A voiced pharyngeal fricative or approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is .
Although the official classification of manner for this sound in the IPA is a fricative, spectrographic and acoustic studies have found that it is most often realized as an approximant. The IPA symbol itself is ambiguous, as no language is known to make a phonemic distinction between voiced pharyngeal fricatives and approximants. For clarity, the approximant may be distinguished with the IPA diacritic for lowering, such as .
In addition, laryngoscopic studies by phoneticians such as John Esling have shown the vowel to have distinct pharyngeal constriction and resonance in its articulation and quality, making the semivocalic equivalent of ; this follows the IPA's definition of its cardinal value. Esling furthers this notion in his expanded notation of the IPA chart; alongside merging pharyngeal and epiglottal consonants into a single column, he suggests that if it were spatially possible to align the vowel chart with the consonant chart, so that the relations between vowels and their semivowel counterparts are maintained (such as below and below ), then the vowels and should be placed under the combined pharyngeal/epiglottal column.
The IPA letter is caseless. Capital and lower-case were added to Unicode in September 2025 with version 17.0.
Features Features of a voiced pharyngeal approximant fricative:
Its manner of articulation varies between approximant and fricative, which means it is produced by narrowing the vocal tract at the place of articulation, but generally not enough to produce much turbulence in the airstream. Languages do not distinguish voiced fricatives from approximants produced in the throat.
Occurrence Pharyngeal consonants are not widespread. Sometimes, a pharyngeal approximant develops from a uvular approximant. Many languages that have been described as having pharyngeal fricatives or approximants turn out on closer inspection to have epiglottal consonants instead. For example, the phoneme transcribed as for Arabic and standard Hebrew (though for most modern Hebrew speakers this has merged with a glottal stop) has been variously described as a voiced epiglottal fricative , an epiglottal approximant (or ), or a retracted tongue root glottal stop .
Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Abaza / 'March' Afardamaqtu[dʌmʌʕtu]'male baboon' Arabic / 'Arabic' See Arabic phonology Aramaic Eastern / 'door' The majority of the speakers will pronounce the word as . Western Avar // 'handle' Chechen // 'winter' Coeur d'Alene'antelope' Danish Standard ] 'raven' An approximant; also described as uvular . See Danish phonologyDhao'and'Phonetic status is not clear, but it has "extremely limited distribution". It may not be pronounced at all or be realized as a glottal stop. Dutch Limburg 'wheel' An approximant; a possible realization of . Realization of varies considerably among dialects. See Dutch phonology German Some speakers [ˈmutɔʕ̞] 'mother' An approximant; occurs in East Central Germany, Southwestern Germany, parts of Switzerland and in Tyrol. See Standard German phonology Swabian dialect 'changes' An approximant. It's an allophone of in nucleus and coda positions; pronounced as a uvular approximant in onsets. Hebrew Iraqi / 'Hebrew language' Generally pronounced as a glottal stop or silent by most Israelis. See Modern Hebrew phonology Sephardi Yemenite Ingush[ʕaddal]'Archer'Judeo-SpanishHaketia 'Morocco' Only appears in Hebrew and Arabic loanwords.Jerusalem ‘army’ Only appears in Hebrew and Arabic loanwords. Kabyle 'my (paternal) uncle' Kurdish Kurmanji/'cloud'The sound is usually not written in the Latin alphabet, but can be used.KhalajStandard'side' Luwati 'castle' Used in Arabic loanwordsMalayKedah/'to burn'Corresponds to word-final in Standard Malay. Could be voiced velar fricative [] for some speakers. Prevocalically and intervocalically, Standard Malay corresponds to in Kedah Malay. See Kedah MalayMaltese'tomorrow'Mehri/'eye'Nuu-chah-nulthʕiiniƛ'dog'May be a plosive Occitan Southern Auvergnat 'shovel' See Occitan phonologyOkanaganPattison, Lois Cornelia. "Douglas Lake Okanagan: Phonology and Morphology." University of British Columbia. 1978.ʕaymt'angry'Pilagá'moon'See Pilagá phonologyTarifit/'probably'See Tarifit phonologySalish'it's melted'Shehri/[ɬaʕb]'valley'See Shehri phonology Stoney Mînî Thnî 'It is raining.' Usually realized as a pharyngeal approximant, but may become an epiglottal trill on stressed syllables. Somali/[ʕaːno]'milk'See Somali phonology Soqotri / 'raven' See Soqotri phonologyU'tree bark'Corresponded to proto-Palaungic * or open back vowel *.
See also Modifier letter left half ring Index of phonetics articles Voiced uvular fricative Glottal stop Ayin
Citations
General references
External links