pharyngeal consonant

Tigré has preserved the two pharyngeal consonants of Ge'ez.

Pharyngeal consonants are not widespread.

According to the laryngeal theory, the Proto-Indo-European language might also have contained pharyngeal consonants.

(Epiglottals are sometimes considered a subcategory of pharyngeal consonants.)

However it does show the two pharyngeal consonants, as well as a voiced velar fricative used in Kurdish.

Also common are a number of other consonants that are unfamiliar to English speakers, such as pharyngeal consonants and ejectives.

In some definitions, this is restricted to pharyngeal consonants, but in others includes some velar and uvular consonants.

In the environment of glottalized resonants as well as ejective and pharyngeal consonants, vowels can be "laryngealized" which often means creaky voice.

All other NWC languages possess true pharyngeal consonants, but Ubykh is the only language to use pharyngealisation as a feature of secondary articulation.

Pharyngeal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA):

Salish has pharyngeal consonants, which are rare worldwide and uncommon but not unusual in the Mosan Sprachbund to which Salish belongs.

This contrasts with the pharyngeal consonants, where the root of the tongue contacts the back wall of the pharynx, and prototypical epiglottal consonants, where the aryepiglottic folds contact the epiglottis.

The Christian dialect of Tat displays typical Tat rhotacism (mutation of Persian /d/ into /r/), but differs from other Tat dialects in lacking pharyngeal consonants /ʕ/ and /ħ/.

However, this may partially be an effect of the difficulty European language-speaking linguists have in recognizing them; it is likely that supposedly pharyngeal consonants in many of the languages reported to possess them are in fact epiglottal in articulation.

There are languages that forbid empty onsets, such as Hebrew and Arabic (the names transliterated as "Israel", "Abraham", "Omar", "Ali" and "Abdullah", among many others, actually begin with semiconsonantic glides or with glottal or pharyngeal consonants).