Pharyngeal consonant

A pharyngeal consonant is a consonant that is articulated primarily in the pharynx. Some phoneticians distinguish upper pharyngeal consonants, or "high" pharyngeals, pronounced by retracting the root of the tongue in the mid to upper pharynx, from (ary)epiglottal consonants, or "low" pharyngeals, which are articulated with the aryepiglottic folds against the epiglottis in the lower larynx, and even epiglotto-pharyngeal consonants consisting of both those movements combined. Stops and trills can only be reliably produced at the epiglottis, while fricatives can only be reliably produced in the upper pharynx. When these are treated as distinct places of articulation, the term radical consonant may be used as a cover term, or people may speak of guttural consonants instead.

In many languages, pharyngeal consonants trigger retraction of neighboring vowels, but in others, it does not. Pharyngeals thereby differ from uvulars, which nearly always trigger retraction. For example, in Arabic, the vowel fronted to [æ] next to pharyngeals, but retracted to  next to uvulars, as in حال  'condition' with a pharyngeal fricative and a fronted vowel, vs. خال  'maternal uncle' with a uvular consonant and a retracted vowel.

In addition to these consonantal sounds, consonants and vowels may be secondarily pharyngealized, and strident vowels are defined by an accompanying epiglottal trill.