Voiceless glottal fricative

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

Voiceless glottal fricative
h
IPA Number	146
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	h
Unicode (hex)	U+0068
X-SAMPA	h
Braille

The voiceless glottal fricative, sometimes called voiceless glottal transition, and sometimes called 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⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is h.

Although [h] has been described as a voiceless vowel, because in many languages it lacks the place and manner of articulation of a prototypical consonant, it also lacks the height and backness of a prototypical vowel:

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

The Lamé language contrasts voiceless and voiced 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, 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 [h] to be a fricative. However, the term "fricative" is generally retained for historical reasons.
• It may have a glottal place of articulation. However, it may have no fricative articulation, in which case the term 'glottal' only refers to the nature of its phonation, and does not describe the location of the stricture nor the turbulence. All consonants except for the glottals, and all vowels, have an individual place of articulation in addition to the state of the glottis. As with all other consonants, surrounding vowels influence the pronunciation [h], and [h] has sometimes been presented as a voiceless vowel, having the place of articulation of these surrounding vowels.
• Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the central–lateral dichotomy does not apply.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Adyghe	Shapsug	хыгь	[həɡʲ]	'now'	Corresponds to [x] in other dialects.
Albanian		hire	[hiɾɛ]	'the graces'
Arabic	Standard	هائل	[ˈhaːʔɪl]	'enormous'	See Arabic phonology
Armenian	Eastern	հայերեն	<phonos file="hɑjɛɾɛn.ogg">[hɑjɛɾɛn]</phonos>	'Armenian'
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic		haymanoota	[haymaːnuːtʰa]	'faith'
Asturian		guaḥe	[ˈɣwahe̞]	'child'	Mainly present in eastern dialects.
Avar		гьа	[ha]	'oath'
Basque	North-Eastern dialects	hirur	[hiɾur]	'three'	Can be voiced [ɦ] instead.
Bengali		হাওয়া	[hawa]	'wind'
Berber		aherkus	[ahǝrkus]	'shoe'
Chechen		хIара / hara	[hɑrɐ]	'this'
Chinese	Cantonese	河/ho4	[hɔː]	'river'	See Cantonese phonology
Danish		hus	[ˈhuːˀs]	'house'	Often voiced [ɦ] when between vowels. See Danish phonology
Dutch	Northern Netherlands	rood	[hoːt]	'red'	An extremely rare realization of /r/. Realization of /r/ varies considerably among dialects. See Dutch phonology
	Friesland	haat	[haːt]	'hate'	Word-initial allophone of /ɦ/.
	Holland				Some dialects. Corresponds to [ɦ] in standard Dutch.
	Limburg
English		high	[haɪ̯]	'high'	See English phonology and H-dropping
Eastern Lombard	Val Camonica	Bresa	[brɛhɔ]	'Brescia'	Corresponds to /s/ in other varieties.
Faroese		hon	[hoːn]	'she'
Finnish		hammas	[hɑmːɑs]	'tooth'	See Finnish phonology
French	Belgian	hotte	[ˈhɔt]	'pannier'	Found in the region of Liège. See French phonology
Georgian		ჰავა	[hɑvɑ]	'climate'
German		Hass	[has]	'hatred'	See German phonology
Greek	Cypriot	μαχαζί	[mahaˈzi]	'shop'	Allophone of /x/ before /a/.
Hawaiian		haka	[haka]	'shelf'	See Hawaiian phonology
Hebrew		הר	[haʁ]	'mountain'	See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindi	Standard	हम	[ˈhəm]	'we'	See Hindustani phonology
Hmong		hawm	[haɨ̰]	'to honor'
Hungarian		helyes	[hɛjɛʃ]	'right'	See Hungarian phonology
Italian	Tuscan	i capitani	[iˌhäɸiˈθäːni]	'the captains'	Intervocalic allophone of /k/. See Italian phonology
Japanese		すはだ/suhada	[su͍hada]	'bare skin'	See Japanese phonology
Korean		호랑이/horang-i	[ho̞ɾɐŋi]	'tiger'	See Korean phonology
Kabardian		тхылъхэ	[tχɪɬhɑ]	'books'
Lakota		ho	[ho]	'voice'
Lao		ຫ້າ	[haː˧˩]	'five'
Leonese		guaje	[ˈwahe̞]	'boy'
Lezgian		гьек	[hek]	'glue'
Limburgish	Some dialects	hòs	[hɔːs]	'glove'	Voiced [ɦ] in other dialects. The example word is from the Weert dialect.
Luxembourgish		hei	[hɑ̝i̯]	'here'	See Luxembourgish phonology
Malay		hari	[hari]	'day'
Mutsun		hučekniš	[hut͡ʃɛkniʃ]	'dog'
Navajo		hastiin	[hàsd̥ìːn]
Norwegian		hatt	[hɑtː]	'hat'	See Norwegian phonology
Pashto		هو	[ho]	'yes'
Persian		هفت	[hæft]	'seven'	See Persian phonology
Pirahã		hi	[hì]	'he'
Portuguese	Many Brazilian dialects	marreta	[mɐˈhetɐ]	'sledgehammer'	Allophone of /ʁ/. [h, ɦ] are marginal sounds to many speakers, particularly out of Brazil. See Portuguese phonology
	Most dialects	Honda	[ˈhõ̞dɐ]	'Honda'
	Colloquial Brazilian	chuvisco	[ɕuˈvihku]	'drizzle'	Corresponds to either /s/ or /ʃ/ (depending on dialect) in the syllable coda. Might also be deleted.
Romanian		hăţ	[həts]	'bridle'	See Romanian phonology
Serbo-Croatian	Croatian	хмељ / hmelj	[hmê̞ʎ̟]	'hops'	Allophone of /x/ when it is initial in a consonant cluster. See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Spanish	Andalusian	higo	[ˈhiɣo̞]	'fig'	Corresponds to Old Spanish /h/, which was developed from Latin /f/ but muted in other dialects.
	Many dialects	obispo	[o̞ˈβ̞ihpo̞]	'bishop'	Allophone of /s/. See Spanish phonology
	Some dialects	jaca	[ˈhaka]	'pony'	Corresponds to /x/ in other dialects.
Swedish		hatt	[ˈhatː]	'hat'	See Swedish phonology
Thai		ห้า	[haː˥˩]	'five'
Turkish		halı	[häˈɫɯ]	'carpet'	See Turkish phonology
Ubykh		[dwaha]		'prayer'	See Ubykh phonology
Urdu	Standard	ہم	[ˈhəm]	'we'	See Hindi-Urdu phonology
Vietnamese		hiểu	[hjew˧˩˧]	'understand'	See Vietnamese phonology
Welsh		haul	[ˈhaɨl]	'sun'	See Welsh orthography
West Frisian		hoeke	[ˈhukə]	'corner'
Yi		ꉐ/hxa	[ha˧]	'hundred'

See also

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