Voiced velar fricative

The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ɣ, 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 lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

The voiced velar fricative does not occur in Modern English, though it did occur in Old English. In Spanish, [ɣ] occurs as an intervocalic allophone of /g/. In some dialects of Dutch the phoneme /ɣ/ has a voiceless allophone [x], a voiceless velar fricative, in final position only; in other dialects the corresponding sound is always voiceless and thus best interpreted as a /x/.

See also

• List of phonetics topics