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IPA – number	147
IPA – text	ɦ
IPA – image
Entity	ɦ
X-SAMPA	h\
Kirshenbaum	h
Sound sample (help·info)

The breathy-voiced glottal transition, commonly called a "voiced glottal fricative", is a type of sound used in some spoken languages which often behaves like a consonant, but sometimes behaves more like a vowel, or is indeterminate in its behavior. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ɦ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is h\.

Features of the "voiced glottal fricative":

• Its phonation type is breathy voiced, or murmured, which means the vocal cords are loosely vibrating, with more air escaping than in a modally voiced sound.
• It is a transitional state of the glottis. It has no manner of articulation other than its phonation type. Because there is no other constriction to produce friction in the vocal tract, most phoneticians no longer consider ɦ to be a fricative. True fricatives may have a murmured phonation in addition to producing friction elsewhere. However, the term "fricative" is generally retained for the historical reasons.
• It has no place of articulation. The term glottal means it is articulated by the vocal folds, but this is the nature of its phonation rather than a separate articulation. All consonants except for the glottals, and all vowels, have an individual place of articulation in addition to the state of the glottis.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
• Because it is pronounced in the throat, without a component in the mouth, the central/lateral dichotomy does not apply.
• 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.

• Belarusian: гара: [ɦaˈra], "train station"
• Dutch: haat: [ɦa.t], "hate"
• Czech hora: [ˈɦora], "mountain"
• Finnish: raha: [rɑɦɑ], "money"
• English: behind [bɪɦaɪnd]
• Kabardian: сысeхэр [sɪˈseːɦɛr], "my things"
• Sanskrit: Hari [ɦəri]
• Slovak: hora: [ˈɦora], "mountain"
• Ukrainian: гора: [ɦɔˈra], "mountain"
• Shanghainese Wu: 鞋 [ɦa], "shoes"

• Voiceless glottal fricative, a common allophone in numerous languages
• List of phonetics topics