[g]→[h]Certainty: 5/5Commonality: 3/5

Debuccalization Lenition Slavic Romance Germanic

Voiced velar plosive to Voiceless glottal fricative

Debuccalization of [g] to the glottal fricative [h] is a common form of lenition, notably found in Galician (Gheada) and Southern Dutch dialects.

Phonetic Effects

Debuccalization, Lenition

Language Examples

Czech / Ukrainian / Belarusian Slavic

Old Slavic *g→Czech/Ukrainian [ɦ]— West and East Slavic *g → voiced glottal fricative [ɦ] (not [h]). E.g., Czech 'hora' (mountain) vs. Russian 'gora' (both from PS *gora). Ukrainian also shows this shift.

Galician Romance

gato→hato [hato]— Gheada phenomenon

Dutch (Southern) Germanic

ɣ→h— weakening of velar fricative

Related Transformations

Reverse Debuccalization

More Romance Shifts

[ã] → [õ] — Raising [a] → [ã] — Assimilatory Nasalization [a] → [∅] — Elision [a] → [ʔ] — Glottalization [a] → [ə] — Vowel Reduction

Sources & References

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