The creaky-voiced glottal approximant is a consonant sound in some languages. In the IPA, it is transcribed as ⟨ʔ̞⟩ or ⟨ʔ̰⟩.^[1] It involves tension in the glottis and diminution of airflow, compared to surrounding vowels, but not full occlusion.

Features

Features of the creaky-voiced glottal approximant

• Its manner of articulation is approximant, which means it is produced by narrowing the vocal tract at the place of articulation, but not enough to produce a turbulent airstream.
• Its phonation is creaky-voiced
• 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 intercostal muscles and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

It is an intervocalic allophone of a glottal stop in many languages. It is reported to be contrastive only in Gimi in which it is phonologically the voiced equivalent of the glottal stop /ʔ/.^[2]