The voiceless velar fricative is a type of

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

al sound used in some spoken

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

s. It was part of the consonant inventory of

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

and can still be found in some dialects of English, most notably in

Scottish English Scottish English is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standard English may be defined ...

, e.g. in ''loch'', ''broch'' or ''saugh'' (willow). The symbol in the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ...

that represents this sound is , the Latin letter x. It is also used in

broad transcription Phonetic transcription (also known as Phonetic script or Phonetic notation) is the visual representation of speech sounds (or ''phonetics'') by means of symbols. The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, such as the ...

instead of the symbol , the Greek chi, for the

voiceless uvular fricative The voiceless uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound that is used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , the Greek chi. The sound is represented by (ex with underdo ...

. There is also a voiceless post-velar fricative (also called pre-uvular) in some languages, which can be transcribed as or . For voiceless pre-velar fricative (also called post-palatal), see

voiceless palatal fricative The voiceless palatal 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 C. It is the non-sibilant equiv ...

. Some scholars also posit the voiceless velar approximant distinct from the fricative, used in some spoken

s. The symbol in the

that represents this sound is , but this symbol is not suitable in case of the voiceless velar approximant that is unspecified for rounding (the sound represented by the symbol is specified as unrounded), which is best transcribed as , or - see

voiced velar approximant The voiced velar approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication, spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is M\. The c ...

. The velar approximant can in many cases be considered the semivocalic equivalent of the voiceless variant of the

close back unrounded vowel The close back unrounded vowel, or high back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . Typographically, it is a turned letter . ...

Features

Features of the voiceless velar fricative:

Varieties

Occurrence

The voiceless velar fricative and its labialized variety are postulated to have occurred in

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...

, the ancestor of the

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoke ...

, as the

reflex In biology, a reflex, or reflex action, is an involuntary, unplanned sequence or action and nearly instantaneous response to a stimulus. Reflexes are found with varying levels of complexity in organisms with a nervous system. A reflex occurs ...

of the

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...

voiceless palatal and velar stops and the labialized voiceless velar stop. Thus Proto-Indo-European "horn" and "what" became Proto-Germanic *hurnan and *hwat, where *h and *hw were likely and . This

sound change In historical linguistics, a sound change is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic chan ...

is part of

Grimm's law Grimm's law, also known as the First Germanic Consonant Shift or First Germanic Sound Shift, is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the first millennium BC, first d ...

. In

Modern Greek Modern Greek (, or , ), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the language sometimes referred to ...

, the voiceless velar fricative (with its

allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is one of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plos ...

, the voiceless palatal fricative , occurring before front vowels) originated from the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

voiceless aspirated stop in a sound change that

lenited In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language ...

Greek aspirated stops into fricatives.

Notes

References

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External links