Velar ejective fricative

The velar ejective fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨xʼ⟩.

Velar ejective fricative
xʼ
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
X-SAMPA	x_>

Features

Features of the velar ejective 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 velar, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) at the soft palate.
• Its phonation 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 only.
• The airstream mechanism is ejective (glottalic egressive), which means the air is forced out by pumping the glottis upward.

Occurrence

The velar ejective fricative occurs in the Dakota language,^[1] Saho language, where it's represented as qh,^[2] and Tlingit language.^[3] It has been reported as well in the Winnebago and Chiwere languages.^{[citation needed]}

Occurrence of [xʼ] in several languages

Language	Word	IPA	Meaning
Tlingit	xʼáaxʼ	[xʼáːxʼ]ⓘ	'apple'
Chiwere	x^aⁿ	[xʼã]	'life'
Winnebago	x'ooke	[xʼoːkɛ]	'parents

See also

• List of phonetic topics