PRODUCTION OF THE VOICELESS PHARYNGEAL /Ħ/ AND VELAR /X/ FRICATIVES BY PASHTO-SPEAKING UNDERGRADUATES IN MARDAN: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

Abstract

This exploratory study examines the production of the voiceless pharyngeal fricative /ħ/ and the voiceless velar fricative /x/ by Pashto-speaking undergraduate students in Mardan, Pakistan. The contrast is linguistically important because /x/ is an established consonant in Pashto, whereas /ħ/ occurs primarily in Arabic-origin vocabulary and is more strongly associated with formal, religious, and careful pronunciation. The study involved 25 male undergraduates drawn from five institutions. Participants read selected words containing the target sounds in initial, medial, and final positions; their productions were audio-recorded and evaluated through structured observation. The surviving study documentation indicates recurrent difficulty maintaining the place-of-articulation contrast, including reciprocal substitution between the two sounds. Because the original tables contained inconsistent denominators of 25, 50, and 20, unverified percentages are not reproduced in this revised report. The findings are interpreted in relation to the marginal phonemic status of /ħ/, dialectal practice, limited explicit phonetic instruction, and uneven exposure to stable pronunciation models. The study recommends integrated perception-production training, articulatory explanation, visual and acoustic modelling, and repeated contextualised practice. The findings should be treated as preliminary until the original item-level data are independently verified.