Voiceless nasal glottal approximant
| Voiceless nasal glottal approximant | |
|---|---|
| h̃ |
The voiceless nasal glottal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, a nasal approximant, used in some oral languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨h̃⟩, that is, an h with a tilde.
Occurrence[edit]
The h sound is nasalized in several languages, apparently due to a connection between glottal and nasal sounds called rhinoglottophilia. Examples of languages where the only h-like sound is nasalized are Krim, Lisu, and Pirahã.
More rarely, a language will contrast oral /h/ and nasal /h̃/. Two such languages are neighboring Bantu languages of Angola and Namibia, Kwangali and Mbukushu. In these languages, vowels following /h̃/ are nasalized, though nasal vowels do not occur elsewhere. A distinction is also reported from Wolaytta, though in that case the nasal is rare.
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basque | Souletin dialect[1] | ahate | [ãˈh̃ãte] | 'duck' | |
| Kwangali[2] | nhonho | [h̃õh̃õ] | Tribulus sp. | ||
| Khoekhoegowab | Damara dialect | hû | [h̃ũ:] | 'six' | free variation |
References[edit]
- ^ Hualde, José Ignacio; Ortiz de Urbina, Jon, eds. (2003), A Grammar of Basque, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, p. 25, ISBN 3-11-017683-1
- ^ Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 132–133. ISBN 0-631-19814-8.
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