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A pharyngeal consonant is a type of 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....
 which is articulated with the root of the tongue
Tongue

The tongue is skeletal muscle on the floor of the mouth that manipulates food for chewing . It is the primary organ of taste. Much of the upper surface of the tongue is covered in papillae and taste buds....
 against the pharynx
Pharynx

FunctionsThe pharynx is part of the digestive system and respiratory system of many organisms.Because both food and Earth's atmosphere pass through the pharynx, a flap of connective tissue called the epiglottis closes over the trachea when food is swallowed to prevent choking or Pulmonary aspiration....
.

Pharyngeal consonants in 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....
 (IPA):





Pharyngeals are known primarily from two areas of the world: in North-Africa/Mideast (in the Semitic
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....
, Berber
Berber languages

The Berber languages are a group of closely related languages spoken in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, as well as by Berber people communities in parts of Niger and Mali....
, Cushitic
Cushitic languages

The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages language family spoken in the Horn of Africa. They are named after the Biblical figure Cush by analogy with Shem being the eponym origin of Semitic languages....
, Circassian
Northwest Caucasian languages

The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called Pontic, Circassian, or Abkhaz-Adyghe, are a group of languages spoken in the Caucasus region, chiefly in Russia , Georgia , and Turkey, with smaller communities scattered throughout the Middle East....
, and Dagestanian
Northeast Caucasian languages

The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Caspian, Nakho-Dagestanian, or Dagestanian, are a family of languages spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia, in northern Azerbaijan, and in Georgia , as well as in diaspora populations....
 families) and in British Columbia (in the Wakashan
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....
 and 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....
 families).






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A pharyngeal consonant is a type of 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....
 which is articulated with the root of the tongue
Tongue

The tongue is skeletal muscle on the floor of the mouth that manipulates food for chewing . It is the primary organ of taste. Much of the upper surface of the tongue is covered in papillae and taste buds....
 against the pharynx
Pharynx

FunctionsThe pharynx is part of the digestive system and respiratory system of many organisms.Because both food and Earth's atmosphere pass through the pharynx, a flap of connective tissue called the epiglottis closes over the trachea when food is swallowed to prevent choking or Pulmonary aspiration....
.

Pharyngeal consonants in 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....
 (IPA):

IPA Description Example (Mishnaic Hebrew)
Orthography IPA Meaning
Xsampa Qmarkslash
 pharyngeal approximant
Voiced pharyngeal fricative

The voiced pharyngeal approximant/fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents it is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ?....
???
Xsampa Xslash
 voiceless pharyngeal fricative
Voiceless pharyngeal fricative

The voiceless pharyngeal 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 h with stroke , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is X....
???


  • Pharyngeal plosives
    Stop consonant

    A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. The terms plosive and stop are usually used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms....
     are thought to be impossible. Note that when they are posited, they are sometimes transcribed with a small capital Q, [Q].
  • Although traditionally placed in the fricative row of the IPA
    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....
     chart, is usually an approximant. 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: .


Pharyngeals are known primarily from two areas of the world: in North-Africa/Mideast (in the Semitic
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....
, Berber
Berber languages

The Berber languages are a group of closely related languages spoken in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, as well as by Berber people communities in parts of Niger and Mali....
, Cushitic
Cushitic languages

The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages language family spoken in the Horn of Africa. They are named after the Biblical figure Cush by analogy with Shem being the eponym origin of Semitic languages....
, Circassian
Northwest Caucasian languages

The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called Pontic, Circassian, or Abkhaz-Adyghe, are a group of languages spoken in the Caucasus region, chiefly in Russia , Georgia , and Turkey, with smaller communities scattered throughout the Middle East....
, and Dagestanian
Northeast Caucasian languages

The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Caspian, Nakho-Dagestanian, or Dagestanian, are a family of languages spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia, in northern Azerbaijan, and in Georgia , as well as in diaspora populations....
 families) and in British Columbia (in the Wakashan
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....
 and 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....
 families). There are scattered reports of pharyngeals elsewhere, such as in the Nilo-Saharan Tama language
Tama language

"Tama" is also an alternate name for the Nama language of southern Africa.The Tama language is a Nilo-Saharan languages language spoken in western Sudan and eastern Chad....
 and in Nenets
Nenets language

Nenets is a language spoken by the Nenets people in northern Russia. It belongs to the Samoyedic languages which form the Uralic languages family with the Finno-Ugric languages....
 in Northern Russia. In Finnish
Finnish language

Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by Finnish people outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden....
, a weak pharyngeal fricative is the realization of /h/ next to the vowel /a/, but since this is mere allophony
Allophone

In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds that belong to the same phoneme. A phoneme is an abstract unit of speech sound that can distinguish words: That is, changing a phoneme in a word can produce another word....
, it is transcribed as /h/. According to the laryngeal theory
Laryngeal theory

The laryngeal theory is a generally accepted theory of historical linguistics which proposes the existence of a set of three consonant sounds known as "laryngeals" that appear in most current reconstructions of the Proto-Indo-European language ....
, the Proto-Indo-European language
Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language is the unattested, linguistic reconstruction common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans....
 might also have contained pharyngeal consonants.

Note that reported pharyngeals frequently turn out to be epiglottals
Epiglottal consonant

An epiglottal consonant is a consonant that is articulated with the aryepiglottic folds against the epiglottis. They are occasionally called aryepiglottal consonants....
. Such 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....
 and northern Haida
Haida language

The Haida language is the language of the Haida people. It contains eight vowels and well over 30 consonants. Linguist Edward Sapir classified Haida as one of the Na-Den? languages in 1915, a position later supported by others, notably Pinnow, Greenberg, Enrico, Ruhlen, Manaster Ramer, and Bengtson ....
, for example, and is likely to be true for many if not most of the others. This is perhaps because 'epiglottal' was only recently recognized as a distinct place of articulation, rather than a variant of 'pharyngeal'. The only language known to have contrastive pharyngeals and epiglottals is Agul, a Lezgian language
Northeast Caucasian languages

The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Caspian, Nakho-Dagestanian, or Dagestanian, are a family of languages spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia, in northern Azerbaijan, and in Georgia , as well as in diaspora populations....
 of Dagestan.

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.

See also


  • Place of articulation
    Place of articulation

    In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact, where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an active articulator and a passive articulator ....
  • Pharyngealization
  • List of phonetics topics
    List of phonetics topics

    A * Acoustic phonetics* Active articulator* Affricate* Airstream mechanism* Alfred C. Gimson* Allophone* Alveolar approximant* Alveolar consonant...
  • Ayin
    Ayin

    ' or ' is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic language, Hebrew language and Arabic alphabet ....
  • Heth
    Heth (letter)

    or is the reconstructed name of the eighth letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician alphabet , Syriac alphabet , Hebrew alphabet chet , Arabic alphabet , and Tifinagh ....