Re: what is the difference?

Tristan Mc Leay wrote:
[snip]
>
> Still, I don't know how to produce a voiced glottal fricative, and I
> don't know how it's different from a vowel. I do understand they're
> quite common, though, particularly intervocalically (where I wouldn't
> know how they're distinguished from hiatus).
They occur in some varieties of English in words like _behind_, _ahead_
etc.

As for 'hiatus', it rather depends exactly what one means by the term.
It is used to denote that two vowels sounds are kept and not run
together as a diphthong. How that is realized in any particular language
will, I think , vary. It may well be that a non-phonemic [h\] is used in
some; I believe some languages use a non-phonemic glottal stop in such
positions - that wouldn't do in English as we Brits would 'hear' it as
an allophone of /t/    :)

But, yes, the voiced glottal fricatives is not particularly uncommon
among the world's languages. The /h/ of both Czech and Afrikaans, for
example, is voiced, whether initial or intervocalic.

--
Ray
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