Suvarna Garge (Editor)

Voiceless uvular fricative

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IPA number
  
142

Unicode (hex)
  
U+03C7

Kirshenbaum
  
X

Entity (decimal)
  
χ

X-SAMPA
  
X

Braille
  
Example

Voiceless uvular fricative

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:

  • 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 uvular, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) at the uvula.
  • Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
  • It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
  • It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
  • The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

    • 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.

    References

    Voiceless uvular fricative Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA