A discussion of pharyngeal fricatives in Arabic looks at voiced and voiceless varieties within the context of K. L. Pike's classifications. Pike treated pharyngeal fricatives as standing apart from others, including a number of oral fricatives and one glottal fricative in a category he called "frictionals." Later, however, he distinguished the categories of fricatives and resonants differently, and reclassified pharyngeal fricatives as resonant orals. Having categorized pharyngeal fricatives as both frictional and resonant, he led to their also being categorized as pharyngeal vocoids rather than contoids. Pike's separation of pharyngeal fricatives from the other lingual fricatives is criticized as resulting from inconsistency in the definition of the oral cavities used in articulation. An alternative analysis is offered. A 14-item bibliography is included. (MSE)