Voiceless velar fricative

A voiceless velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spokenlanguages. It was part of the consonant inventory of Old English and can still be found in some modern dialects of English, most notably in Scottish English, for example in loch, broch, and saugh (willow).

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨x⟩, the Latin letter x. It is also used in broad transcription instead of the symbol ⟨χ⟩, the Greek chi, for the voiceless uvular fricative.

For a voiceless pre-velar fricative (also called post-palatal), see voiceless palatal fricative § Post-palatal.