Consonants /ʒ/ versus /h/, 4 pairs
[giteheat.html]

The /ʒ/ sound is spelled with <g> or <j>. The /h/ sound is spelled with <h>.

This is a contrast between a voiced alveolar fricative and a voiceless glottal fricative. Since /h/ can only occur initially and /ʒ/ only medially or finally except in words of French origin such as gendarme, no pairs showed up in the dictionary search. I have identified several that might occur, though it could be disputed whether these are genuinely English words.


gîte heat
  gîtes heats
Jacques hack	   
jolie holly

John Higgins, Shaftesbury, December 2010
updated Chiang Mai, 2025