Voiceless Glottal Fricative
Consonant · voiceless
Audio via Wikimedia Commons
Found in a majority of the world's languages.
Articulation
Every speech sound is defined by three properties: its class (consonant, vowel, or tone), its place of articulation (where in the vocal tract it is formed — lips, teeth, palate, etc.), its manner (how airflow is controlled — stopped, funneled into a fricative, channeled through the nose), and its voicing (whether the vocal cords vibrate during production).
- Class
- Consonant
- Voicing
- Voiceless
- Place
- Glottal
- Manner
- Fricative
Languages using this sound
This sound appears in 322 of the 500 languages in our database. Languages that use a sound only in loanwords or in rare, specialized contexts are marked as marginal (*) — the sound exists but is not a core part of the phonological system. Click any language to view its full sound inventory.