Voiced Velar Fricative

The voiced velar fricative is a type of Consonant al sound, used in some Spoken Language s. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is the Greek Letter Gamma (), which is used for this sound in Greek , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is G.

FEATURES

Features of the voiced velar 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 Velar which means it is articulated with the back part of the Tongue (the dorsum) against the Soft Palate (the velum).

Its Phonation type is voiced, which means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.

It is an Oral Consonant , which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.

It is a Central Consonant , which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.

The Airstream Mechanism is Pulmonic Egressive , which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the Lung s and through the vocal tract, rather than from the Glottis or the mouth.

OCCURS IN

A voiced velar fricative occurs in Modern Greek , Arabic , Armenian , and many Turkic Languages , including Azerbaijani , where it is usually transliterated as ''ğ''. (In some Arabic dialects the ''gh'' may be Uvular or laryngeal.)

The sound also occurs as a distinct phoneme for some Dutch speakers. It is written as ''g'' and replaces the sound. However, for many it collapses with Voiceless Velar Fricative when not between vowels. It is replaced by a Palatal ( Voiced Palatal Fricative ) in southern dialects, making the contrast with [x (written as ''ch'') far more distinct there.

In eastern Polish dialects, ''h'' is usually pronounced as contrary to ''ch'', pronounced as [x . In the rest of Poland, both are usually pronounced [x].

One finds this sound also in Irish , written ''gh'' or ''dh'' (formerly IPA {Link without Title} , but collapsing with original in Middle Irish) before the broad or ''leathan'' vowels a, á, o, ó, u, and ú. The same constraints apply to Scottish Gaelic . The sound, curiously, is absent from Welsh , Cornish and Breton .

Many North American Indian languages contain this sound, notably the Athapascan family. Navajo , perhaps the most widely spoken native language in the United States, writes this sound with the digraph ''gh''.

Confusingly, the velar fricative symbol is often used when transcribing the "weak" allophone of /g/ in Spanish . However, the "weak" allophones of Spanish /b, d, g/ are Approximants (with slight frication) rather than fricatives, and it would be more accurate to use the IPA symbol Velar Approximant .

SEE ALSO

List Of Phonetics Topics

Information About ®

Voiced Velar Fricative

Information About ^{^®}