Voiceless velar fricative
The
voiceless velar fricative is a type of
consonantal sound used in some
spoken languages. The symbol in the
International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent
X-SAMPA symbol is
x. The sound is rare in, but not completely absent from,
English. To give English speakers an example of the sound with which they might be familiar, consider the sound represented by "ch" in
Scottish loch.
Features of the voiceless velar fricative:
* Its
manner of articulation is
fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing
turbulence.
* Its
place of articulation is
velar which means it is articulated with the back part of the
tongue (the dorsum) against the
soft palate (the velum).
* Its
phonation type is voiceless, which means the vocal cords are not vibrating during the articulation.
* It is an
oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
* It is a
central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
* The
airstream mechanism is
pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the
lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the
glottis or the mouth.
| IPA | Description | | plain velar fricative |
| labialized |
| ejective |
| ejective labialized |
| semi-labialized |
| strongly labialized |
Most dialects of English do not have , except for a few loan words such as
Scottish loch and
Hebrew Chanukah . Where it occurs, it is usually represented by a "ch", but often in terms from more foreign languages shows up as "kh"; terms from a very few languages even use "x" for it. Many speakers, especially in the United States, do not (often cannot) make this sound, and are sometimes not even aware of its existence; these speakers replace it with in words such as "chutzpah" or "challah," or in words such as "loch" or "leprechaun." These alternative pronunciations are considered acceptable by most authorities.
Some dialects in England, particularly London and Liverpool, may have where other dialects have , as in
cat. In London it is a younger, lower-class pronunciation.
The sound is a somewhat common sound cross-linguistically.
In Armenian, is spelled Խ.
In Assamese, is spelled শ, ষ or স.
In Avar, a distinction is made between the voiceless velar fricative , which is spelled as х, and the voiceless uvular fricative , spelled хь.
C'h represents the sound in Breton, as in
merc'hetaer.
In Czech (and also in Slovak), as in other Slavic languages using the Roman alphabet, "ch" is pronounced as voiceless velar fricative. Unlike in Polish, the sound of "ch" and the sound of regular "h"
[] are still being clearly differentiated. In some words, the difference in the pronunciation of "ch" and "h" is even crucial for the identification of the word, e. g. in Czech
hodit (to throw) and
chodit (to walk) or
hlad (hunger) and
chlad (coolness).
[] is also a voiceless realisation of "h" at the end of the word or next to a voiceless
consonant, e. g. in Czech
vrch ((the) top) and
vrh ((a) throw), both words are pronounced [vr
x], although [] and
[] are not a real
voiceless-
voiced pair.
Standard Dutch has no g-sound as in "garden". They use a voiceless velar fricative or a
voiced velar fricative instead.The word for "laugh" in both German and Dutch is "lachen", with
ch to be pronounced as.
Esperanto has an , spelled ĥ. It is seldom used.
Irish Gaelic has the sound, although some dialects do not pronounce it or soften it, like in the case of
oíche (night).
Georgian has an , spelled ხ.
German has the voiceless velar fricative and it is spelled with "ch", as in
ach (the interjection Oh!). The Germans call this sound
ach-Laut. This is the sound represented by "ch" when it follows "a", "o", "u", or the diphthong "au". The sound represented by "ch" following "e", "i", "ä", "ö", "ü", the diphthongs "eu" or "äu", or the consonants "l", "n" or "r" is a different consonant, the
voiceless palatal fricative. The sounds are
allophones that are just starting to become separate phonemes. Phonetically, this sound is often realized as in Standard German. See
German phonology.
In Hungarian, is a syllable-final allophone of /h/.
The current Indonesian spelling (the Melindo system adopted in 1972) uses the English
kh for the fricative; the older Dutch-based system (colonial) used the German-Dutch
ch.
Lojban represents this sound with the letter "x".
In Polish, as in other Slavic languages using the Roman alphabet, "ch" is pronounced as voiceless velar fricative, though in modern Polish the sound of "ch" blends with the sound of regular "h".
Russian uses the Cyrillic letter
Kha (Х, х) for the voiceless velar fricative.
Scots Gaelic is notorious for its guttural
ch, noted in
loch (lake),
a-mach (out), and
chì (will see).
In the Spanish of Spain, the letter
j is always pronounced as [x], as well as the letter
g when followed by an
e or a
i, in words like
general and
mujer. The different spellings for the sound cause a common misspelling in Spanish, leading people to sometimes spell "general" as
jeneral.
Swahili uses
kh for this guttural, although some speakers do have it substituted with plain
h;
kh appears in terms loaned from Arabic.
Welsh represents the voiceless velar fricative with "ch".
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