Epiglottal approximant
| Voiced pharyngeal fricative | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ʕ | |||
| ʕ̝ | |||
| IPA number | 145 | ||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) | ʕ |
||
| Unicode (hex) | U+0295 | ||
| X-SAMPA | ?\ |
||
| Kirshenbaum | H<vcd> |
||
| Braille |
 
|
||
|
|||
| Sound | |||
|
|
|||
.svg)
| Voiced pharyngeal approximant | |
|---|---|
| ʕ̞ | |
| ɑ̯ |
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, [ʕ] 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 approximant is sometimes specified as [ʕ̞] or as [ɑ̯].
Features of the voiced pharyngeal approximant fricative:
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 /ʕ/ 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.
...
Wikipedia