Strident vowels (also called sphincteric vowels) are strongly pharyngealized vowels accompanied by an (ary)epiglottal trill, with the larynx being raised and the pharynx constricted.[1][2] Either the epiglottis or the arytenoid cartilages thus vibrate instead of the vocal cords. That is, the epiglottal trill is the voice source for such sounds.
| Strident vowel | |
|---|---|
| ◌᷽ | |
| ◌ʢ |
Strident vowels are fairly common in Khoisan languages, which contrasts them with simple pharyngealized vowels. Stridency is used in onomatopoeiainZulu and Lamba.[3][page needed] Stridency may be a type of phonation called harsh voice. A similar phonation, without the trill, is called ventricular voice; both have been called pressed voice.[citation needed] Bai, of southern China, has a register system that has allophonic strident and pressed vowels.
There is no official symbol for stridency in the IPA, but a superscript ⟨ʢ⟩ (for a voiced epiglottal trill) is often used.[citation needed] In some literature, a subscript double tilde (≈) is sometimes used.[1]
It has been accepted into Unicode, at code point U+1DFD.
These languages use phonemic strident vowels:
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