| Voiceless glottal fricative | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| h | |||
| IPA Number | 146 | ||
| Audio sample | |||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) | h | ||
| Unicode (hex) | U+0068 | ||
| X-SAMPA | h | ||
| Braille |  | ||
| |||
| Voiceless glottal approximant | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| h | |||
| ɦ̥ | |||
| Audio sample | |||
| Encoding | |||
| X-SAMPA | h_o | ||
| Braille |  | ||
| |||
The voiceless glottal fricative, sometimes called voiceless glottal transition or the aspirate,[1][2] 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. However, [h] has been described as a voiceless vowel 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:
[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.[3]
An effort undertaken at the Kiel Convention in 1989 attempted to move glottal fricatives, both voiceless and voiced, to approximants.[4][5] The approximant may be represented by the same symbol or ɦ̥.
The Shanghainese language contrasts the voiced and voiceless glottal fricatives.[6]
