Guttural speech sounds are those with a primary place of articulation near the back of the oral cavity. In some definitions, this is restricted to pharyngeal consonants, but in others includes some velar and uvular consonants. Guttural sounds are typically consonants, but some vowels' articulations may also be considered guttural in nature.
Contents
- Meaning and etymology
- Guttural languages
- Examples of significant usage
- Examples of partial usage
- References
Although the term has historically been used by phoneticians, and is occasionally used by phonologists today, it is now more common in popular use as an imprecise term for sounds produced relatively far back in the vocal tract. The term continues to be used by some phonologists to denote laryngeal consonants (including uvulars), as well as murmured, pharyngealized, glottalized, and strident vowels.
Meaning and etymology
The word guttural literally means 'of the throat' (from Latin guttur, meaning throat), and was first used by phoneticians to describe the Hebrew glottal [ʔ] (א) and [h] (ה), uvular [χ] (ח), and pharyngeal [ʕ] (ע).
The term is now commonly extended to include also velar consonants, which deviates from the strict etymology. As used in linguistics, such a definition includes all velar consonants, regardless of manner of articulation.
The term is also commonly used non-technically by English speakers to refer to sounds that subjectively appear harsh or grating. This definition usually includes a number of consonants that are not used in English, such as epiglottal [ʜ] and [ʡ], uvular [χ] and [q], and velar fricatives [x] and [ɣ]. However, it usually excludes sounds used in English, such as the velar stops [k] and [ɡ], the velar nasal [ŋ], and the glottal consonants [h] and [ʔ].
Guttural languages
In popular consciousness, languages that make extensive use of guttural consonants are considered to be guttural languages. A guttural language tends to make a sound rather "heavy" and/or "throaty". To English-speakers, guttural languages would sound strange and may be even hard on the ear of those who are used to the English pronunciation.
Examples of significant usage
Some of the languages that extensively use [x], [χ], [ɣ] and/or [q] are:
In addition to their usage of [q], [x], [χ] and [ɣ], these languages also have the pharyngeal consonants of [ʕ] and [ħ]:
Examples of partial usage
In French, the only truly guttural sound is (usually) a uvular fricative (or the guttural R). In Portuguese, [ʁ] is becoming dominant in urban areas. There is also a realization as a [χ], and the original pronunciation as an [r] also remains very common in various dialects.
In Russian, /x/ is assimilated to the palatalization of the following velar consonant: лёгких [ˈlʲɵxʲkʲɪx] . It also has a voiced allophone ɣ, which occurs before voiced obstruents. In Romanian, /h/ becomes the velar [x] in word-final positions (duh 'spirit') and before consonants (hrean 'horseradish'). In Czech, the phoneme /x/ followed by a voiced obstruent can by realized as either [ɦ] or [ɣ], e.g. abych byl [abɪɣ.bɪl].
In Kyrgyz, the consonant phoneme /k/ has a uvular realisation ([q]) in back vowel contexts. In front-vowel environments, /g/ is fricativised between continuants to [ɣ], and in back vowel environments both /k/ and /g/ fricativise to [χ] and [ʁ] respectively. In Uyghur, the phoneme /ʁ/ occurs with a back vowel. In the Mongolian language, /x/ is usually followed by /ŋ/.
The Tuu and Juu (Khoisan) languages of southern Africa have large numbers of guttural vowels. These sounds share certain phonological behaviors that warrant the use of a term specifically for them. There are scattered reports of pharyngeals elsewhere, such as in the Nilo-Saharan, Tama language.
In Swabian German, a pharyngeal approximant [ʕ] is an allophone of /ʁ/ in nucleus and coda positions. In onsets, it is pronounced as a uvular approximant. In Danish, /ʁ/ may have slight frication, and, according to Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996), it may be a pharyngeal approximant [ʕ]. In Finnish, a weak pharyngeal fricative is the realization of /h/ after the vowels /ɑ/ or /æ/ in syllable-coda position, e.g. [tæħti] 'star'.