International Phonetic Alphabet (chart)
| Voiceless nasal glottal approximant | |
|---|---|
| h̃ |
The voiceless nasal glottal approximant is a type of consonantal sound, a nasal approximant, used in some oral languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨h̃⟩, that is, an h with a tilde.
The h sound is nasalized in several languages, apparently due to a connection between glottal and nasal sounds called rhinoglottophilia. Examples of languages where the only h-like sound is nasalized are Krim, Lisu, and Pirahã.
More rarely, a language will contrast oral /h/ and nasal /h̃/. Two such languages are neighboring Bantu languages of Angola and Namibia, Kwangali and Mbukushu. In these languages, vowels following /h̃/ are nasalized, though nasal vowels do not occur elsewhere. A distinction is also reported from Wolaytta, though in that case the nasal is rare.
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basque | Souletin dialect[1] | ahate | [ãˈh̃ãte] | 'duck' | |
| Kaingang[2] | hũg | [h̃ũŋ] | 'hawk' | Possible word-initial realization of /h/ before a nasal vowel.[2] | |
| Kwangali[3] | nhonho | [h̃õh̃õ] | Tribulus species | ||
| Khoekhoegowab | Damara dialect | hû | [h̃ũː] | 'six' | Free variation[clarification needed] |
| Tofa[4] | иʔһён | [iʔh̃jon] | 'twenty' | no separate letter for /h̃/, the same letter is used as the one for /h/. | |
