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Concept
Guttural
Summary
Guttural speech sounds are those with a primary place of articulation near the back of the oral cavity, where it is difficult to distinguish a sound's place of articulation and its phonation. In popular usage it is an imprecise term for sounds produced relatively far back in the vocal tract, such as German ch or the Arabic ayin, but not simple glottal sounds like h. The term 'guttural language' is used for languages that have such sounds.
As a technical term used by phoneticians and phonologists, guttural has had various definitions. The concept always includes pharyngeal consonants, but may include velar, uvular or laryngeal consonants as well.
Guttural sounds are typically consonants, but murmured, pharyngealized, glottalized and strident vowels may be also considered guttural in nature.
Some phonologists argue that all post-velar sounds constitute a natural class.
The word guttural literally means 'of the throat' (from Latin guttur, meaning throat), and was first used by phoneticians to describe the Hebrew glottal ʔ (א) and h (ה), uvular χ (ח), and pharyngeal ʕ (ע).
The term is commonly used non-technically by English speakers to refer to sounds that subjectively appear harsh or grating. This definition usually includes a number of consonants that are not used in English, such as epiglottal ʜ and ʡ, uvular [χ], ʁ and q, and velar fricatives x and ɣ. However, it usually excludes sounds used in English, such as the velar stops k and ɡ, the velar nasal ŋ, and the glottal consonants [h] and [ʔ].
In popular consciousness, languages that make extensive use of guttural consonants are often considered to be guttural languages. English-speakers sometimes find such languages strange and even hard on the ear.
Languages that extensively use [x], [χ], [ʁ], [ɣ] and/or [q] include:
Afrikaans
Arabic
Armenian
Assamese
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic
Azerbaijani
Crimean Tatar
Dutch
French
German
Greek
Hebrew
Hindustani (Hindi, Urdu)
Irish
Lakota
Manx
Mongolian language
Kartvelian languages (i.e.
Official source
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