Guttural

Guttural speech sounds are those with a primary place of articulation near the back of the oral cavity. In some definitions, this is restricted to pharyngeal consonants, but in others includes some velar and uvular consonants. Guttural sounds are typically consonants, but some vowels' articulations may also be considered guttural in nature.

Although the term has historically been used by phoneticians, and is occasionally used by phonologists today, it is now more common in popular use as an imprecise term for sounds produced relatively far back in the vocal tract. The term continues to be used by some phonologists to denote laryngeal consonants (including uvulars), as well as murmured, pharyngealized, glottalized, and strident vowels.^[1][2]

Etymology

The word guttural literally means 'of the throat', and is derived from the Latin word for throat. In colloquial usage, the term is used for any sound pronounced in the throat or near the back of the mouth that is considered "harsh." Contrary to popular opinion, the word has no connection to the word gutter. The OED says,

"By non-phoneticians any mode of pronunciation which is harsh or grating in effect is often supposed to be 'guttural'; with this notion the designation is popularly applied by Englishmen to the German ch, but not to k or g, though technically it belongs equally to them. [That is, they are all pronounced at the same location in the mouth.] As a technical term of phonetics, the word was first used to denote the Hebrew spirant consonants ע ,ח ,ה ,א [that is, glottal /ʔ/ and /h/, uvular /χ/, and pharyngeal /ʕ/]; it is now commonly applied (inaccurately, if its etymological sense be regarded) to the sounds formed by the back of the tongue and the palate, as (k, ɡ, x, ɣ, ŋ) [the velars]."

Guttural languages

In the popular consciousness, some languages are considered to be guttural languages, as opposed to just possessing some sounds which are pronounced at the back of the oral cavity. The sounds these languages have are produced from the pharynx at the back of the throat, or by the back of the tongue, and as well as the palate and uvula. A guttural language tends to make a sound rather "heavy" and/or "throaty".

To English speakers, the guttural languages would sound strange and may be even hard on the ear of those who are used to the English pronunciation. Popular impressions focus on guttural consonants, rather than vowels.^[3]

A language that is perceived to be guttural may be subjective; To many English speakers, [ɡ], [k], and [ŋ] are not considered guttural, but velar fricatives and affricates such as [x], [ɣ], and [q] are considered gutturals. The glottal consonants [h] and [ʔ] are not considered guttural, but epiglottal [ʜ] and [ʡ] are. Insofar as the term is used in linguistics, the sounds "k", "q", "g", "ng" and "nk", as commonly heard in English, would be considered "gutturals".^[4][5]

Significant usage

Languages that extensively use [x], [χ], [ɣ] and/or [q]:

• Afrikaans^[6]
• Armenian^[7]
• Assyrian Neo-Aramaic (the only Semitic language that is not pharyngeal)^[8][9]
• Azerbaijani^[10]
• Crimean Tatar^[11]
• Dutch^[12]
• Persian^[13]
• German^[14]
• Irish
• Manx
• Kartvelian languages (i.e. Georgian, Mingrelian, Laz, Svan)^{[15][16][17][18]}
• Pashto^[19]
• Scottish Gaelic^[20]
• Tajik Persian^[21]
• Welsh^[22]

In addition to their usage of [q], [x], [χ] and [ɣ], these languages also have the pharyngeal consonants of [ʕ] and [ħ]:

• Berber languages (i.e. Kabyle, Tamasheq)^{[23][24][25][26]}
• Cushitic languages (i.e. Somali)^[27][28][29]
• Kurdish, only partially in words borrowed from Semitic languages (the only pharyngeal Indo-Iranian language)^[30]
• Northeast Caucasian languages (i.e. Chechen, Lezgian, Avar)^[31][32]
• Northwest Caucasian (i.e. Abkhaz, Adyghe, Kabardian).^[33][34]
• Salishan and Wakashan language families in British Columbia^[35][36]
• Semitic languages (i.e. Arabic, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, Turoyo, Hebrew)^[37][38]

Partial usage

In French, the only truly guttural sound is (usually) a uvular fricative (or the guttural R). In Portuguese, [ʁ] is becoming dominant in urban areas. There is also a realization as a [χ], and the original pronunciation as an [r] also remains very common in various dialects.

In Russian, /x/ is assimilated to the palatalization of the following velar consonant: лёгких  [ˈlʲɵxʲkʲɪx] . It also has a voiced allophone ɣ, which occurs before voiced obstruents.^[39] In Romanian, /h/ becomes the velar [x] in word-final positions (duh 'spirit') and before consonants (hrean 'horseradish').^[40] In Czech, the phoneme /x/ followed by a voiced obstruent can by realized as either [ɦ] or [ɣ], e.g. abych byl  [abɪɣ.bɪl].^[41]

In Kyrgyz, the consonant phoneme /k/ has a uvular realisation ([q]) in back vowel contexts. In front-vowel environments, /g/ is fricativised between continuants to [ɣ], and in back vowel environments both /k/ and /g/ fricativise to [χ] and [ʁ] respectively.^[42] In Uyghur, the phoneme /ʁ/ occurs with a back vowel. In the Mongolian language, /x/ is usually followed by /ŋ/.^[43]

The Tuu and Juu (Khoisan) languages of southern Africa have large numbers of guttural vowels. These sounds share certain phonological behaviors that warrant the use of a term specifically for them. There are scattered reports of pharyngeals elsewhere, such as in the Nilo-Saharan, Tama language.

In Swabian German, a pharyngeal approximant [ʕ] is an allophone of /ʁ/ in nucleus and coda positions.^[44] In onsets, it is pronounced as a uvular approximant.^[44] In Danish, /ʁ/ may have slight frication, and, according to Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996), it may be a pharyngeal approximant [ʕ].^[45] In Finnish, a weak pharyngeal fricative is the realization of /h/ after the vowels /ɑ/ or /æ/ in syllable-coda position, e.g. [tæħti] 'star'.

See also

• Guttural R

References

Bibliography

• Bauer, Michael Blas na Gàidhlig - The Practical Guide to Gaelic Pronunciation (2011), Akerbeltz. ISBN 978-1-907165-00-9
• Beyer, Klaus (1986). The Aramaic language: its distribution and subdivisions. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. ISBN 3-525-53573-2.
• An Introduction to Syriac Studies. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 1-59333-349-8.
• Kyzlasov I.L. Runic scripts of Eurasian steppes, Восточная литература (Eastern Literature), Moscow, 1994, pp. 80 on, ISBN 5-02-017741-5
• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8.