Voiceless glottal fricative

For consonants followed by the superscript ʰ, see Aspirated consonant.

The voiceless glottal fricative, sometimes called voiceless glottal transition or the aspirate,^[1][2] is a type of sound used in some spoken languages that patterns like a fricative or approximant consonant phonologically, but often lacks the usual phonetic characteristics of a consonant. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨h⟩. However, [h] has been described as a voiceless phonation because in many languages, it lacks the place and manner of articulation of a prototypical consonant, as well as the height and backness of a prototypical vowel:

[h and ɦ] have been described as voiceless or breathy voiced counterparts of the vowels that follow them [but] the shape of the vocal tract [...] is often simply that of the surrounding sounds. [...] Accordingly, in such cases it is more appropriate to regard h and ɦ as segments that have only a laryngeal specification, and are unmarked for all other features. There are other languages [such as Hebrew and Arabic] which show a more definite displacement of the formant frequencies for h, suggesting it has a [glottal] constriction associated with its production.^[3]

Voiceless glottal fricative
h
h͈
IPA number	146
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	h
Unicode (hex)	U+0068
X-SAMPA	h
Braille
Image

Voiceless glottal phonation
h
Braille
Image

An effort undertaken at the Kiel Convention in 1989 attempted to move glottal fricatives, both voiceless and voiced, to approximants.^[4][5] The fricative may be represented with the extIPA diacritic for strong articulation, ⟨h͈⟩.

The Shanghainese language, among others, contrasts voiced and voiceless glottal fricatives.^[6]

Features

Features of the "voiceless glottal fricative":

• In some languages, it has the constricted manner of articulation of a fricative. However, in many if not most it is a transitional state of the glottis or an approximant, with no manner of articulation other than its phonation type. Because there is no other constriction to produce friction in the vocal tract in the languages they are familiar with, many phoneticians^[who?] no longer consider [h] to be a fricative. However, the term "fricative" is generally retained for historical reasons.
• It may have a glottal place of articulation. However, it may have no fricative articulation, in which case the term 'glottal' only refers to the nature of its phonation, and does not describe the location of the stricture nor the turbulence. All consonants except for the glottals, and all vowels, have an individual place of articulation in addition to the state of the glottis. As with all other consonants, surrounding vowels influence the pronunciation [h], and [h] has sometimes been presented as a voiceless vowel, having the place of articulation of these surrounding vowels.
• Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the central–lateral dichotomy does not apply.
• 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

Fricative or transition

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Adyghe	Shapsug	хыгь/khyg'	[həɡʲ]	'now'	Corresponds to [x] in other dialects.
Afar		daháb	[dʌhʌb]	'gold'
Albanian		hire	[ˈhiɾɛ][stress?]	'the graces'
Aleut		hanix̂	[ˈhaniχ]	'lake'
Arabic	Modern Standard[7]	هائل/haa'il	[ˈhaːʔɪl]	'enormous'	See Arabic phonology
Assyrian	Eastern	ܗܝܡܢܘܬܐ hèmanūta	[heːmaːnuːta]	'faith'
	Western	ܗܪܟܗ harcë	[hεrcɪ]	'here'
Armenian	Eastern[8]	հայերեն/hayeren	[hɑjɛɾɛn]ⓘ	'Armenian language'
Asturian	South-central dialects	ḥuerza	[ˈhweɾθɐ]	'force'	F- becomes [h] before -ue/-ui in south-central dialects. May be also realized as [ħ, ʕ, ɦ, x, χ]
	Eastern dialects	ḥacer	[haˈθeɾ]	"to do"	F- becomes [h] in oriental dialects. May be also realized as [ħ, ʕ, ɦ, x, χ]
	All dialects	guaḥe ḥispiar	[ˈgwahɪ] [hisˈpjaɾ]	"kid" "to steal small quantities of something"	Some words use ḥ in all dialects.
Avar		гьа	[ha]	'oath'
Azeri		hin	[hɪn]	'chicken coop'
Basque	North-Eastern dialects[9]	hirur	[hiɾur]	'three'	Can be voiced [ɦ] instead.
Bengali		হাওয়া/haoua	[hao̯a]	'wind'
Berber		aherkus	[ahərkus]	'shoe'
Cantabrian		muḥer	[muˈheɾ]	'woman'	F- becomes [h]. In most dialects, -LJ- and -C'L- too. May be also realized as [ħ, ʕ, ɦ, x, χ].
Catalan		ehem	[eˈhẽm]	'ha!'	Found in loanwords and interjections. See Catalan phonology
Chechen		хӏара / hara	[hɑrɐ]	'this'
Chinese	Cantonese	海 / hói	[hɔːi̯˧˥]ⓘ	'sea'	See Cantonese phonology
	Taiwanese Mandarin	海 / hǎi	[haɪ̯˨˩˦]		A velar fricative [x] for Standard Chinese. See Standard Chinese phonology
Danish[10]		hus	[ˈhuːˀs]	'house'	Often voiced [ɦ] when between vowels.[10] See Danish phonology
English		high	[haɪ̯]	'high'	See English phonology and H-dropping
Esperanto		hejmo	[ˈhejmo]	'home'	See Esperanto phonology
Eastern Lombard	Val Camonica	Bresa	[ˈbrɛha]	'Brescia'	Corresponds to /s/ in other varieties.
Estonian		hammas	[ˈhɑmˑɑs]	'tooth'	See Estonian phonology
Faroese		hon	[hoːn]	'she'
Finnish		hammas	[ˈhɑmːɑs]	'tooth'	See Finnish phonology
French	Belgian	hotte	[hɔt]	'pannier'	Found in the region of Liège. See French phonology
Galician	Occidental, central, and some oriental dialects	gato	[ˈhätʊ]	'cat'	Realization of [g] in some dialects. May be also realized as [ɦ, ʕ, x, χ, ʁ, ɡʰ]. See gheada.
Georgian[11]		ჰავა/hava	[hɑvɑ]	'climate'
German[12]		Hass	[has]	'hatred'	See Standard German phonology
Greek	Cypriot[13]	μαχαζί/mahazi	[mahaˈzi]	'shop'	Allophone of /x/ before /a/.
Hawaiian[14]		haka	[ˈhɐkə]	'shelf'	See Hawaiian phonology
Hebrew		הַר/har	[häʁ̞]	'mountain'	See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindi	Standard[7]	हम/ham	[ˈhəm]	'we'	See Hindustani phonology
Hmong		hawm	[haɨ̰]	'to honor'
Hungarian		helyes	[ˈhɛjɛʃ]	'right'	See Hungarian phonology
Irish		shroich	[hɾˠɪç]	'reached'	Appears as the lenited form of 'f', 's' and 't', as well as grammatical pre-aspiration of vowels, & occasionally word-initial as 'h' in borrowed words. See Irish phonology.
Italian	Tuscan[15]	i capitani	[iˌhäɸiˈθäːni]	'the captains'	Intervocalic allophone of /k/.[15] See Italian phonology
Japanese		すはだ / suhada	[sɨᵝhada]	'bare skin'	See Japanese phonology
Javanese		ꦩꦲ/Maha	[mɔhɔ]	The expert, Almighty one
Kabardian		тхылъхэ/ tkhyl"khė	[tχɪɬhɑ]	'books'
Kazakh		шаһар / şahar	[ʃahɑr]	'city'
Khmer		ហឹរ / hœ̆r ចាស់ / chăs	[hər] [cah]	'spicy' 'old'	See Khmer phonology
Korean		허리 / heori	[hʌɾi]	'waist'	See Korean phonology
Lakota		ho	[ho]	'voice'
Lao		ຫ້າ/haa	[haː˧˩]	'five'
Leonese		guaje	[ˈwahe̞]	'boy'
Lezgian		гьек/hek	[hek]	'glue'
Luxembourgish[16]		hei	[hɑ̝ɪ̯]	'here'	See Luxembourgish phonology
Malay		hari	[hari]	'day'
Mutsun		hučekniš	[hut͡ʃɛkniʃ]	'dog'
Navajo		hastiin	[hàsd̥ìːn]	'mister'
Norwegian		hatt	[hɑtː]	'hat'	See Norwegian phonology
Pashto		هو/ho	[ho]	'yes'
Persian		هفت/haft	[hæft]	'seven'	See Persian phonology
Pirahã		hi	[hì]	'he'
Portuguese	Many Brazilian dialects[17]	marreta	[maˈhetɐ]	'sledgehammer'	Allophone of /ʁ/. [h, ɦ] are marginal sounds to many speakers, particularly out of Brazil. See Portuguese phonology.
	Most dialects	Honda	[ˈhõ̞dɐ]	'Honda'
	Minas Gerais (mountain dialect)	arte	[ˈahtʃ]	'art'
	Colloquial Brazilian (some dialects)[18][19]	chuvisco	[ɕuˈvihku]	'drizzle'	Corresponds to either /s/ or /ʃ/ (depending on dialect) in the syllable coda. Might also be deleted.
Quechua	Standard	hatun	[hatuŋ]	'big'	The elderly still maintain the pronunciation of /h/, but the young changed the pronunciation to /x/. See Quechuan phonology
Romanian		hăț	[həts]	'bridle'	See Romanian phonology
Scottish Gaelic		ro-sheòl	[ɾɔˈhɔːɫ]	'topsail'[20]	Lenited form of /t/, /s/, see Scottish Gaelic phonology
Serbo-Croatian	Croatian[21]	hmelj	[hmê̞ʎ̟]	'hops'	Allophone of /x/ when it is initial in a consonant cluster.[21] See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Spanish[22]	Andalusian, Canarian, and Extremaduran Spanish	higo	[ˈhiɣo̞]	'fig'	Corresponds to Old Spanish /h/, which was developed from Latin /f/ but muted in other dialects.
	Many dialects	obispo	[o̞ˈβ̞ihpo̞]	'bishop'	Allophone of /s/ at the end of a syllable. See Spanish phonology
	Some dialects	jaca	[ˈhaka]	'pony'	Corresponds to /x/ in other dialects.
Swedish		hatt	[ˈhatː]	'hat'	See Swedish phonology
Sylheti		ꠢꠣꠝꠥꠇ/hamukh	[hamux]	'snail'
Tagalog		tahimik	[tɐˈhimɪk]	'quiet'	See Tagalog phonology
Tatar		һава/hawa	[hawa]	'air'	See Tatar phonology
Telugu		అంతఃపురం	[ant̪ahpuram]	'Women's quarters'/ 'Harem'	See Visarga
Thai		ห้า/haa	[haː˥˩]	'five'
Turkish		halı	[häˈɫɯ]	'carpet'	See Turkish phonology
Ubykh		дуаха	[dwaha]	'prayer'	See Ubykh phonology
Ukrainian		кігті	[ˈkiht⁽ʲ⁾i]	'claws'	Sometimes when [ɦ] is devoiced. See Ukrainian phonology.
Urdu	Standard[7]	ہم/ham	[ˈhəm]	'we'	See Hindi-Urdu phonology
Vietnamese[23]		hiểu	[hjew˧˩˧]	'understand'	See Vietnamese phonology
Welsh		haul	[ˈhaɨl]	'sun'	See Welsh orthography
West Frisian		hoeke	[ˈhukə]	'corner'
Yi		ꉐ / hxa	[ha˧]	'hundred'

See also

• Voiced glottal fricative
• Voiceless nasal glottal fricative
• Index of phonetics articles