text:
Voiced palatal approximant

The voiced palatal approximant is a type of consonant used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨j⟩. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is, and in the Americanist phonetic notation it is $⟨y⟩$. Because the English name of the letter J, jay, starts with (voiced postalveolar affricate), the approximant is sometimes instead called yod (jod), as in the phonological history terms yod-dropping and yod-coalescence.

The palatal approximant can often be considered the semivocalic equivalent of the close front unrounded vowel. They alternate with each other in certain languages, such as French, and in the diphthongs of some languages as ⟨j⟩ and ⟨i̯⟩, with the non-syllabic diacritic used in different phonetic transcription systems to represent the same sound.

A voiced alveolo-palatal approximant is attested as phonemic in the Huastec language,    and is represented as an advanced voiced palatal approximant ⟨j̟⟩, or the plus sign may be placed after the letter, ⟨j˖⟩.

Phonetic ambiguity and transcription usage
Some languages, however, have a palatal approximant that is unspecified for rounding and so cannot be considered the semivocalic equivalent of either or its rounded counterpart,, which would normally correspond to. An example is Spanish, which distinguishes two palatal approximants: an approximant semivowel, which is always unrounded (and is a phonological vowel - an allophone of ), and an approximant consonant unspecified for rounding, (which is a phonological consonant). Eugenio Martínez Celdrán describes the difference between them as follows (with audio examples added):

"is shorter and is usually a merely transitory sound. It can only exist together with a full vowel and does not appear in syllable onset. [On the other hand,] has a lower amplitude, mainly in F2. It can only appear in syllable onset. It is not noisy either articulatorily or perceptually. can vary towards  in emphatic pronunciations, having noise (turbulent airstream). (...)

There is a further argument through which we can establish a clear difference between and : the first sound cannot be rounded, not even through co-articulation, whereas the second one is rounded before back vowels or the back semi-vowel. Thus, in words like viuda 'widow', Dios  'God', vio  's/he saw', etc., the semi-vowel  is unrounded; if it were rounded, a sound that does not exist in Spanish,, would appear. On the other hand, is unspecified as far as rounding is concerned and it is assimilated to the labial vowel context: rounded with rounded vowels, e.g. ayuda  'help', coyote  'coyote', hoyuelo  'dimple', etc., and unrounded with unrounded vowels: payaso  'clown', ayer  'yesterday'."

He also considers that "the IPA shows a lack of precision in the treatment it gives to approximants, if we take into account our understanding of the phonetics of Spanish. and  are two different segments, but they have to be labelled as voiced palatal approximant consonants. I think that the former is a real consonant, whereas the latter is a semi-consonant, as it has traditionally been called in Spanish, or a semi-vowel, if preferred. The IPA, though, classifies it as a consonant."

There is a parallel problem with transcribing the voiced velar approximant.

The symbol ⟨ʝ̞⟩ may not display properly in all browsers. In that case, ⟨ʝ˕⟩ should be substituted.

In the writing systems used for most languages in Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe, the letter j denotes the palatal approximant, as in German Jahr 'year', which is followed by IPA. Although it may be seen as counterintuitive for English-speakers, there are a few words with that orthographical spelling in certain loanwords in English like Hebrew "hallelujah" and German "Jägermeister".

In grammars of Ancient Greek, the palatal approximant, which was lost early in the history of Greek, is sometimes written as $⟨ι̯⟩$, an iota with the inverted breve below, which is the nonsyllabic diacritic or marker of a semivowel.

There is also the post-palatal approximant in some languages, which is articulated slightly more back than the place of articulation of the prototypical palatal approximant but less far back than the prototypical velar approximant. It can be considered the semivocalic equivalent of the close central unrounded vowel The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for that sound, but it can be transcribed as ⟨j̠⟩, ⟨j˗⟩ (both symbols denote a retracted ⟨j⟩), ⟨ɰ̟⟩ or ⟨ɰ˖⟩ (both symbols denote an advanced ⟨ɰ⟩). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are  and , respectively. Other possible transcriptions include a centralized ⟨j⟩ (⟨j̈⟩ in the IPA,  in X-SAMPA), a centralized ⟨ɰ⟩ (⟨ɰ̈⟩ in the IPA,   in X-SAMPA) and a non-syllabic ⟨ɨ⟩ (⟨ɨ̯⟩ in the IPA,   in X-SAMPA).

For the reasons mentioned above and in the article velar approximant, none of those symbols are appropriate for languages such as Spanish, whose post-palatal approximant consonant (not a semivowel) appears as an allophone of before front vowels and is best transcribed ⟨ʝ̞˗⟩, ⟨ʝ˕˗⟩ (both symbols denote a lowered and retracted ⟨ʝ⟩), ⟨ɣ̞˖⟩ or ⟨ɣ˕˖⟩ (both symbols denote a lowered and advanced ⟨ɣ⟩). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are  and.

Especially in broad transcription, the post-palatal approximant may be transcribed as a palatalized velar approximant (⟨ɰʲ⟩, ⟨ɣ̞ʲ⟩ or ⟨ɣ˕ʲ⟩ in the IPA,,  ,   or   in X-SAMPA).

A voiced alveolar-palatal approximant is attested as phonemic in the Huastec language.

Features
Features of the voiced palatal approximant:

The most common type of this approximant is glide or semivowel. The term glide emphasizes the characteristic of movement (or 'glide') of from the  vowel position to a following vowel position. The term semivowel emphasizes that, although the sound is vocalic in nature, it is not 'syllabic' (it does not form the nucleus of a syllable). For a description of the approximant consonant variant used e.g. in Spanish, see above. The otherwise identical post-palatal variant is articulated slightly behind the hard palate, making it sound slightly closer to the velar.

title: Voiced palatal approximant


text:
Palatal click

The palatal or palato-alveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found, as components of words, only in southern Africa. The tongue is nearly flat, and is pulled back rather than down as in the postalveolar clicks, making a sharper sound than those consonants. ('Sharper' meaning that the energy is concentrated at higher frequencies.) The tongue makes an extremely broad contact across the roof of the mouth, making correlation with the places of articulation of non-clicks difficult, but Ladefoged & Traill (1984:18) find that the primary place of articulation is the palate, and say that "there is no doubt that should be described as a palatal sound".

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the place of articulation of these sounds is ⟨ǂ⟩, a double-barred vertical bar. An older variant, the double-barred esh, ⟨𝼋⟩ (approximately ⨎), is sometimes seen. This base letter is combined with a second element to indicate the manner of articulation, though that is commonly omitted for tenuis clicks.

Doke noted a palatal click with a slapped release,.

In official IPA transcription, the click letter is combined with a ⟨k ɡ ŋ q ɢ ɴ⟩ via a tie bar, though ⟨k⟩ is frequently omitted. Many authors instead use a superscript ⟨k ɡ ŋ q ɢ ɴ⟩ without the tie bar, again often neglecting the ⟨k⟩. Either letter, whether baseline or superscript, is usually placed before the click letter, but may come after when the release of the velar or uvular occlusion is audible. A third convention is the click letter with diacritics for voicelessness, voicing and nasalization; it does not distinguish velar from uvular palatal clicks:

In the orthographies of individual languages, palatal clicks may be written either with digraphs based on the vertical-bar letter of the IPA, or using the Latin alphabet. Khoekhoee and most Bushman languages use the former. Orthographies using the latter include multigraphs based on $⟨ç⟩$ in Juǀʼhoansi (1987 orthography) and originally in Naro, the latter since changed to $⟨tc⟩$, and on $⟨qc⟩$. In the 19th century, $⟨v⟩$ was sometimes used (see click letters); this might be the source of the Doke letter for the voiceless palatal click, $⟨ↆ⟩$, apparently a v over-struck with a vertical bar.

Features
Features of palato-alveolar clicks:

 * The forward place of articulation is broad, with the tongue flat against the roof of the mouth from the alveolar ridge to the palate. The release is a sharp, plosive sound.

Occurrence
Palatal clicks only occur in the southern African Khoisan languages (the Khoe, Kx'a, and Tuu families), where they are extremely common, and in Bantu languages such as Yeyi.

Fricated palatal clicks
Ekoka !Kung has a series of laminal postalveolar-to-palatal clicks with a noisy, fricated release which derive historically from more prototypical palatal clicks. These have been variously described as fricated alveolar clicks and (inaccurately) as retroflex clicks. Unlike typical palatal clicks, which have a sharp, abrupt release, these have a slow, turbulent anterior release that sounds much like a short inhaled ; they also have a domed tongue rather than a flat tongue like a typical palatal click. The release has also been described as lateral. Like the clicks they derive from, they do not have the retracted tongue root and back-vowel constraint typical of alveolar clicks. A provisional transcription for the tenuis click is ⟨ǃ͡s⟩, though this misleadingly suggests that the clicks are affricates. Another proposal is to resurrect the old ʃ-like letter for palatal clicks, $⟨‼⟩$.

Percussive release
Clement Doke noted a nasal palatal click with slapped release,, in ǃKung, analogous to the percussive alveolar clicks of Sandawe.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Palatal click


text:
Voiced palatal nasal

The voiced palatal nasal is a type of consonant used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɲ⟩, a lowercase letter n with a leftward-pointing tail protruding from the bottom of the left stem of the letter. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is. The IPA symbol ⟨ɲ⟩ is visually similar to ⟨ɳ ⟩, the symbol for the retroflex nasal, which has a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem, and to ⟨ŋ⟩, the symbol for the velar nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem.

The IPA symbol derives from ⟨n⟩ and ⟨j⟩, ⟨n⟩ for nasality and ⟨j⟩ denoting palatal. In Spanish and languages whose writing systems are influenced by Spanish orthography, it is represented by the letter $⟨ñ⟩$, called eñe ("enye"). In French and Italian orthographies the sound is represented by the digraph $⟨gn⟩$. Occitan uses the digraph $⟨nh⟩$, the source of the same Portuguese digraph called ene-agá (lit. 'en-aitch'), used thereafter by languages whose writing systems are influenced by Portuguese orthography, such as Vietnamese. In Catalan, Hungarian and many African languages, as Swahili or Dinka, the digraph $⟨ny⟩$ is used. In Albanian and some countries that used to be Yugoslavia, the digraph (Nj) is used, and sometimes, for the languages with the Cyrillic script that used to be part of Yugoslavia, uses the (Њњ) Cyrillic ligature that might be part of the official alphabet. In Czech and Slovak, // is represented by letter $⟨ň⟩$ whilst Kashubian and Polish uses $⟨ń⟩$. In Bengali it is represented by the letter $⟨ঞ⟩$.

The voiced alveolo-palatal nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some oral languages. There is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound. If more precision is desired, it may be transcribed ⟨n̠ʲ⟩ or ⟨ɲ̟⟩; these are essentially equivalent, since the contact includes both the blade and body (but not the tip) of the tongue. There is a non-IPA letter, ; ⟨ȵ⟩ ($⟨n⟩$, plus the curl found in the symbols for alveolo-palatal sibilant fricatives ), which is used especially in Sinological circles.

The alveolo-palatal nasal is commonly described as palatal; it is often unclear whether a language has a true palatal or not. Many languages claimed to have a palatal nasal, such as Portuguese, actually have an alveolo-palatal nasal. This is likely true of several of the languages listed here. Some dialects of Irish as well as some non-standard dialects of Malayalam are reported to contrast alveolo-palatal and palatal nasals.

There is also a post-palatal nasal (also called pre-velar, fronted velar etc.) in some languages. Palatal nasals are more common than the palatal stops.

Features

Features of the voiced palatal nasal:

title: Voiced palatal nasal


text:
Alveolar click

The alveolar or postalveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found only in Africa and in the Damin ritual jargon of Australia. The tongue is more or less concave (depending on the language), and is pulled down rather than back as in the palatal clicks, making a hollower sound than those consonants.

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the place of articulation of these sounds is ⟨ǃ⟩. The symbol is not an exclamation mark in origin, but rather a vertical bar with a subscript dot, the dot being the old diacritic for retroflex consonants. Prior to 1989, ⟨ʗ⟩ (stretched c) was the IPA letter for the alveolar clicks, and this is still preferred by some phoneticians. The tail of ⟨ʗ⟩ may be the tail of retroflex consonants in the IPA, and thus analogous to the underdot of ⟨ǃ⟩. Either letter may be combined with a second letter to indicate the manner of articulation, though this is commonly omitted for tenuis clicks.

In official IPA transcription, the click letter is combined with a ⟨k ɡ ŋ q ɢ ɴ⟩ via a tie bar, though ⟨k⟩ is frequently omitted. Many authors instead use a superscript ⟨k ɡ ŋ q ɢ ɴ⟩ without the tie bar, again often neglecting the ⟨k⟩. Either letter, whether baseline or superscript, is usually placed before the click letter, but may come after when the release of the velar or uvular occlusion is audible. A third convention is the click letter with diacritics for voicelessness, voicing and nasalization; it does not distinguish velar from uvular alveolar clicks. Common alveolar clicks are:

The last can be heard in the sound sample at right; non-native speakers tend to glottalize clicks to avoid nasalizing them. The nasal click may also be heard at the right.

In the orthographies of individual languages, the letters and digraphs for alveolar clicks may be based on either the vertical bar symbol of the IPA, ⟨ǃ⟩, or on the Latin $⟨c!⟩$ of Bantu convention. Khoekhoe and most Bushman languages use the former; Naro, Sandawe, and Zulu use the latter.

Features
Features of postalveolar clicks:

 * The forward place of articulation is alveolar or postalveolar, depending on the language, and apical, which means it is articulated with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge or the roof of the mouth behind the alveolar ridge. (Damin contrasted these two articulations as separate phonemes.) The release is a sharp, plosive sound in southern Africa, but in Sandawe it may be percussive, with the underside of the tip of the tongue striking the floor of the mouth after the release of the click (see below), and in Hadza the release is often quite weak.

Occurrence
English does not have an alveolar click (or any other click consonant) as a phoneme, but a plain alveolar click does occur in mimesis, as a sound children use to imitate a horse trotting.

Percussive release
In Sandawe, alveolar clicks commonly have a ballistic release, with the underside of the tip of the tongue subsequently striking the floor of the mouth. This allophone has been called "flapped" and "slapped". Sometimes the percussive slap is louder than the release, resulting in a sound that has been characterized as a "cluck". The symbol for the sublingual percussive component is ⟨¡⟩ in the extensions to the IPA; a slapped click is therefore transcribed ⟨ǃ͡¡⟩ or ⟨ǃꜞ⟩ (or ⟨ʗ͡¡, ʗꜞ⟩). The percussive allophones of the five Sandawe alveolar clicks are (or  etc.).

(Clement Doke also noted a palatal click with slapped release, .)

Nasal clicks that fit this description are used by speakers of Gan Chinese (from Ningdu county) and of Mandarin (from Beijing and Jilin), and presumably people from other parts of the country, with varying degrees of competence in nursery rhymes for the words for 'goose' and 'duck', both of which begin with in Gan and until recently began with  in Mandarin as well. In Gan, the nursery rhyme is (disregarding tone),
 * 天一隻鵝 'a goose in the sky'
 * 地下一隻鴨 'a duck on the ground'
 * 鵝生鵝蛋鵝孵鵝 'a goose lays a goose egg, a goose hatches a goose'
 * 鴨生鴨蛋鴨孵鴨 'a duck lays a duck egg, a duck hatches a duck'

where the onsets are all pronounced.

"Fricated" alveolar clicks
A series of clicks in Ekoka !Kung have been variously described as retroflex or fricated palatal clicks.

title: Alveolar click


text:
Voiced retroflex approximant

The voiced retroflex approximant is a type of consonant used in some languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɻ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is. The IPA symbol is a turned lowercase letter r with a rightward hook protruding from the lower right of the letter.

The velar bunched approximant found in some varieties of Dutch and American English sounds similar to the retroflex approximant but it has a very different articulation.

Features

Features of the voiced retroflex approximant:

title: Voiced retroflex approximant


text:
Voiced retroflex flap

The voiced retroflex flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɽ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is.

Features
Features of the voiced retroflex flap:

title: Voiced retroflex flap


text:
Voiced retroflex nasal

The voiced retroflex nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɳ ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is.

Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA symbol is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of an en (the letter used for the corresponding alveolar consonant). It is similar to ⟨ɲ⟩, the letter for the palatal nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the left stem, and to ⟨ŋ⟩, the letter for the velar nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem.

Features

Features of the voiced retroflex nasal:

Features
Features of the retroflex nasal tap or flap:

title: Voiced retroflex nasal


text:
Uvular ejective stop

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

Features
Features of the uvular ejective:

Occurrence
A single plain uvular ejective is found in almost all Northeast Caucasian languages, all South Caucasian languages, and some Athabaskan languages, as well as Itelmen, Quechua and Aymara.

Most Salishan languages, the Tlingit language, and Adyghe and Kabardian (Northwest Caucasian) demonstrate a two-way contrast between labialised and plain uvular ejectives.

The Akhvakh language appears to have a contrast between lax and tense uvular ejectives: soup, broth (lax) vs. cock's comb (tense).

Abkhaz contrasts plain, palatalised and labialised uvular ejectives, written $⟨ҟ, ҟь, ҟə⟩$, e.g., аҟаҧшь red, -ҵəҟьа  really, indeed (a verbal suffix), Аҟәа  Sukhum. As with Georgian, Abkhaz has no non-ejective uvular stops; the historically present uvular aspirates have merged with their corresponding fricatives, although the aspirates are preserved in Abaza.

The plain uvular ejective is one of the most common consonants in Ubykh, due to its presence in the past tense suffix. But in addition to palatalised, labialised and plain uvular ejectives, Ubykh also possesses a pharyngealised version and a concurrently labialised and pharyngealised version, making a total of five: he said it,  small and round,  to seize,  to chew,  cavern.

title: Uvular ejective stop


text:
Voiced uvular nasal

The voiced uvular nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɴ⟩, a small capital version of the Latin letter n; the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is.

The uvular nasal is a rare sound cross-linguistically, occurring as a phoneme in only a small handful of languages. It is complex in terms of articulation, and also highly marked, as it is inherently difficult to produce a nasal articulation at the uvular point of contact. This difficulty can be said to account for the marked rarity of this sound among the world's languages.

The uvular nasal most commonly occurs as a conditioned allophone of other sounds, for example as an allophone of before a uvular plosive as in Quechua, or as an allophone of /q/ before another nasal consonant as in Selkup. However, it has been reported to exist as an independent phoneme in a small number of languages. Examples include the Klallam language, Tagalog language, the Tawellemmet and Ayr varieties of Tuareg Berber, the Rangakha dialect of Khams Tibetan, at least two dialects of the Bai language, the Papuan language Mapos Buang, and the Chamdo languages: Lamo (Kyilwa dialect), Larong sMar (Tangre Chaya dialect), Drag-yab sMar (Razi dialect). In Mapos Buang and in the Bai dialects, it contrasts phonemically with a velar nasal. In the Chamdo languages it contrasts phonemically with /ŋ/, /ŋ̊/, and /ɴ̥/. The syllable-final nasal in Japanese was traditionally said to be realized as a uvular nasal when utterance-final, but empirical studies have disputed this claim.

There is also the pre-uvular nasal in some languages such as Yanyuwa, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical uvular nasal, though not as front as the prototypical velar nasal. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for that sound, though it can be transcribed as ⟨ɴ̟⟩ (advanced ⟨ɴ⟩), ⟨ŋ̠⟩ or ⟨ŋ˗⟩ (both symbols denote a retracted ⟨ŋ⟩). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are  and , respectively.

Features

Features of the voiced uvular nasal:

title: Voiced uvular nasal


text:
Voiced uvular trill

The voiced uvular trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʀ⟩, a small capital version of the Latin letter r. This consonant is one of several collectively called guttural R.

Features
Features of the voiced uvular trill:

Unlike in tongue-tip trills, it is the uvula, not the tongue, that vibrates.

Occurrence

There are two main theories regarding the origination of the uvular trill in European languages. According to one theory, the uvular trill originated in Standard French around the 17th century and spread to the standard varieties of German, Danish, Portuguese, and some of those of Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish. It is also present in other areas of Europe, but it is not clear if such pronunciations are due to French influence. In most cases, varieties have shifted the sound to a voiced uvular fricative or a voiced uvular approximant.

The other main theory is that the uvular R originated within Germanic languages by the weakening of the alveolar R, which was replaced by an imitation of the alveolar R (vocalisation). Against the "French origin" theory, it is said that there are many signs that the uvular R existed in some German dialects long before the 17th century.

title: Voiced uvular trill


text:
Voiced velar approximant

The voiced velar approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɰ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is.

The consonant is absent in English, but may be approximated by making but with the tongue body lowered or  but with the lips apart. The voiced velar approximant can in many cases be considered the semivocalic counterpart of the close back unrounded vowel. ⟨ɰ⟩ and ⟨ɯ̯⟩ with the non-syllabic diacritic are used in different transcription systems to represent the same sound.

In some languages, such as Spanish, the voiced velar approximant is an allophone of – see below.

The symbol for the velar approximant originates from ⟨ɯ⟩, but with a vertical line. Compare ⟨u⟩ and ⟨ɥ⟩ for the labio-palatal approximant.

Features
Features of the voiced velar approximant:

The most common type of this approximant is glide or semivowel. The term glide emphasizes the characteristic of movement (or 'glide') of from the  vowel position to a following vowel position. The term semivowel emphasizes that, although the sound is vocalic in nature, it is not 'syllabic' (it does not form the nucleus of a syllable). For a description of the approximant consonant variant used e.g. in Spanish, see below.

Voiced velar bunched approximant
Some languages have a velar approximant that is produced with the body of the tongue bunched up at the velum and simultaneous pharyngealization. This gives rise to a type of retroflex resonance resembling. The extension to the IPA recommends the use of the "centralized" diacritic combined with the IPA sign for the alveolar approximant (as in ⟨ɹ̈⟩) to distinguish the bunched realization from the prototypical apical, which may be specified as ⟨ɹ̺⟩. Typically, the diacritic is omitted, so that the sound is transcribed simply with ⟨ɹ⟩ or ⟨ɻ⟩ (in broader transcriptions: ⟨r⟩), as if it were a coronal consonant. Just as described below, the velar bunched approximant is not specified for rounding.

In Dutch, this type of r is called Gooise r 'Gooi r'. It is named after het Gooi, a region of the Netherlands where Hilversum (the main centre for television and radio broadcasting) is located.

Features
Features of the voiced velar bunched approximant:

The body of the tongue is bunched up at the velum, rather than just approaching it as it is the case with the prototypical velar approximant.

Relation with and
Some languages have a voiced velar approximant that is unspecified for rounding, and therefore cannot be considered the semivocalic equivalent of either or its rounded counterpart. Examples of such languages are Catalan, Galician and Spanish, in which the approximant consonant (not semivowel) unspecified for rounding appears as an allophone of.

Eugenio Martínez Celdrán describes the voiced velar approximant consonant as follows:

"As for the symbol ⟨ɰ⟩, it is quite evidently inappropriate for representing the Spanish voiced velar approximant consonant. Many authors have pointed out the fact that is not rounded; for example, Pullum & Ladusaw (1986:98) state that 'the sound in question can be described as a semi-vowel (glide) with the properties 'high', 'back', and 'unrounded''. They even establish an interesting parallelism: 'the sound can be regarded as an unrounded '. It is evident, then, that ⟨ɰ⟩ is not an adequate symbol for Spanish. First of all, because it has never been taken into consideration that there is a diphthong in words like paga 'pay', vago 'lazy', lego 'lay', etc., and, secondly, because this sound is rounded when it precedes rounded vowels. Besides, it would be utterly wrong to transcribe the word jugo 'juice' with ⟨ɰ⟩ *, because the pronunciation of that consonant between two rounded vowels is completely rounded whereas is not. [...] The symbol I have always proposed is ⟨ɣ̞⟩, the correlate to the other central approximants in Spanish,  (Martínez Celdrán 1991, 1996:47). This coincides with Ball & Rahilly (1999:90), whose example for the three approximants is the Spanish word abogado 'lawyer'[...]. Ball & Rahilly too criticise in a footnote the confusion between these symbols: 'The difference between an approximant version of the voiced velar fricative, and the velar semi-vowel is that the latter requires spread lips, and must have a slightly more open articulatory channel so that it becomes  if prolonged' (p. 189, fn. 1)."

There is a parallel problem with transcribing the palatal approximant.

The symbol ⟨ɣ̞⟩ may not display properly in all browsers. In that case, ⟨ɣ˕⟩ should be substituted. In broader transcriptions, the lowering diacritic may be omitted altogether, so that the symbol is rendered ⟨ɣ⟩, i.e. as if it represented the corresponding fricative.

title: Voiced velar approximant


text:
Velar ejective stop

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

Features
Features of the velar ejective:

title: Velar ejective stop


text:
User:Lord Cornholio

Please grow up, go away, or both. 82.35.17.203 00:06, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

title: User:Lord Cornholio


text:
Voiced alveolar fricative

The voiced alveolar fricatives are consonantal sounds. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds depends on whether a sibilant or non-sibilant fricative is being described.
 * The symbol for the alveolar sibilant is ⟨z⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is . The IPA letter $⟨z⟩$ is not normally used for dental or postalveolar sibilants in narrow transcription unless modified by a diacritic (⟨z̪⟩ and ⟨z̠⟩ respectively).
 * The IPA symbol for the alveolar non-sibilant fricative is derived by means of diacritics; it can be ⟨ð̠⟩ or ⟨ɹ̝⟩.

Voiced alveolar sibilant
The voiced alveolar sibilant is common across European languages, but is relatively uncommon cross-linguistically compared to the voiceless variant. Only about 28% of the world's languages contain a voiced dental or alveolar sibilant. Moreover, 85% of the languages with some form of are languages of Europe, Africa, or Western Asia.

Features

 * There are at least three specific variants of :
 * Dentalized laminal alveolar (commonly called "dental"), which means it is articulated with the tongue blade very close to the upper front teeth, with the tongue tip resting behind lower front teeth. The hissing effect in this variety of is very strong.
 * Non-retracted alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal. According to about half of English speakers use a non-retracted apical articulation.
 * Retracted alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue slightly behind the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal. Acoustically, it is close to or laminal.

Voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative
The voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative  is a consonantal sound. As the International Phonetic Alphabet does not have separate symbols for the alveolar consonants (the same symbol is used for all coronal places of articulation that are not palatalized), it can represent the sound as in a number of ways including ⟨ð̠⟩ or ⟨ð͇⟩ (retracted or alveolarized, respectively), ⟨ɹ̝⟩ (constricted ), or ⟨d̞⟩ (lowered ).

Few languages also have the voiced alveolar tapped fricative, which is simply a very brief apical alveolar non-sibilant fricative, with the tongue making the gesture for a tapped stop but not making full contact. It can be indicated in the IPA with the lowering diacritic to show that full occlusion does not occur. Flapped fricatives are theoretically possible but are not attested.

Features
However, it does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.

Voiced lateral-median fricative
The voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative (also known as a "lisp" fricative) is a consonantal sound. Consonants is pronounced with simultaneous lateral and central airflow.

Features
However, it does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.

title: Voiced alveolar fricative


text:
Voiced alveolo-palatal fricative

The voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʑ⟩ ("z", plus the curl also found in its voiceless counterpart ), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is. It is the sibilant equivalent of the voiced palatal fricative, and as such it can be transcribed in IPA with ⟨ʝ˖⟩.

Features

Features of the voiced alveolo-palatal fricative:

title: Voiced alveolo-palatal fricative


text:
Voiced bilabial fricative

The voiced bilabial fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨β⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is. The official symbol ⟨β⟩ is the Greek letter beta.

This letter is also often used to represent the bilabial approximant, though that is more precisely written with a lowering diacritic, that is ⟨β̞⟩. That sound may also be transcribed as an advanced labiodental approximant ⟨ʋ̟⟩, in which case the diacritic is again frequently omitted, since no contrast is likely. It has been proposed that either a turned ⟨ ⟩ (approximately 𐅸) or reversed ⟨ ⟩ be used as a dedicated symbol for the bilabial approximant, but despite occasional usage this has not gained general acceptance.

It is extremely rare for a language to make a phonemic contrast between the voiced bilabial fricative and the bilabial approximant. The Mapos Buang language of New Guinea contains this contrast. Its bilabial approximant is analyzed as filling a phonological gap in the labiovelar series of the consonant system rather than the bilabial series. Proto-Germanic and Proto-Italic are also reconstructed as having had this contrast, albeit with being an allophone for another consonant in both cases. In Bashkir language, it is an intervocal allophone of, and it is contrastive with : балабыҙ our child, балауыҙ  wax.

The bilabial fricative is diachronically unstable (likely to be considerably varied between dialects of a language that makes use of it) and is likely to shift to.

The sound is not the primary realization of any sound in English dialects except for Chicano English, but it can be produced by approximating the normal English between the lips; it can also sometimes occur as an allophone of  after bilabial consonants.

Features
Features of the voiced bilabial fricative:

Usage in Persian
This consonantal sound in Persian was once presented by the letter the letter ڤ|ve and today, it is no longer in use. The example is archaic زڤان > زبان  'language'

title: Voiced bilabial fricative


text:
Voiced dental fricative

The voiced dental fricative is a consonant sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English-speakers as the th sound in father. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is eth, or and was taken from the Old English and Icelandic letter eth, which could stand for either a voiced or unvoiced (inter)dental non-sibilant fricative. Such fricatives are often called "interdental" because they are often produced with the tongue between the upper and lower teeth (as in Received Pronunciation), and not just against the back of the upper teeth, as they are with other dental consonants.

The letter ⟨ð⟩ is sometimes used to represent the dental approximant, a similar sound, which no language is known to contrast with a dental non-sibilant fricative, but the approximant is more clearly written with the lowering diacritic: ⟨ð̞⟩. Very rarely used variant transcriptions of the dental approximant include ⟨ʋ̠⟩ (retracted ), ⟨ɹ̟⟩ (advanced ) and ⟨ɹ̪⟩. It has been proposed that either a turned ⟨ ⟩ or reversed ⟨ ⟩ be used as a dedicated symbol for the dental approximant, but despite occasional usage, this has not gained general acceptance.

The fricative and its unvoiced counterpart are rare phonemes. Almost all languages of Europe and Asia, such as German, lack the sound. Native speakers of languages without the sound often have difficulty enunciating or distinguishing it, and they replace it with a voiced alveolar sibilant, a voiced dental stop or voiced alveolar stop , or a voiced labiodental fricative ; known respectively as th-alveolarization, th-stopping, and th-fronting. As for Europe, there seems to be a great arc where the sound (and/or its unvoiced variant) is present. Most of Mainland Europe lacks the sound. However, some "periphery" languages such as Greek have the sound in their consonant inventories, as phonemes or allophones.

Within Turkic languages, Bashkir and Turkmen have both voiced and voiceless dental non-sibilant fricatives among their consonants. Among Semitic languages, they are used in Modern Standard Arabic, albeit not by all speakers of modern Arabic dialects, and in some dialects of Hebrew and Assyrian.

Features
Features of the voiced dental non-sibilant fricative:

It does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.

Occurrence
In the following transcriptions, the undertack diacritic may be used to indicate an approximant.

Danish is actually a velarized alveolar approximant.

title: Voiced dental fricative


text:
Voiced epiglottal trill

The voiced epiglottal or pharyngeal trill, or voiced 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 ⟨ʢ⟩.

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 the voiced epiglottal trill/fricative:

title: Voiced epiglottal trill


text:
Voiced glottal fricative

The voiced glottal fricative, sometimes called breathy-voiced glottal transition, is a type of sound used in some spoken languages which 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 ⟨ɦ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is.

In many languages, has no 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. It may have real glottal constriction in a number of languages (such as Finnish ), making it a fricative.

Northern Wu languages such as Shanghainese contrast the voiced and voiceless glottal fricatives. The two glottal fricatives pattern like plosives.

Features
Features of the voiced glottal fricative:
 * 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". Strictly speaking this is incorrect, as there is no voicing.
 * 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 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 glottal place 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, and accordingly has only the place of articulation of these surrounding vowels.

title: Voiced glottal fricative


text:
Voiced labiodental fricative

The voiced labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨v⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is.

The sound is similar to voiced alveolar fricative /z/ in that it is familiar to most European speakers but is a fairly uncommon sound cross-linguistically, occurring in approximately 21.1% of languages. Moreover, most languages that have /z/ also have /v/ and similarly to /z/, the overwhelming majority of languages with [v] are languages of Europe, Africa, or Western Asia, although the similar labiodental approximant /ʋ/ is also common in India. The presence of and absence of, is a very distinctive areal feature of European languages and those of adjacent areas of Siberia and Central Asia. Speakers of East Asian languages that lack this sound may pronounce it as (Korean and Japanese), or / (Cantonese and Mandarin), and thus be unable to distinguish between a number of English minimal pairs.

In certain languages, such as Danish, Faroese, Icelandic or Norwegian the voiced labiodental fricative is in a free variation with the labiodental approximant.

Features
Features of the voiced labiodental fricative:

title: Voiced labiodental fricative


text:
Voiced palatal fricative

The voiced palatal fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) that represents this sound is ⟨ʝ⟩ (crossed-tail j), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is. It is the non-sibilant equivalent of the voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant.

In broad transcription, the symbol for the palatal approximant, ⟨j⟩, may be used for the sake of simplicity.

The voiced palatal fricative is a very rare sound, occurring in only 7 of the 317 languages surveyed by the original UCLA Phonological Segment Inventory Database. In Dutch, Kabyle, Margi, Modern Greek, and Scottish Gaelic, the sound occurs phonemically, along with its voiceless counterpart, and in several more, the sound occurs as a result of phonological processes.

To produce this sound, the tip of the tongue is placed against the roof of the mouth behind the upper front teeth; then, while exhaling, the space between the tongue and the palate is narrowed, creating a friction-like sound similar to the $⟨s⟩$ sound (IPA: Voiced postalveolar fricative) in the English word leisure.

There is also the voiced post-palatal fricative in some languages, which is articulated slightly more back compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical voiced palatal fricative but not as back as the prototypical voiced velar fricative. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for that sound, but it can be transcribed as ⟨ʝ̠⟩, ⟨ʝ˗⟩ (both symbols denote a retracted ⟨ʝ⟩), ⟨ɣ̟⟩ or ⟨ɣ˖⟩ (both symbols denote an advanced ⟨ɣ⟩). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are  and , respectively.

Especially in broad transcription, the voiced post-palatal fricative may be transcribed as a palatalized voiced velar fricative (⟨ɣʲ⟩ in the IPA,  or   in X-SAMPA).

Features
Features of the voiced palatal fricative:

The otherwise identical post-palatal variant is articulated slightly behind the hard palate, making it sound slightly closer to the velar.

title: Voiced palatal fricative


text:
Voiced palatal plosive

The voiced palatal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɟ⟩, a barred dotless $⟨j⟩$ that was initially created by turning the type for a lowercase letter $⟨f⟩$. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is.

If the distinction is necessary, the voiced alveolo-palatal plosive may be transcribed ⟨ɟ̟⟩, ⟨ɟ˖⟩ (both symbols denote an advanced ⟨ɟ⟩) or ⟨d̠ʲ⟩ (retracted and palatalized ⟨d⟩), but they are essentially equivalent since the contact includes both the blade and body (but not the tip) of the tongue. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are  and   or , respectively. There is also a non-IPA letter ; ⟨ȡ⟩ ("d" with the curl found in the symbols for alveolo-palatal sibilant fricatives ) that is used especially in Sinological circles.

is a less common sound worldwide than the voiced postalveolar affricate because it is difficult to get the tongue to touch just the hard palate without also touching the back part of the alveolar ridge. It is also common for the symbol ⟨ɟ⟩ to be used to represent a palatalized voiced velar plosive or palato-alveolar/alveolo-palatal affricates, as in Indic languages. That may be considered appropriate when the place of articulation needs to be specified, and the distinction between plosive and affricate is not contrastive.

There is also the voiced post-palatal plosive in some languages, which is articulated slightly more back than the place of articulation of the prototypical palatal consonant but not as back as the prototypical velar consonant. The IPA does not have a separate symbol, which can be transcribed as ⟨ɟ̠⟩, ⟨ɟ˗⟩ (both symbols denote a retracted ⟨ɟ⟩), ⟨ɡ̟⟩ or ⟨ɡ˖⟩ (both symbols denote an advanced ⟨ɡ⟩). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are  and , respectively.

Especially in broad transcription, the voiced post-palatal plosive may be transcribed as a palatalized voiced velar plosive (⟨ɡʲ⟩ in the IPA,  or   in X-SAMPA).

Features

Features of the voiced palatal stop:

 * The otherwise identical post-palatal variant is articulated slightly behind the hard palate, making it sound closer to the velar.
 * Alveolo-palatal variant is articulated also with the blade of the tongue at or behind the alveolar ridge.

title: Voiced palatal plosive


text:
Voiced pharyngeal fricative

The voiced pharyngeal approximant or fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʕ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is. Epiglottals and epiglotto-pharyngeals are often mistakenly taken to be pharyngeal.

Although traditionally placed in the fricative row of the IPA chart, is usually an approximant. The IPA symbol itself is ambiguous, but no language is known to make a phonemic distinction between fricatives and approximants at this place of articulation.

The IPA letter ⟨ʕ⟩ is caseless. Capital $⟨꟎⟩$ and lower-case $⟨꟏⟩$ are pending at Unicode U+A7CE and U+A7CF.

Features
Features of the voiced pharyngeal approximant fricative:

Occurrence
Pharyngeal consonants are not widespread. Sometimes, a pharyngeal approximant develops from a uvular approximant. Many languages that have been described as having pharyngeal fricatives or approximants turn out on closer inspection to have epiglottal consonants instead. For example, the candidate sound in Arabic and standard Hebrew (not modern Hebrew – Israelis generally pronounce this as a glottal stop) has been variously described as a voiced epiglottal fricative, an epiglottal approximant, or a pharyngealized glottal stop.

title: Voiced pharyngeal fricative


text:
Voiced postalveolar fricative

The voiced postalveolar or palato-alveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term voiced postalveolar fricative only for the sound, but it also describes the voiced postalveolar non-sibilant fricative , for which there are significant perceptual differences, as one is a sibilant and one is not.

Voiced palato-alveolar fricative
The voiced palato-alveolar fricative or voiced domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages.

Transcription
The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is the lower case form of the letter Ezh $⟨Ʒ ʒ⟩$, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is. An alternative symbol used in some older and American linguistic literature is $⟨ž⟩$, a z with a caron. In some transcriptions of alphabets such as the Cyrillic, the sound is represented by the digraph $⟨zh⟩$.

Although present in English, the sound is not represented by a specific letter or digraph, but is formed by yod-coalescence of and  in words such as measure. It also appears in some loanwords, mainly from French (thus written with $⟨g⟩$ and $⟨j⟩$).

The sound occurs in many languages and, as in English and French, may have simultaneous lip rounding, although this is rarely indicated in transcription.

Features
Features of the voiced palato-alveolar fricative:

Occurrence
The sound in Russian denoted by $⟨ж⟩$ is commonly transcribed as a palato-alveolar fricative but is actually a laminal retroflex fricative.

Voiced postalveolar non-sibilant fricative
The voiced postalveolar non-sibilant fricative is a consonantal sound. As the International Phonetic Alphabet does not have separate symbols for the post-alveolar consonants (the same symbol is used for all coronal places of articulation that aren't palatalized), this sound is usually transcribed ⟨ɹ̠˔⟩ (retracted constricted ). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is.

Features
However, it does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.
 * Its place of articulation is postalveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge.

title: Voiced postalveolar fricative


text:
Voiced retroflex fricative

The voiced retroflex sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʐ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is. Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA symbol is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of a z (the letter used for the corresponding alveolar consonant).

Features

Features of the voiced retroflex sibilant:

Occurrence
In the following transcriptions, diacritics may be used to distinguish between apical and laminal.

The commonality of cross-linguistically is 2% in a phonological analysis of 2155 languages.

Features
Features of the voiced retroflex non-sibilant fricative:

title: Voiced retroflex fricative


text:
Voiced retroflex plosive

The voiced retroflex plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is $\langleAfrican D \rangle$, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is. Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA symbol is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of a d, the letter that is used for the corresponding alveolar consonant. Many South Asian languages, such as Hindi and Urdu, have a two-way contrast between plain and murmured (breathy voice).

Features

Features of the voiced retroflex stop:

title: Voiced retroflex plosive


text:
Voiced uvular fricative

The voiced uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʁ⟩, an inverted small uppercase letter ⟨ʀ⟩, or in broad transcription ⟨r⟩ if rhotic. This consonant is one of the several collectively called guttural R when found in European languages.

The voiced uvular approximant is also found interchangeably with the fricative, and may also be transcribed as ⟨ʁ⟩. Because the IPA symbol stands for the uvular fricative, the approximant may be specified by adding the downtack: ⟨ʁ̞⟩, though some writings use a superscript ⟨ʶ⟩, which is not an official IPA practice.

For a voiced pre-uvular fricative (also called post-velar), see voiced velar fricative.

Features
Features of the voiced uvular fricative:

In many languages it is closer to an approximant, however, and no language distinguishes the two at the uvular articulation.

Occurrence
In Western Europe, a uvular trill pronunciation of rhotic consonants spread from northern French to several dialects and registers of Basque, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, German, Judaeo-Spanish, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Swedish, some variants of Low Saxon, and Yiddish. However, not all of them remain a uvular trill today. In Brazilian Portuguese, it is usually a velar fricative, voiceless uvular fricative , or glottal transition , except in southern Brazil, where alveolar, velar and uvular trills as well as the voiced uvular fricative predominate. Because such uvular rhotics often do not contrast with alveolar ones, IPA transcriptions may often use $⟨r⟩$ to represent them for ease of typesetting. For more information, see guttural R.

note, "There is... a complication in the case of uvular fricatives in that the shape of the vocal tract may be such that the uvula vibrates."

It is also present in most Turkic languages, except for Turkish, and in Caucasian languages. It could also come in ɣ.

title: Voiced uvular fricative


text:
Voiced uvular plosive

The voiced uvular plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɢ⟩, a small capital version of the Latin letter g, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is.

is a rare sound, even compared to other uvulars. Vaux proposes a phonological explanation: uvular consonants normally involve a neutral or a retracted tongue root, whereas voiced stops often involve an advanced tongue root: two articulations that cannot physically co-occur. This leads many languages of the world to have a voiced uvular fricative instead as the voiced counterpart of the voiceless uvular plosive. Examples are Inuit; several Turkic languages such as Uyghur and Yakut; several Northwest Caucasian languages such as Abkhaz; several Mongolic languages such as Mongolian and Kalmyk, as well as several Northeast Caucasian languages such as Ingush.

There is also the voiced pre-uvular plosive in some languages, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical uvular plosive, though not as front as the prototypical velar plosive. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for that sound, though it can be transcribed as ⟨ɢ̟⟩ (advanced ⟨ɢ⟩), ⟨ɡ̠⟩ or ⟨ɡ˗⟩ (both symbols denote a retracted ⟨ɡ⟩). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are  and , respectively.

Features

Features of the voiced uvular stop:

title: Voiced uvular plosive


text:
Voiced velar fricative

The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound that is used in various spoken languages. It is not found in most varieties of Modern English but existed in Old English. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɣ⟩, a Latinized variant of the Greek letter gamma, $⟨γ⟩$, which has this sound in Modern Greek. It should not be confused with the graphically-similar ⟨ɤ⟩, the IPA symbol for a close-mid back unrounded vowel, which some writings use for the voiced velar fricative.

The symbol ⟨ɣ⟩ is also sometimes used to represent the velar approximant, which, however, is more accurately written with the lowering diacritic: or. The IPA also provides a dedicated symbol for a velar approximant,.

There is also a voiced post-velar fricative, also called pre-uvular, in some languages. For the voiced pre-velar fricative, also called post-palatal, see voiced palatal fricative.

A voiced velar tapped fricative has been reported in Dàgáárè, which is a previously unattested sound in human language.

Features
Features of the voiced velar fricative:

Occurrence
Some of the consonants listed as post-velar may actually be trill fricatives.

title: Voiced velar fricative


text:
Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative

The voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɕ⟩ ("c", plus the curl also found in its voiced counterpart ). It is the sibilant equivalent of the voiceless palatal fricative, and as such it can be transcribed in IPA with ⟨ç˖⟩.

Features

Features of the voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative:

In English
In British Received Pronunciation, after syllable-initial  (as in Tuesday) is realized as a devoiced palatal fricative. The amount of devoicing is variable, but the fully voiceless variant tends to be alveolo-palatal in the  sequence:. It is a fricative, rather than a fricative element of an affricate because the preceding plosive remains alveolar, rather than becoming alveolo-palatal, as in Dutch.

The corresponding affricate can be written with ⟨t̠ʲ͡ɕ⟩ or ⟨c̟͡ɕ⟩ in narrow IPA, though ⟨tɕ⟩ is normally used in both cases. In the case of English, the sequence can be specified as ⟨t̺ɕ⟩ as is normally apical (although somewhat palatalized in that sequence), whereas alveolo-palatal consonants are laminal by definition.

An increasing number of British speakers merge this sequence with the voiceless palato-alveolar affricate : (see yod-coalescence), mirroring Cockney, Australian English and New Zealand English. On the other hand, there is an opposite tendency in Canadian accents that have preserved, where the sequence tends to merge with the plain instead:  (see yod-dropping), mirroring General American which does not allow  to follow alveolar consonants in stressed syllables.

title: Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative


text:
Voiceless bilabial fricative

The voiceless bilabial fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɸ⟩, a Latinised form of the Greek letter Phi.

Features
Features of the voiceless bilabial fricative:

title: Voiceless bilabial fricative


text:
Voiceless dental fricative

The voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to most English speakers as the 'th' in think. Though rather rare as a phoneme among the world's languages, it is encountered in some of the most widespread and influential ones. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨θ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is. The IPA symbol is the lowercase Greek letter theta, which is used for this sound in post-classical Greek, and the sound is thus often referred to as "theta".

The dental non-sibilant fricatives are often called "interdental" because they are often produced with the tongue between the upper and lower teeth, and not just against the back of the upper or lower teeth, as they are with other dental consonants.

This sound and its voiced counterpart are rare phonemes, occurring in 4% of languages in a phonological analysis of 2,155 languages. Among the more than 60 languages with over 10 million speakers, only English, northern varieties of the Berber languages of North Africa, Standard Peninsular Spanish, various dialects of Arabic, Swahili (in words derived from Arabic), and Greek have the voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative. Speakers of languages and dialects without the sound sometimes have difficulty producing or distinguishing it from similar sounds, especially if they have had no chance to acquire it in childhood, and typically replace it with a voiceless alveolar fricative (as in Indonesian), voiceless dental stop, or a voiceless labiodental fricative ; known respectively as th-alveolarization, th-stopping, and th-fronting.

The sound is known to have disappeared from a number of languages, e.g. from most of the Germanic languages or dialects, where it is retained only in Scots, English, and Icelandic, but it is alveolar in the last of these. Among non-Germanic Indo-European languages as a whole, the sound was also once much more widespread, but is today preserved in a few languages including the Brythonic languages, Peninsular Spanish, Galician, Venetian, Tuscan, Albanian, some Occitan dialects and Greek. It has likewise disappeared from many modern varieties of Arabic (excluding Tunisian, Mesopotamian Arabic and various dialects in the Arabian Peninsula, as well as Modern Standard Arabic).

Features
Features of the voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative:

It does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.

Voiceless denti-alveolar sibilant
The voiceless denti-alveolar sibilant is the only sibilant fricative in some dialects of Andalusian Spanish. It has no official symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet, though its features would be transcribed ⟨s̻̪⟩ or ⟨s̪̻⟩ (using the ⟨◌̻⟩, the diacritic marking a laminal consonant, and ⟨◌̪⟩, the diacritic marking a dental consonant). It is usually represented by an ad-hoc symbol such as ⟨s̄⟩, ⟨θˢ̣⟩, or ⟨s̟⟩ (advanced diacritic).

describes this sound as follows: " is a voiceless, corono-dentoalveolar groove fricative, the so-called s coronal or s plana because of the relatively flat shape of the tongue body.... To this writer, the coronal, heard throughout Andalusia, should be characterized by such terms as "soft," "fuzzy," or "imprecise," which, as we shall see, brings it quite close to one variety of ... Canfield has referred, quite correctly, in our opinion, to this  as "the lisping coronal-dental," and Amado Alonso remarks how close it is to the post-dental , suggesting a combined symbol  to represent it".

Features
Features of the voiceless denti-alveolar sibilant:

 * Its place of articulation is denti-alveolar, which means it is articulated with a flat tongue against the alveolar ridge and upper teeth.
 * It is normally laminal, which means it is pronounced with the blade of the tongue.

title: Voiceless dental fricative


text:
Voiceless epiglottal trill

The voiceless epiglottal or pharyngeal trill, or 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⟩, a small capital version of the Latin letter h, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is.

The glyph is homoglyphic with the lowercase Cyrillic letter En (н).

Features
Features of the voiceless epiglottal trill/fricative:

title: Voiceless epiglottal trill


text:
Voiceless glottal fricative

The voiceless glottal fricative, sometimes called voiceless glottal transition or the aspirate, 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, 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:

"[ and ] 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 and 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, suggesting it has a [glottal] constriction associated with its production."

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

The Shanghainese language, among others, contrasts voiced and voiceless glottal fricatives.

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 a 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 no longer consider 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, and has sometimes been presented as a voiceless vowel, having the place of articulation of these surrounding vowels.

title: Voiceless glottal fricative


text:
Voiceless labial–velar fricative

The voiceless labial–velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨xʷ⟩ or occasionally ⟨ʍ⟩. The letter ⟨ʍ⟩ was defined as a voiceless until 1979, when it was defined as a fricative with the place of articulation of  the same way that  is an approximant with the place of articulation of. However, the IPA Handbook treats it as both a "fricative" (IPA 1999: ix).

Some linguists posit voiceless approximants distinct from voiceless fricatives. To them, English is an approximant, a labialized glottal fricative , or an  sequence, not a velar fricative. Scots has been described as a velar fricative, especially in older Scots, where it was. Other linguists believe that a "voiceless approximant" is a contradiction in terms, and so must be the same as. Ladefoged and Maddieson were unable to confirm that any language has fricatives produced at two places of articulation, like labial and velar. They conclude that "if it is a fricative, it is better described as a voiceless labialized velar fricative".

Features
Features of the voiceless labial–velar fricative:

title: Voiceless labial–velar fricative


text:
Voiceless labiodental fricative

The voiceless labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in a number of spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨f⟩.

Some scholars also posit the voiceless labiodental approximant distinct from the fricative. The approximant may be represented in the IPA as ⟨ʋ̥⟩.

Features
Features of the voiceless labiodental fricative:

title: Voiceless labiodental fricative


text:
Voiceless palatal fricative

The voiceless palatal fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ç⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is. It is the non-sibilant equivalent of the voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative.

The symbol ç is the letter c with a cedilla (◌̧), as used to spell French and Portuguese words such as façade and ação. However, the sound represented by the symbol ç in French and Portuguese orthography is not a voiceless palatal fricative; the cedilla, instead, changes the usual, the voiceless velar plosive, when ⟨c⟩ is employed before ⟨a⟩ or ⟨o⟩, to , the voiceless alveolar fricative.

Palatal fricatives are relatively rare phonemes, and only 5% of the world's languages have as a phoneme. The sound further occurs as an allophone of (e.g. in German or Greek), or, in other languages, of  in the vicinity of front vowels.

There is also the voiceless post-palatal fricative in some languages, which is articulated slightly farther back compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical voiceless palatal fricative, though not as back as the prototypical voiceless velar fricative. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for that sound, though it can be transcribed as ⟨ç̠⟩, ⟨ç˗⟩ (both symbols denote a retracted ⟨ç⟩) or ⟨x̟⟩ (advanced ⟨x⟩). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are  and , respectively.

Especially in broad transcription, the voiceless post-palatal fricative may be transcribed as a palatalized voiceless velar fricative (⟨xʲ⟩ in the IPA,  or   in X-SAMPA).

Some scholars also posit the voiceless palatal approximant distinct from the fricative, found in a few spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ j̊ ⟩, the voiceless homologue of the voiced palatal approximant.

The palatal approximant can in many cases be considered the semivocalic equivalent of the voiceless variant of the close front unrounded vowel. The sound is essentially an Australian English $⟨y⟩$ (as in year) pronounced strictly without vibration of the vocal cords.

It is found as a phoneme in Jalapa Mazatec and Washo as well as in Kildin Sami.

Features
Features of the voiceless palatal fricative:

The otherwise identical post-palatal variant is articulated slightly behind the hard palate, making it sound slightly closer to the velar.

title: Voiceless palatal fricative


text:
Voiceless palatal plosive

The voiceless palatal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in some vocal languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨c⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is.

If distinction is necessary, the voiceless alveolo-palatal plosive may be transcribed as ⟨c̟⟩ (advanced ⟨c⟩) or ⟨t̠ʲ⟩ (retracted and palatalized ⟨t⟩), but these are essentially equivalent, because the contact includes both the blade and body (but not the tip) of the tongue. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are  and   or , respectively. There is also a non-IPA letter ; ⟨ȶ⟩ ("t", plus the curl found in the symbols for alveolo-palatal sibilant fricatives ), which is used especially in sinological circles.

It is common for the phonetic symbol ⟨c⟩ to be used to represent voiceless postalveolar affricate or other similar affricates, for example in the Indic languages. This may be considered appropriate when the place of articulation needs to be specified and the distinction between plosive and affricate is not contrastive.

There is also the voiceless post-palatal plosive in some languages, which is articulated slightly more back compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical palatal consonant, though not as back as the prototypical velar consonant. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for that sound, though it can be transcribed as ⟨c̠⟩ (retracted ⟨c⟩) or ⟨k̟⟩ (advanced ⟨k⟩). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are  and , respectively.

Especially in broad transcription, the voiceless post-palatal plosive may be transcribed as a palatalized voiceless velar plosive (⟨kʲ⟩ in the IPA,  or   in X-SAMPA).

Features

Features of the voiceless palatal stop:

 * The otherwise identical post-palatal variant is articulated slightly behind the hard palate, making it sound closer to the velar.
 * Alveolo-palatal variant is articulated also with the blade of the tongue at or behind the alveolar ridge.

title: Voiceless palatal plosive


text:
Voiceless pharyngeal fricative

The voiceless pharyngeal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is an h-bar, ⟨ħ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is. In the transcription of Arabic, Berber (and other Afro-Asiatic languages) as well as a few other scripts, it is often written $⟨Ḥ⟩$, $⟨ḥ⟩$.

Typically characterized as fricative in the upper pharynx, it is often characterized as a whispered.

Features
Features of the voiceless pharyngeal fricative:

Occurrence
This sound is the most commonly cited realization of the Semitic letter hēth, which occurs in all dialects of Arabic, Classical Syriac, as well as Biblical and Tiberian Hebrew but only a minority of speakers of Modern Hebrew. It has also been reconstructed as appearing in Ancient Egyptian, a related Afro-Asiatic language. Modern non-Oriental Hebrew has merged the voiceless pharyngeal fricative with the voiceless velar (or uvular) fricative. However, phonetic studies have shown that the so-called voiceless pharyngeal fricatives of Semitic languages are often neither pharyngeal (but rather epiglottal) nor fricatives (but rather approximants).

title: Voiceless pharyngeal fricative


text:
Voiceless postalveolar fricative

A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term voiceless postalveolar fricative only for the sound, but it also describes the voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant fricative , for which there are significant perceptual differences.

Voiceless palato-alveolar fricative
A voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or voiceless domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in many languages, including English. In English, it is usually spelled $⟨sh⟩$, as in ship. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ ʃ ⟩, the letter esh introduced by Isaac Pitman (not to be confused with the integral symbol $⟨∫⟩$). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is.

An alternative symbol is $⟨š⟩$, an s with a caron or háček, which is used in the Americanist phonetic notation and the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet, as well as in the scientific and ISO 9 transliterations of Cyrillic. It originated with the Czech orthography of Jan Hus and was adopted in Gaj's Latin alphabet and other Latin alphabets of Slavic languages. It also features in the orthographies of many Baltic, Finno-Samic, North American and African languages.

Features
Features of the voiceless palato-alveolar fricative:

Occurrence
In various languages, including English and French, it may have simultaneous labialization, i.e., although this is usually not transcribed.

Classical Latin did not have, though it does occur in most Romance languages. For example, $⟨ch⟩$ in French chanteur "singer" is pronounced. Chanteur is descended from Latin cantare, where $⟨c⟩$ was pronounced. The $⟨sc⟩$ in Latin scientia "science" was pronounced, but has shifted to in Italian scienza.

Similarly, Proto-Germanic had neither nor, yet many of its descendants do. In most cases, this or  descends from a Proto-Germanic. For instance, Proto-Germanic *skipą ("hollow object, water-borne vessel larger than a boat") was pronounced. The English word "ship" has been pronounced without the  the longest, the word being descended from Old English "scip", which already also had the , though the Old English spelling etymologically indicated that the old  had once been present.

This change took longer to catch on in West Germanic languages other than Old English, though it eventually did. The second West Germanic language to undergo this sound shift was Old High German. In fact, it has been argued that Old High German's was actually already, because a single  had already shifted to. Furthermore, by Middle High German, that had shifted to. After High German, the shift most likely then occurred in Low Saxon. After Low Saxon, Middle Dutch began the shift, but it stopped shifting once it reached, and has kept that pronunciation since. Then, most likely through influence from German and Low Saxon, North Frisian experienced the shift.

Then, Swedish quite swiftly underwent the shift, which resulted in the very uncommon phoneme, which, aside from Swedish, is only used in Colognian, a variety of High German, though not as a replacement for the standard High German  but a coronalized. However, the exact realization of Swedish varies considerably among dialects; for instance, in Northern dialects it tends to be realized as. See sj-sound for more details. Finally, the last to undergo the shift was Norwegian, in which the result of the shift was.

The sound in Russian denoted by $⟨ш⟩$ is commonly transcribed as a palato-alveolar fricative but is actually an apical retroflex fricative.

Voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant fricative
The voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant fricative is a consonantal sound. As the International Phonetic Alphabet does not have separate symbols for the post-alveolar consonants (the same symbol is used for all coronal places of articulation that are not palatalized), this sound is usually transcribed ⟨ɹ̠̊˔⟩ (retracted constricted voiceless ). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is.

Some scholars also posit the voiceless postalveolar approximant distinct from the fricative. The approximant may be represented in the IPA as ⟨ɹ̠̊⟩.

Features
However, it does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.
 * Its place of articulation is postalveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge.

title: Voiceless postalveolar fricative


text:
Voiceless retroflex fricative

The voiceless retroflex sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʂ⟩ which is a Latin letter s combined with a retroflex hook. Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA letter is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook to the bottom of $⟨s⟩$ (the letter used for the corresponding alveolar consonant). A distinction can be made between laminal, apical, and sub-apical articulations. Only one language, Toda, appears to have more than one voiceless retroflex sibilant, and it distinguishes subapical palatal from apical postalveolar retroflex sibilants; that is, both the tongue articulation and the place of contact on the roof of the mouth are different.

Some scholars also posit the voiceless retroflex approximant distinct from the fricative. The approximant may be represented in the IPA as ⟨ɻ̊⟩.

Features

Features of the voiceless retroflex fricative:

Occurrence
In the following transcriptions, diacritics may be used to distinguish between apical and laminal.

The commonality of cross-linguistically is 6% in a phonological analysis of 2155 languages.

Features
Features of the voiceless retroflex non-sibilant fricative:

title: Voiceless retroflex fricative


text:
Voiceless retroflex plosive

The voiceless retroflex plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. This consonant is found as a phoneme mostly (though not exclusively) in two areas: South Asia and Australia.

Transcription
The symbol that represents this sound in the International Phonetic Alphabet is ⟨ʈ ⟩. Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA symbol is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of "t" (the letter used for the equivalent alveolar consonant). In many fonts lowercase "t" already has a rightward-pointing hook, but ⟨ʈ⟩ is distinguished from ⟨t⟩ by extending the hook below the baseline.

Features

Features of the voiceless retroflex stop:

 * Its place of articulation is retroflex, which prototypically means it is articulated subapical (with the tip of the tongue curled up), but more generally, it means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized. That is, besides the prototypical subapical articulation, the tongue contact can be apical (pointed) or.

title: Voiceless retroflex plosive


text:
Voiceless uvular fricative

The voiceless uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound that is used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨χ⟩, the Greek chi. The sound is represented by $⟨x̣⟩$ (ex with underdot) in Americanist phonetic notation. It is sometimes transcribed with ⟨x⟩ (or ⟨r⟩, if rhotic) in broad transcription.

Most languages claimed to have a voiceless uvular fricative may actually have a voiceless uvular fricative trill (a simultaneous and ). Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996) note that there is "a complication in the case of uvular fricatives in that the shape of the vocal tract may be such that the uvula vibrates."

Although they are not normally differentiated in study, languages in which they have been (Hebrew, Wolof, as well as the northern and central varieties of European Spanish) have been found to specifically possess the fricative trill. It can be transcribed as ⟨ʀ̝̊⟩ (a devoiced and raised uvular trill) in IPA. It is found as either the fortis counterpart of (which itself is voiceless at least in Northern Standard Dutch: ) or the sole dorsal fricative in Northern SD and regional dialects and languages of the Netherlands (Dutch Low Saxon and West Frisian) spoken above the rivers Rhine, Meuse and Waal (sometimes termed the Rotterdam–Nijmegen Line). A plain fricative that is articulated slightly further front, as either medio-velar or post-palatal is typical of dialects spoken south of the rivers (mainly Brabantian and Limburgish but excluding Ripuarian and the dialect of Bergen op Zoom), including Belgian SD. In those dialects, the voiceless uvular fricative trill is one of the possible realizations of the phoneme. See Hard and soft G in Dutch for more details.

The frication in the fricative trill variant sometimes occurs at the middle or the back of the soft palate (termed velar or mediovelar and post-velar, respectively), rather than the uvula itself. This is the case in Northern Standard Dutch as well as some varieties of Arabic, Limburgish and Madrid Spanish. It may thus be appropriate to call those variants voiceless (post)velar-uvular fricative trill as the trill component is always uvular (velar trills are not physically possible). The corresponding IPA symbol is ⟨ʀ̝̊˖⟩ (a devoiced, raised and advanced uvular trill, where the "advanced" diacritic applies only to the fricative portion of the sound). Thus, in cases where a dialectal variation between voiceless uvular and velar fricatives is claimed the main difference between the two may be the trilling of the uvula as frication can be velar in both cases - compare Northern Dutch acht 'eight' (with a postvelar-uvular fricative trill) with Southern Dutch  or, which features a non-trilled fricative articulated at the middle or front of the soft palate.

For a voiceless pre-uvular fricative (also called post-velar), see voiceless velar fricative.

Features
Features of the voiceless uvular fricative:

Related Consonants

 * Corresponding plosive: q
 * Corresponding affricate: q͡χ
 * Corresponding trill: ʀ̥

title: Voiceless uvular fricative


text:
User:Asparagus

 * brettkoonce.com

title: User:Asparagus