IPA number 142 Unicode (hex) U+03C7 Kirshenbaum X | Entity (decimal) χ X-SAMPA X Braille Example | |
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The voiceless uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨χ⟩, the Greek chi, (or, more properly, ⟨ꭓ⟩, the Latin chi) or, in broad transcription, ⟨x⟩, the Latin and English letter x, although the latter technically represents the voiceless velar fricative. The sound is represented by ⟨x̣⟩ (ex with underdot) in Americanist phonetic notation.
Contents
For a voiceless pre-uvular fricative (also called post-velar), see voiceless velar fricative.
Features
Features of the voiceless uvular fricative:
Occurrence
Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996) note that there is "a complication in the case of uvular fricatives in that the shape of the vocal tract may be such that the uvula vibrates." See voiceless uvular raised non-sonorant trill for more information.