Voiceless nasal glottal approximant

The voiceless nasal glottal approximant is a type of consonantal sound, a nasal approximant, used in some oral languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨h̃⟩, that is, an h with a tilde.

Voiceless nasal glottal approximant
h̃

Occurrence

The h sound is nasalized in several languages, apparently due to a connection between glottal and nasal sounds called rhinoglottophilia. Examples of languages where the only h-like sound is nasalized are Krim, Lisu, and Pirahã.

More rarely, a language will contrast oral /h/ and nasal /h̃/. Two such languages are neighboring Bantu languages of Angola and Namibia, Kwangali and Mbukushu. In these languages, vowels following /h̃/ are nasalized, though nasal vowels do not occur elsewhere. A distinction is also reported from Wolaytta, though in that case the nasal is rare.

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Basque	Souletin dialect[1]	ahate	[ãˈh̃ãte]	'duck'
Carapana[2]		hʉ̃gẽ́	[h̃ĩŋɛ̃́]	'god'	Allophone of [h] before nasal vowels.
Kaingang[3]		hũg	[h̃ũŋ]	'hawk'	Possible word-initial realization of /h/ before a nasal vowel.[3]
Kwangali[4]		nhonho	[h̃õh̃õ]	Tribulus species
Khoekhoegowab	Damara dialect	hû	[h̃ũː]	'six'	Free variation[clarification needed]
Lisu	Northern dialect[5]	han	[h̃a˧]	'soul'
	Southern dialect[6]	ꓦꓻ	[h̃ɑ˦]
Tofa[7]		иъһён	[iʔh̃jon]	'twenty'

Notes

1. Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina (2003), p. 25.
2. Metzger, Ronald; Metzger, Lois (1973). "Fonología del carapana". Sistemas fonológicos de idiomas columbianos (in Spanish). Vol. 2. Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. pp. 121–132.
3. Jolkesky (2009), pp. 676, 681.
4. Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996), pp. 132–3.
5. Bradley (1994), p. 79.
6. Bradley (2006), p. 271.
7. "Karagas". mpi-lingweb.shh.mpg.de. Archived from the original on 2021-06-24. Retrieved 2020-12-18.

References

• Bradley, David (1994). A Dictionary of the Northern Dialect of Lisu (China and Southeast Asia). Pacific Linguistics. ISBN 978-0-858834-23-1.
• Bradley, David (2006). Southern Lisu Dictionary. STEDT. ISBN 978-0-944613-43-6.
• Hualde, José Ignacio; Ortiz de Urbina, Jon (2003), A Grammar of Basque, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, ISBN 3-11-017683-1
• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996), The Sounds of the World's Languages, Oxford: Blackwell, ISBN 0-631-19815-6
• Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho De Valhery (2009), "Fonologia e prosódia do Kaingang falado em cacique doble", Anais do SETA (3): 675–685

External links

• List of languages with [h̃] on PHOIBLE