Epiglottal Consonants in The IPA
The epiglottal consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
| IPA | Description | Example | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Language | Orthography | IPA | Meaning | ||
| voiceless epiglottal stop | Aghul | jaʡ | center | ||
| voiced epiglottal fricative or approximant | Arabic | تَعَشَّى | tɑʢɑʃʃæ | to have supper | |
| voiceless epiglottal fricative | Aghul | mɛʜ | whey | ||
- A voiced epiglottal stop may not be possible. When an epiglottal stop becomes voiced intervocalically in Dahalo, for example, it becomes a tap.
- Although traditionally placed in the fricative row of the IPA chart, ⟨ʢ⟩ 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: ⟨ʢ̞⟩.
- Epiglottal trills are quite common (for epiglottals, that is), but this can usually be considered a phonemic stop or a fricative, with the trill being phonetic detail. The IPA has no symbol for this, though ⟨я⟩ is sometimes seen in the literature.
Read more about this topic: Epiglottal Consonant