An
epiglottal consonant is a
consonantIn 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
larynxThe larynx , colloquially known as the voicebox, is an organ in the neck of mammals involved in protection of the trachea and sound production...
) against the
epiglottisThe epiglottis is a flap of elastic cartilage tissue covered with a mucus 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 AlphabetThe 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:
| IPA |
Description |
Example |
| Language |
Orthography |
IPA |
Meaning |
 |
voiceless epiglottal plosiveThe epiglottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is >\.-Features:...
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Agul Aghul, also called Agul, is a language spoken by the Aguls who live in southern Dagestan and Azerbaijan.-Classification:Aghul belongs to the Lezgic group of the Northeast Caucasian language family....
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| center |
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voiced epiglottal fricative The voiced epiglottal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is <\....
or approximant |
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
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| to have supper |
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voiceless epiglottal fricative The voiceless epiglottal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is H\.-Features:...
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Agul Aghul, also called Agul, is a language spoken by the Aguls who live in southern Dagestan and Azerbaijan.-Classification:Aghul belongs to the Lezgic group of the Northeast Caucasian language family....
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| 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. Sweet whey is manufactured during the making of rennet types of hard cheese like Cheddar or Swiss cheese...
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- A voiced epiglottal plosive may not be possible. When one becomes voiced intervocalically in Dahalo
Dahalo is an endangered South Cushitic language spoken by at most 400 people on the Kenyan coast near the mouth of the Tana River. The Dahalo are dispersed among Swahili and other Bantu peoples, with no villages of their own, and are bilingual in those languages. It may be that children are no...
, for example, it becomes a tapIn 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.-Contrast with stops and trills:...
.
- Although traditionally placed in the fricative
Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators 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 , the final consonant of Bach; or...
row of the IPA chart, is usually an approximantApproximants 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. Approximants are...
. 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
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....
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 [я] 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 consonantA 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 :* Pharyngeal plosives are thought to be impossible...
s were actually measured, they turned out to be epiglottals. This was the case for
DahaloDahalo is an endangered South Cushitic language spoken by at most 400 people on the Kenyan coast near the mouth of the Tana River. The Dahalo are dispersed among Swahili and other Bantu peoples, with no villages of their own, and are bilingual in those languages. It may be that children are no...
, for example.
Epiglottals are primarily known from the Mideast (in the
Semitic languagesThe 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 ColumbiaBritish Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is famed for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . In 1871, it became the sixth province of Canada.The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, the 15th largest metropolitan region in Canada...
("pharyngeal trills" in northern
HaidaThe Haida are an indigenous nation 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...
), but may occur elsewhere. It is likely that several of the
SalishThe Salishan languages are a group of languages of the Pacific Northwest...
or
Wakashan languagesWakashan 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 CaucasusThe 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-pharyngealAn 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,...
, was reported.