Epiglottal consonant
An
epiglottal consonant is a
consonant that is articulated with the
aryepiglottal folds (see
larynx) against the
epiglottis. They are occasionally called
aryepiglottal consonants.
The epiglottal consonants identified by the
International Phonetic Alphabet are:
* A voiced epiglottal plosive may not be possible. When one becomes voiced intervocalically in
Dahalo, for example, it becomes a
tap.
* Although traditionally placed in the
fricative row of the IPA chart, is usually an
approximant. The IPA symbol itself is ambiguous, but no language has a distinct fricative and approximant at this place of articulation. Sometimes the lowering diacritic is used to specify that the manner is approximant: .
* Epiglottal
trills are quite common (for epiglottals, that is), but this can usually be considered a phonemic plosive or a fricative, with the trill being phonetic detail. The IPA has no symbol for this, though [я] is sometimes seen in the literature.
Epiglottals are not known from many languages. However, this may partially be an effect of the difficulty European language-speaking linguists have in recognizing them. On several occasions, when supposedly
pharyngeal consonants were actually measured, they turned out to be epiglottals. This was the case for
Dahalo, for example.
Epiglottals are primarily known from the Mideast (in the
Semitic languages) and from
British Columbia ("pharyngeal trills" in northern
Haida), but may occur elsewhere. It is likely that several of the
Salish or
Wakashan languages of British Columbia reported to have "pharyngeals" actually have epiglottals, and the same may be true of some of the
languages of the Caucasus.
Recently, a possible new place of articulation,
epiglotto-pharyngeal, was reported.
*
Place of articulation*
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