Epiglottal consonant

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Epiglottal consonant

An epiglottal consonant is a consonant

Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx....
that is articulated with the aryepiglottic folds (see larynx

Larynx

The larynx , colloquially known as the voicebox, is an organ in the neck of mammals involved in protection of the vertebrate trachea and sound production....
) against the epiglottis

Epiglottis

The epiglottis is a flap of elastic cartilage tissue covered with a mucous membrane, attached to the root of the tongue. It projects obliquely upwards behind the tongue and the hyoid bone....
. They are occasionally called aryepiglottal consonants.

The epiglottal consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet

International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic....
are:

Epiglottals are not known from many languages.

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Encyclopedia

An epiglottal consonant is a consonant

Consonant

Larynx

The larynx , colloquially known as the voicebox, is an organ in the neck of mammals involved in protection of the vertebrate trachea and sound production....
) against the epiglottis

Epiglottis

International Phonetic Alphabet

IPA	Description	Example
IPA	Description	Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
	voiceless epiglottal plosive Epiglottal plosive The epiglottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is >....	Agul Agul language Aghul, also called Agul, is a language spoken by the Aguls who live in southern Dagestan and Azerbaijan....			center
	voiced epiglottal fricative Voiced epiglottal fricative The voiced epiglottal approximant/fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is <.... or approximant	Arabic Arabic language Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....			to have supper
	voiceless epiglottal fricative Voiceless epiglottal fricative The voiceless epiglottal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is H....	Agul Agul language Aghul, also called Agul, is a language spoken by the Aguls who live in southern Dagestan and Azerbaijan....			whey Whey Whey or milk plasma is the liquid remaining after milk has been curdled and strained; it is a by-product of the manufacture of cheese or casein and has several commercial uses....

A voiced epiglottal plosive may not be possible. When one becomes voiced intervocalically in Dahalo
Dahalo language

Dahalo is an endangered language South Cushitic languages language spoken by at most 400 people on the Kenyan coast near the mouth of the Tana River....
, for example, it becomes a tap
Flap consonant

In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another....
.
Although traditionally placed in the fricative
Fricative consonant

Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two Place of articulation close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German language , the final consonant of Bach; or the side of the tongue ag...
row of the IPA chart, is usually an approximant
Approximant consonant

Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and "typical" consonants. In the articulation of approximants, articulatory organs produce a narrowing of the vocal tract, but leave enough space for air to flow without much audible turbulence....
. The IPA symbol itself is ambiguous, but no language has a distinct fricative and approximant at this place of articulation. Sometimes the lowering diacritic is used to specify that the manner is approximant: .
Epiglottal trill
Trill consonant

In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr > as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular trill....
s are quite common (for epiglottals, that is), but this can usually be considered a phonemic plosive or a fricative, with the trill being phonetic detail. The IPA has no symbol for this, though [?] is sometimes seen in the literature.

Epiglottals are not known from many languages. However, this may partially be an effect of the difficulty European language-speaking linguists have in recognizing them. On several occasions, when supposedly pharyngeal consonant

Pharyngeal consonant

A pharyngeal consonant is a type of consonant which is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx.Pharyngeal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet :...
s were actually measured, they turned out to be epiglottals. This was the case for Dahalo

Dahalo language

Dahalo is an endangered language South Cushitic languages language spoken by at most 400 people on the Kenyan coast near the mouth of the Tana River....
, for example.

Epiglottals are primarily known from the Mideast (in the Semitic languages

Semitic languages

File:Amarna Akkadian letter.pngThe Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa....
) and from British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's Provinces and territories of Canada and is famed for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu ....
("pharyngeal trills" in northern Haida

Haida

The Haida are an Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. The Haida territories comprise the archipelago of the Queen Charlotte Islands, known in the Haida language as Haida Gwaii , and the southern half of Prince of Wales Island in the southernmost Alaska Panhandle, which is the home of a subgroup called the '...
), but may occur elsewhere. It is likely that several of the Salish

Salishan languages

The Salishan languages are a group of languages of the Pacific Northwest . They are characterised by agglutinative and astonishing consonant clusters—for instance the Nux?lk language word meaning "he had had a bunchberry plant" has 13 consonants in a row with no vowels....
or Wakashan languages

Wakashan languages

Wakashan is a family of languages spoken in British Columbia around and on Vancouver Island, and in the northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca....
of British Columbia reported to have "pharyngeals" actually have epiglottals, and the same may be true of some of the languages of the Caucasus

Languages of the Caucasus

The languages of the Caucasus are a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea....
.

Recently, a possible new place of articulation, epiglotto-pharyngeal

Epiglotto-pharyngeal consonant

An epiglotto-pharyngeal consonant is a newly reported type of consonant, articulated with the epiglottis against the back wall of the pharynx. This contrasts with the pharyngeal consonants, where the root of the tongue contacts the back wall of the pharynx, and prototypical epiglottal consonants, where the aryepiglottic folds contact the epig...
, was reported.

Epiglottal consonant

See also