Pharyngeal consonant
- Pharyngeal consonant
A pharyngeal consonant is a type of
consonant which is articulated with the root of thetongue against thepharynx .Pharyngeal consonants in the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA):* Pharyngeal plosives are thought to be impossible. Note that when they are posited, they are sometimes transcribed with a small capital Q, [Q] .
* Although traditionally placed in thefricative row of the IPA chart, IPA| [ʕ] is usually an approximant. The IPA symbol itself is ambiguous, but no language has a distinct fricative and approximant at this place of articulation. Sometimes the lowering diacritic is used to specify that the manner is approximant: IPA| [ʕ̞] .Pharyngeals are known primarily from two areas of the world: in North-Africa/Mideast (in the Semitic, Berber, Cushitic, Circassian, and Dagestanian families) and in British Columbia (in the Wakashan and Salish families). There are scattered reports of pharyngeals elsewhere, such as in the Nilo-Saharan
Tama language and in Nenets in Northern Russia. In Finnish, a weak pharyngeal fricative is the realization of /h/ next to the vowel /a/, but since this is mere allophony, it is transcribed as /h/. According to the laryngeal theory, theProto-Indo-European language might also have contained pharyngeal consonants.Note that reported pharyngeals frequently turn out to be epiglottals. Such was the case for Dahalo and northern Haida, for example, and is likely to be true for many if not most of the others. This is perhaps because 'epiglottal' was only recently recognized as a distinct place of articulation, rather than a variant of 'pharyngeal'. The only language known to have contrastive pharyngeals and epiglottals is Agul, a Lezgian language of Dagestan.
Recently, a possible new place of articulation, epiglotto-pharyngeal, was reported.
ee also
*
Place of articulation
*Pharyngealization
*List of phonetics topics
*Ayin
* HethReferences
*SOWL
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Epiglotto-pharyngeal consonant — An epiglotto pharyngeal consonant is a newly reported type of consonant, articulated with the epiglottis against the back wall of the pharynx. This contrasts with the pharyngeal consonants, where the root of the tongue contacts the back wall of… … Wikipedia
Pharyngeal — The word pharyngeal, meaning to do with the pharynx or throat, may refer to: * Pharynx, for pharyngeal anatomy * Pharyngeal muscles **Superior pharyngeal constrictor muscle ** Middle pharyngeal constrictor muscle ** Inferior pharyngeal… … Wikipedia
pharyngeal — adjective a) Of or pertaining to the pharynx. b) Articulated with the pharynx, a term usually describing a consonant which is articulated by the rear area of the tongue being raised to below the region between the uvula and the pharyngeal wall.… … Wiktionary
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Voiced pharyngeal fricative — The voiced pharyngeal approximant/fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents it is IPA|ʕ, and the equivalent X SAMPA symbol is ?.Although… … Wikipedia
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