal and pharyngeal consonants are pharyngeal in place of articulation, and are affected in manner by the aryepiglottic folds and larynx height; he therefore proposed the reclassification of ⟨ʢ⟩ as the trilled counterpart of ⟨ʕ⟩, noting both as ranging from fricatives to approximants,^[2] and later described realizations of ⟨ʢ⟩ ranging from a fricative, to a trill, to a fricative trill.^[3] Esling furthered this reclassification with a modified version of the IPA chart, merging pharyngeal and epiglottal consonants into a single column, placing ⟨ʢ⟩ as a trill, ⟨ʕ⟩ as a fricative, and ⟨ʕ̞⟩ as an approximant.^[1] A voiced epiglottal approximant ⟨ʢ̞⟩ is reported to occur in Dahalo, though the authors recognize that this is a precise description, and that the sound is still "pharyngeal in a broader sense",^[4] so that it may be describing the same sound as ⟨ʕ̞⟩.

Few languages distinguish between pharyngeal and epiglottal fricatives/trills, and in fact the fricatives in Arabic are routinely described as "pharyngeal". However, according to Peter Ladefoged, the Aghul spoken in the village of Burkikhan, Dagestan has both (as well as an epiglottal stop), as presented in these audio files.

Features

Features of a voiced 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 aryepiglottic folds against the epiglottis.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means that air is exclusively allowed to escape through the mouth.
• 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.
• Its 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
Aghul	Richa dialect[5]		[ʢakʷ]	'light'
Arabic[6]	Iraqi[7]	عَاف	[ʢaːf]	'he left'	Corresponds to /ʕ/ (ﻉ) in Standard Arabic and other varieties. See Arabic phonology
Siwa[8]			[arˤbˤəʢa]	'four'

See also

• Index of phonetics articles