Voiceless uvular fricative

IPA – number	142
IPA – text	χ
IPA – image
Entity	χ
X-SAMPA	X
Kirshenbaum	X
Sound sample (help·info)

The voiceless uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is χ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is X. The sound is represented by x̣ (x with underdot) in Americanist phonetic notation.

It is not to be confused with the voiceless velar fricative (IPA x, X-SAMPA x.)

Features

Features of the voiceless uvular 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 uvular which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) against or near the uvula.
• Its phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• 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.

Varieties of [χ]

Occurrence

See also

• List of phonetics topics

References

Bibliography

• Hess, Wolfgang (2001). "Funktionale Phonetik und Phonologie". Grundlagen der Phonetik. Bonn: Institut für Kommunikationsforschung und Phonetik, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität. 
• Watson, Janet (2002), written at New York, The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic, Oxford University Press