"H with hook" redirects here; not to be confused with H with left hook or Heng (letter).For the variant of this letter with a bottom hook (ɧ), see Sj-sound. For consonants followed by superscript ʱ, see breathy voice.
A voiced glottal fricative, sometimes called a breathy-voiced glottal transition, is a type of sound used in some spokenlanguages. It is used by some English-speakers as the "h" sound in "ahead". The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɦ⟩.
A [ɦ] sound may have real glottal constriction in a number of languages (such as Finnish), making it a true fricative. However, in most languages that have it, it only patterns like a fricative or approximantphonologically, and lacks the usual phonetic characteristics of a consonant. In such languages, [ɦ] has no inherent place or manner of articulation. Thus it has been described as a breathy-voiced counterpart of the following vowel from a phonetic point of view. However, its characteristics are also influenced by the preceding vowels and whatever other sounds surround it. Therefore, it can be described as a segment whose only consistent feature is its breathy voice phonation in such languages.
Its phonation is breathy voiced, or murmured, which means the vocal cords are loosely vibrating, with more air escaping than in a modally voiced sound. It is sometimes referred to as a "voiced h", but this is something of a misnomer, as there is no voicing in the usual sense; "breathy voiced" or "murmured" are preferred terms.
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 with no manner of articulation other than its phonation type. Because there is no other constriction to produce friction in the vocal tract, most phoneticians no longer consider [ɦ] to be a fricative. True fricatives may have a murmured phonation in addition to producing friction elsewhere. However, the term "fricative" is generally retained for the historical reasons.
It may have a glottalplace of articulation. However, it may have no fricative articulation, making the term glottal mean that it is articulated by the vocal folds, but this is the nature of its phonation rather than a separate articulation. 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 [ɦ], and accordingly [ɦ] has only the place of articulation of these surrounding vowels.
It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the median–lateral dichotomy does not apply.
Appears geminate after /l/, /r/, /s/ as an allophone of [ɣ] and before /a/, /o/, /u/, assimilating those etymological consonants, which remain in writing according to the standard.
A nasalized voiced glottal fricative or approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɦ̃⟩. Swazi distinguishes /h,h̃,ɦ,ɦ̃/.
↑Gu, Qin (2008). "最新派上海市区方言语音的研究分析" [A Study and Analysis on the Phonology of Newest Period Urban Shanghainese]. 东方语言学 (2). Shanghai Normal University.
↑Koenig, Laura L.; Shi, Lu-Feng (2014). "3aSC18: Measures of spectral tilt in Shanghainese stops and glottal fricatives". The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Providence. doi:10.1121/1.4877532.
↑Ladefoged, Peter; Keith, Johnson (2011). A course in phonetics (Sixthed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth Publishing. p.149. ISBN9781428231269. OCLC613523782.
↑Casiddu, Leonarda (1998). La Lingua del Mondo Agropastorale di Ittiri[The Language of the Agro-Pastoral World of Ittiri] (in Italian). Sassari: Edizioni Il Rosello. pp.42, 44.
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