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Glottal stop
ʔ
IPA number	113
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʔ
Unicode (hex)	U+0294
X-SAMPA	?
Braille
Image

The glottal stop or glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʔ⟩.

As a result of the obstruction of the airflow in the glottis, the glottal vibration either stops or becomes irregular with a low rate and sudden drop in intensity.

Features

Features of the glottal stop:

• Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also oral, with no nasal outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely, and the consonant is a plosive.
• Its place of articulation is glottal, which means it is articulated at and by the vocal cords (vocal folds).
• It has no phonation at all, as there is no airflow through the glottis. It is voiceless, however, in the sense that it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the central–lateral dichotomy does not apply.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Writing

In the traditional romanization of many languages, such as Arabic, the glottal stop is transcribed with the apostrophe ⟨ʼ⟩ or the symbol ⟨ʾ⟩, which is the source of the IPA character ⟨ʔ⟩. In many Polynesian languages that use the Latin alphabet, however, the glottal stop is written with a rotated apostrophe, ⟨ʻ⟩ (called ʻokina in Hawaiian and Samoan), which is commonly used to transcribe the Arabic ayin as well (also ⟨ʽ⟩) and is the source of the IPA character for the voiced pharyngeal fricative ⟨ʕ⟩. In Malay the glottal stop is represented by the letter ⟨k⟩ (at the end of words), in Võro and Maltese by ⟨q⟩. Another way of writing the glottal stop is the saltillo ⟨Ꞌ ꞌ⟩, used in languages such as Tlapanec and Rapa Nui.

Other scripts also have letters used for representing the glottal stop, such as the Hebrew letter aleph ⟨א‎⟩ and the Cyrillic letter palochka ⟨Ӏ⟩, used in several Caucasian languages. The Arabic script uses hamza ⟨ء⟩, which can appear both as a diacritic and as an independent letter (though not part of the alphabet). In Tundra Nenets, it is represented by the letters apostrophe ⟨ʼ⟩ and double apostrophe ⟨ˮ⟩. In Japanese, glottal stops occur at the end of interjections of surprise or anger and are represented by the character ⟨っ⟩.

In the graphic representation of most Philippine languages, the glottal stop has no consistent symbolization. In most cases, however, a word that begins with a vowel-letter (e.g. Tagalog aso, "dog") is always pronounced with an unrepresented glottal stop before that vowel (as in Modern German and Hausa). Some orthographies use a hyphen instead of the reverse apostrophe if the glottal stop occurs in the middle of the word (e.g. Tagalog pag-ibig, "love"; or Visayan gabi-i, "night"). If it occurs in the end of a word, the last vowel can be written with a circumflex accent (known as the pakupyâ) if both a stress and a glottal stop occur in the final vowel (e.g. basâ, "wet") or a grave accent (known as the paiwà) if the glottal stop occurs at the final vowel, but the stress occurs at the penultimate syllable (e.g. batà, "child").

Some Canadian indigenous languages, especially some of the Salishan languages, have adopted the IPA letter ⟨ʔ⟩ into their orthographies. In some of them, it occurs as a casing pair, ⟨Ɂ⟩ and ⟨ɂ⟩. The digit ⟨7⟩ or a question mark is sometimes substituted for ⟨ʔ⟩, and is preferred in languages such as Squamish. SENĆOŦEN – whose alphabet is mostly unique from other Salish languages – contrastly uses the comma ⟨,⟩ to represent the glottal stop, though it is optional.

In 2015, two women in the Northwest Territories challenged the territorial government over its refusal to permit them to use the letter ⟨ʔ⟩ in their daughters' names: Sahaiʔa, a Chipewyan name, and Sakaeʔah, a Slavey name (the two names are actually cognates). The territory argued that territorial and federal identity documents were unable to accommodate the character. The women registered the names with hyphens instead of the ⟨ʔ⟩, while continuing to challenge the policy.

In the Crow language, the glottal stop is written as a question mark ⟨?⟩. The only instance of the glottal stop in Crow is as a question marker morpheme at the end of a sentence.

Use of the glottal stop is a distinct characteristic of the Southern Mainland Argyll dialects of Scottish Gaelic. In such a dialect, the standard Gaelic phrase Tha Gàidhlig agam ("I speak Gaelic"), would be rendered Tha Gàidhlig a'am.

In the Nawdm language of Ghana, the glottal stop is written ɦ, capital Ĥ.

In English

Replacement of /t/

In English, the glottal stop occurs as an open juncture (for example, between the vowel sounds in uh-oh!,) and allophonically in t-glottalization. In British English, the glottal stop is most familiar in the Cockney pronunciation of "butter" as "bu'er". Geordie English often uses glottal stops for t, k, and p, and has a unique form of glottalization. Additionally, there is the glottal stop as a null onset for English; in other words, it is the non-phonemic glottal stop occurring before isolated or initial vowels.

Often a glottal stop happens at the beginning of vowel phonation after a silence.

Although this segment is not a phoneme in English, it occurs phonetically in nearly all dialects of English, as an allophone of /t/ in the syllable coda. Speakers of Cockney, Scottish English and several other British dialects also pronounce an intervocalic /t/ between vowels as in city. In Received Pronunciation, a glottal stop is inserted before a tautosyllabic voiceless stop: stoʼp, thaʼt, knoʼck, waʼtch, also leaʼp, soaʼk, helʼp, pinʼch.

In American English, a "t" is usually not aspirated in syllables ending either in a vowel + "t", such as "cat" or "outside"; or in a "t" + unstressed vowel + "n", such as "mountain" or "Manhattan". This is referred to as a "held t" as the airflow is stopped by tongue at the ridge behind the teeth. However, there is a trend of younger speakers in the Mid-Atlantic states to replace the "held t" with a glottal stop, so that "Manhattan" sounds like "Man-haʔ-in" or "Clinton" like "Cli(n)ʔ-in", where "ʔ" is the glottal stop. This may have crossed over from African American Vernacular English, particularly that of New York City.

Before initial vowels

Most English speakers today often use a glottal stop before the initial vowel of words beginning with a vowel, particularly at the beginning of sentences or phrases or when a word is emphasized. This is also known as "hard attack". Traditionally in Received Pronunciation, "hard attack" was seen as a way to emphasize a word. Today, in British, American and other varieties of English, it is increasingly used not only to emphasize but also simply to separate two words, especially when the first word ends in a glottal stop.

Occurrence in other languages

In many languages that do not allow a sequence of vowels, such as Persian, the glottal stop may be used epenthetically to prevent such a hiatus. There are intricate interactions between falling tone and the glottal stop in the histories of such languages as Danish (see stød), Cantonese and Thai.

In many languages, the unstressed intervocalic allophone of the glottal stop is a creaky-voiced glottal approximant. It is known to be contrastive in only one language, Gimi, in which it is the voiced equivalent of the stop.

In some languages that normally maintain the flow of vowels fluid, a glottal stop can be added exceptionally for emphatic reasons in particular circumstances. For instance, although the Latin language would normally avoid glottal stops, the hexameter requires the reader to produce a glottal stop – to be regarded by all means as a consontant – before odiīs (i.e. "jactētur ʔodiīs") in verse 668 of Virgil's Aeneid:

lītora jactētur odiīs Jūnōnis inīquae

The table below demonstrates how widely the sound of glottal stop is found among the world's spoken languages:

See also

• Saltillo
• Index of phonetics articles
• Hamza
• Voiced pharyngeal fricative

References

1. ^ Umeda, Noriko (1978). "Occurrence of Glottal Stops in Fluent Speech". The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 64 (1): 88–94. Bibcode:1978ASAJ...64...88U. doi:10.1121/1.381959. PMID 712005.
2. Catford, J. C. (1990). "Glottal Consonants … Another View". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 20 (2): 25–26. doi:10.1017/S0025100300004229. JSTOR 44526803. S2CID 144421504.
3. Morrow, Paul (March 16, 2011). "The Basics of Filipino Pronunciation: Part 2 of 3 • Accent Marks". Pilipino Express. Archived from the original on December 27, 2011. Retrieved July 18, 2012.
4. Nolasco, Ricardo M. D., Grammar Notes on the National Language (PDF).
5. Schoellner, Joan; Heinle, Beverly D., eds. (2007). Tagalog Reading Booklet (PDF). Simon & Schister's Pimsleur. pp. 5–6. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-11-27. Retrieved 2012-07-18.
6. Proposal to Add Latin Small Letter Glottal Stop to the UCS (PDF), 2005-08-10, archived (PDF) from the original on 2011-09-26, retrieved 2011-10-26.
7. Browne, Rachel (12 March 2015). "What's in A Name? a Chipewyan's Battle Over Her Native Tongue". Maclean's. Archived from the original on 4 April 2015. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
8. Graczyk, Randolph (2007). A grammar of Crow = Apsáalooke Aliláau. Bloomington. American Indian Studies Research Institute Indiana University. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-2196-3. OCLC 104894214.
9. Mastering Hebrew. Barron's. 1988. ISBN 0-8120-3990-4. Archived from the original on 2020-08-01. Retrieved 2016-11-26.
10. Brown, Gillian (1977). Listening to Spoken English. London: Longman. p. 27.
11. Kortlandt, Frederik (1993), General Linguistics & Indo-European Reconstruction (PDF), archived (PDF) from the original on 2011-06-08, retrieved 2009-08-23 – via kortlandt.nl.
12. Yagoda, Ben (12 March 2012). "That Way They Talk II". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Archived from the original on 21 Jan 2022.
13. Eddington, David; Channer, Caitlin (2010-08-01). "American English Has Goʔ A Loʔ Of Glottal Stops: Social Diffusion and Linguistic Motivation". American Speech. 85 (3): 338–351. doi:10.1215/00031283-2010-019. ISSN 0003-1283.
14. ^ Lindsey, Geoff (2019). English After RP: Standard British Pronunciation Today. Springer. pp. 89–92. ISBN 978-3-030-04357-5. Retrieved 27 February 2023.
15. ^ Katz, William F. (5 September 2013). Phonetics for Dummies. John Wiley & Sons. p. 137. ISBN 978-1-118-50508-3. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
16. Garellek, Marc. "Glottal stops before word-initial vowels in American English: distribution and acoustic characteristics" (PDF). UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics. 110: 1–23. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
17. Thelwall (1990:37)
18. Watson (2002:17)
19. Dendane, Zoubir (2013). "The Stigmatisation of the Glottal Stop in Tlemcen Speech Community: An Indicator of Dialect Shift". The International Journal of Linguistics and Literature. 2 (3): 1–10. Archived from the original on 2019-01-06.
20. Gussenhoven (1992:45)
21. Sivertsen (1960:111)
22. Roach (2004:240)
23. Ladefoged (2005:139)
24. Clark, Yallop & Fletcher (2007:105)
25. Yager, Joanne; Burtenhult, Niclas (2017). "Jedek: A Newly-Discovered Aslian Variety of Malaysia" (PDF). Linguistic Typology. 21 (3): 493–545. doi:10.1515/lingty-2017-0012. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-002E-7CD2-7. S2CID 126145797. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-08-07. Retrieved 2018-08-07.
26. Olson et al. (2010:206–207)
27. Cruz, Aline da (2011). Fonologia e Gramática do Nheengatú: A língua geral falada pelos povos Baré, Warekena e Baniwa [Phonology and Grammar of Nheengatú: The general language spoken by the Baré, Warekena and Baniwa peoples] (PDF) (Doctor thesis) (in Portuguese). Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. ISBN 978-94-6093-063-8. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 7, 2014.
28. Veloso, João; Martins, Pedro Tiago (2013). O Arquivo Dialetal do CLUP: disponibilização on-line de um corpus dialetal do português. XXVIII Encontro Nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística, Coimbra, APL (in Portuguese). pp. 673–692. ISBN 978-989-97440-2-8. Archived from the original on 2014-03-06.
29. Phonetic Symbols for Portuguese Phonetic Transcription (PDF), October 2012, archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-11-08 – via users.ox.ac.uk. In European Portuguese, the "é é" interjection usually employs an epenthetic /i/, being pronounced instead.
30. It may be used mostly as a general call of attention for disapproval, disagreement or inconsistency, but also serves as a synonym of the multiuse expression "eu, hein!". (in Portuguese) How to say 'eu, hein' in English – Adir Ferreira Idiomas Archived 2013-07-08 at the Wayback Machine
31. Blevins (1994:492)
32. Grimaldi, Lucia; Mensching, Guido, eds. (2004). Su sardu limba de Sardigna et limba de Europa (PDF). Cooperativa Universitaria Editrice Cagliaritana. pp. 110–111. ISBN 88-8467-170-1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-12-05.
33. ^ Landau et al. (1999:67)
34. Edmondson, J. A.; Esling, J. H.; Harris, J. G., Supraglottal Cavity Shape, Linguistic Register, and Other Phonetic Features of Somali, CiteSeerX 10.1.1.570.821.
35. Chappell, Whitney, The Hypo-Hyperarticulation Continuum in Nicaraguan Spanish (PDF), archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-03-07, retrieved 2014-03-07 – via nwav42.pitt.edu.
36. Michnowicz, Jim; Carpenter, Lindsey, Voiceless Stop Aspiration in Yucatán Spanish: A Sociolinguistic Analysis (PDF), archived (PDF) from the original on 2014-03-07, retrieved 2014-03-07 – via etd.lib.ncsu.edu.
37. Thompson (1959:458–461)

Bibliography

• Blevins, Juliette (1994), "The Bimoraic Foot in Rotuman Phonology and Morphology", Oceanic Linguistics, 33 (2): 491–516, doi:10.2307/3623138, JSTOR 3623138
• Clark, John Ellery; Yallop, Colin; Fletcher, Janet (2007), An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology, Wiley-Blackwell, ISBN 978-1-4051-3083-7, archived from the original on 2016-06-10, retrieved 2015-11-22
• Gussenhoven, Carlos (1992), "Dutch", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 22 (2): 45–47, doi:10.1017/S002510030000459X, S2CID 243772965
• Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell, ISBN 0-631-21411-9
• Landau, Ernestina; Lončarić, Mijo; Horga, Damir; Škarić, Ivo (1999), "Croatian", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 66–69, ISBN 0-521-65236-7
• Olson, Kenneth; Mielke, Jeff; Sanicas-Daguman, Josephine; Pebley, Carol Jean; Paterson, Hugh J. III (2010), "The Phonetic Status of The (Inter)dental Approximant" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 40 (2): 199–215, doi:10.1017/S0025100309990296, S2CID 38504322, archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-12-16, retrieved 2019-09-26
• Roach, Peter (2004), "British English: Received Pronunciation", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (2): 239–245, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001768
• Schane, Sanford A. (1968), French Phonology and Morphology, Boston, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, ISBN 0-262-19040-0
• Sivertsen, Eva (1960), Cockney Phonology, Oslo: University of Oslo
• Thelwall, Robin (1990), "Illustrations of the IPA: Arabic", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 20 (2): 37–41, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004266, S2CID 243640727
• Thompson, Laurence (1959), "Saigon phonemics", Language, 35 (3): 454–476, doi:10.2307/411232, JSTOR 411232
• Watson, Janet (2002), The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic, New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-824137-2

External links

• List of languages with [ʔ] on PHOIBLE

v t e International Phonetic Alphabet (chart)
IPA topics IPA International Phonetic Association History of the alphabet Extensions for disordered speech (extIPA) Voice Quality Symbols (VoQS) Journal of the IPA (JIPA) Special topics Cursive forms Case variants Obsolete and nonstandard symbols Naming conventions Sinological extensions World Orthography IPA chart for English dialects Encodings ASCII encodings SAMPA X-SAMPA Kirshenbaum TIPA Phonetic symbols in Unicode IPA number IPA Braille
Consonants Pulmonic consonants Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Laryngeal Manner ↓ Bi­labial Labio­dental Linguo­labial Dental Alveolar Post­alveolar Retro­flex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn­geal/epi­glottal Glottal Nasal m̥ m ɱ̊ ɱ n̼ n̥ n ɳ̊ ɳ ɲ̊ ɲ ŋ̊ ŋ ɴ̥ ɴ Plosive p b p̪ b̪ t̼ d̼ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Sibilant affricate ts dz t̠ʃ d̠ʒ tʂ dʐ tɕ dʑ Non-sibilant affricate pɸ bβ p̪f b̪v t̪θ d̪ð tɹ̝̊ dɹ̝ t̠ɹ̠̊˔ d̠ɹ̠˔ cç ɟʝ kx ɡɣ qχ ɢʁ ʡʜ ʡʢ ʔh Sibilant fricative s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ Non-sibilant fricative ɸ β f v θ̼ ð̼ θ ð θ̠ ð̠ ɹ̠̊˔ ɹ̠˔ ɻ̊˔ ɻ˔ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ h ɦ Approximant ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ ʔ̞ Tap/flap ⱱ̟ ⱱ ɾ̼ ɾ̥ ɾ ɽ̊ ɽ ɢ̆ ʡ̆ Trill ʙ̥ ʙ r̥ r ɽ̊r̥ ɽr ʀ̥ ʀ ʜ ʢ Lateral affricate tɬ dɮ tꞎ d𝼅 c𝼆 ɟʎ̝ k𝼄 ɡʟ̝ Lateral fricative ɬ ɮ ꞎ 𝼅 𝼆 ʎ̝ 𝼄 ʟ̝ Lateral approximant l ɭ ʎ ʟ ʟ̠ Lateral tap/flap ɺ̥ ɺ 𝼈̥ 𝼈 ʎ̆ ʟ̆ IPA help  audio full chart template Symbols to the right in a cell are voiced, to the left are voiceless. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible. Non-pulmonic consonants BL LD D A PA RF P V U EG Ejective Stop pʼ tʼ ʈʼ cʼ kʼ qʼ ʡʼ Affricate p̪fʼ t̪θʼ tsʼ t̠ʃʼ tʂʼ tɕʼ kxʼ qχʼ Fricative ɸʼ fʼ θʼ sʼ ʃʼ ʂʼ ɕʼ xʼ χʼ Lateral affricate tɬʼ c𝼆ʼ k𝼄ʼ q𝼄ʼ Lateral fricative ɬʼ Click (top: velar; bottom: uvular) Tenuis kʘ qʘ kǀ qǀ kǃ qǃ k𝼊 q𝼊 kǂ qǂ Voiced ɡʘ ɢʘ ɡǀ ɢǀ ɡǃ ɢǃ ɡ𝼊 ɢ𝼊 ɡǂ ɢǂ Nasal ŋʘ ɴʘ ŋǀ ɴǀ ŋǃ ɴǃ ŋ𝼊 ɴ𝼊 ŋǂ ɴǂ ʞ   Tenuis lateral kǁ qǁ Voiced lateral ɡǁ ɢǁ Nasal lateral ŋǁ ɴǁ Implosive Voiced ɓ ɗ ᶑ ʄ ɠ ʛ Voiceless ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ᶑ̊ ʄ̊ ɠ̊ ʛ̥ IPA help  audio full chart template Co-articulated consonants Nasal n͡m Labial–alveolar ɳ͡m Labial–retroflex ŋ͡m Labial–velar Plosive t͡pd͡b Labial–alveolar ʈ͡pɖ͡b Labial–retroflex k͡pɡ͡b Labial–velar q͡ʡ Uvular–epiglottal q͡p Labial–uvular Fricative/approximant ɥ̊ɥ Labial–palatal ʍw Labial–velar ɧ Sj-sound (variable) Lateral approximant ɫ Velarized alveolar Implosive ɠ̊͜ɓ̥ ɠ͡ɓ Labial–velar Ejective t͡pʼ Labial–alveolar IPA help full chart template Other Nasal labial–velar approximant Nasal palatal approximant Voiceless bidental fricative Voiceless bilabially post-trilled dental stop Voiceless nasal glottal approximant
Vowels Front Central Back Close i y ɨ ʉ ɯ u Near-close ɪ ʏ ʊ Close-mid e ø ɘ ɵ ɤ o Mid e̞ ø̞ ə ɤ̞ o̞ Open-mid ɛ œ ɜ ɞ ʌ ɔ Near-open æ ɐ Open a ɶ ä ɑ ɒ IPA help  audio full chart template Legend: unrounded • rounded

• Glottal consonants
• Plosives
• Pulmonic consonants
• Oral consonants