Glottal stop

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Glottal stop

The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless
Voiceless

In linguistics, the term voiceless describes the pronunciation of sounds when the larynx does not vibrate. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of phonation....
glottal
Glottal

Glottal can mean:*related to the glottis.*related to the vocal folds.*glottal consonant.*related to glottalization....
plosive, is a type of consonant

Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx....
al sound which is used in many spoken language

Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
s. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet

International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic....
that represents this sound is . The glottal stop is the sound made when the vocal cords (vocal folds

Vocal folds

The vocal folds, also known commonly as vocal cords, are composed of twin infoldings of mucous membrane stretched horizontally across the larynx....
) are (1) drawn together by muscular action to interrupt the flow of air being expelled from the lungs and then (2) released as pressure builds up below them; for example, the break separating the syllables of the interjection

Interjection

An interjection is a part of speech that usually has no grammatical connection with the rest of the Sentence and simply expresses emotion on the part of the speaker, although most interjections have clear definitions....
uh-oh

Uh-oh (expression)

For other uses, see Uh OhUh-oh! is a ubiquitous interjection or expression of dismay in the English language it usually is said after something bad has happened....
.

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Encyclopedia

Consonant

Language

International Phonetic Alphabet

Vocal folds

Interjection

Uh-oh (expression)

For other uses, see Uh OhUh-oh! is a ubiquitous interjection or expression of dismay in the English language it usually is said after something bad has happened....
. Strictly, the perception that it is a consonantal sound is produced by the release; the closure phase is necessarily silent because during it there is no airflow and the vocal cords are immobilized. It is called the glottal stop because the technical term for the gap between the vocal cords, which is closed up in the production of this sound, is the glottis

Glottis

The glottis defined as the combination of the vocal folds and the space in between the folds ....
. The term "glottal stop" is one of rather few technical terms of linguistics which have become well known outside the specialism.

Phonology and symbolization of the glottal stop in selected languages

While this segment

Segment (linguistics)

In linguistics , the term segment may be defined as "any discrete unit that can be identified, either physically or auditorily, in the stream of speech."...
is not a phoneme

Phoneme

In human language, a phoneme is the smallest posited linguistically distinctive unit of sound. Phonemes carry no semantic content themselves. In theoretical terms, phonemes are not the physical segment s themselves, but cognitive abstractions or categorizations of them....
in English, it is present phonetically in nearly all dialects of English as an allophone

Allophone

In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds that belong to the same phoneme. A phoneme is an abstract unit of speech sound that can distinguish words: That is, changing a phoneme in a word can produce another word....
of /t/. Most British English speakers will use it for the first "t" in fortnight, where a consonant follows immediately; speakers of Cockney and many other dialects will also use it for the "t" between vowels in city. It is variably present at word boundaries where a vowel follows at the beginning of the next word, as with the final "t" of "sort" in sort of.

Another common usage of the glottal stop as an allophone to 't' more commonly found in North America is in the environment in which the 't' is immediately followed by a non-syllabic 'n' sound, as in mutant or important.

In many languages which do not allow a sequence of spoken vowel sounds, such as Persian, the glottal stop may be used to break up such a sequence. There are intricate interactions between falling tone

Tone

Tone may refer to:...
and the glottal stop in the histories of such languages as Danish

Danish language

Danish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the status of minority language....
(cf. stød

Stød

St?d is a suprasegmental unit of Danish language phonology, which in its most common form is a kind of creaky voice , but may also be realized as a glottal stop, above all in emphatic pronunciation....
), Chinese and Thai

Thai language

Thai , is the national language and official language language of Thailand and the mother tongue of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group....
.

In the traditional Romanization

Romanization

In linguistics, romanization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Latin alphabet, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system ....
of many languages, such as Arabic, the glottal stop is transcribed with an apostrophe, <’>, and this is the source of the IPA letter . In many Polynesian languages which use the Latin alphabet, however, the glottal stop is written with a reversed apostrophe, <‘> (called ‘okina in Hawaiian

Hawaiian language

The Hawaiian language is an Austronesian languages that takes its name from Hawaii , the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed....
), which, confusingly, is also used to transcribe the Arabic ayin

Ayin

' or ' is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic language, Hebrew language and Arabic alphabet ....
and is the source of the IPA character for the voiced pharyngeal fricative

Voiced pharyngeal fricative

The voiced pharyngeal approximant/fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents it is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ?....
<>. In Malay

Malay language

The Malay language is an Austronesian languages spoken by the Malays and people of other ethnic groups who reside in Peninsular Malaysia, southern Thailand, Singapore, central eastern Sumatra, the Riau Islands and parts of the coast of Borneo....
, it is represented by the letter , and in Võro

Voro language

The Voro language can refer to two different languages:# Voro language ? an Adamawa languages language of Nigeria.# V?ro language ? a Finno-Ugric languages language of Estonia....
and Maltese

Maltese language

Maltese is the national language of Malta, and a co-official Languages of Malta alongside English language,while also serving as an Languages of the European Union European Union, the only Semitic languages so distinguished....
by . Representing the glottal stop is one of the functions of the Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
letter aleph

Aleph

* Aleph or Alef is the first letter of the Semitic abjads descended from Proto-Canaanite alphabet, Arabic alphabet, Phoenician alphabet, Hebrew alphabet, Syriac alphabet....
.

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 also in Modern German

German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
and Hausa

Hausa language

Hausa is the Chadic languages with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 24 million people, and as a second language by about 15 million more....
). Some orthographies employ a hyphen, instead of the reverse apostrophe, if the glottal stop occurs in the middle of the word (e.g. Tagalog pag-ibig 'love'). When it occurs in the end of a Tagalog word, the last vowel is written with a circumflex accent (if the accent is on the last syllable) or a grave accent

Grave accent

The grave accent is a diacritical mark used in written Catalan language, French language, Greek language until 1982 , Italian language, Norwegian language, Occitan language, Portuguese language, Scottish Gaelic language, Vietnamese language, Welsh language, Dutch language, and other languages....
(if the accent occurs at the penultimate syllable).

Phonetic and phonological features

Features of the glottal stop:

Its airstream mechanism
Airstream mechanism

In phonetics, the airstream mechanism is the method by which airflow is created in the vocal tract. Along with phonation, it is one of two mandatory aspects of sound production; without these, there can be no speech sound....
is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lung
Lung

The lung is the essential respiration organ in air-breathing animals, including most tetrapods, a few fish and a few snails. In mammals and the more complex life forms, the two lungs are located in the chest on either side of the heart....
s and through the vocal tract, rather than being initiated from the glottis
Glottis

The glottis defined as the combination of the vocal folds and the space in between the folds ....
or from a velic closure.
Its place of articulation
Place of articulation

In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact, where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an active articulator and a passive articulator ....
is glottal
Glottal consonant

Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider them to be consonants at all....
which means it is articulated at and by the vocal cords (vocal folds
Vocal folds

The vocal folds, also known commonly as vocal cords, are composed of twin infoldings of mucous membrane stretched horizontally across the larynx....
).
Its manner of articulation
Manner of articulation

In linguistics , manner of articulation describes how the tongue, lips, jaw, and other speech organs are involved in making a sound make contact....
is plosive
Stop consonant

A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. The terms plosive and stop are usually used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms....
or stop, which means it is produced by completely obstructing the airflow in the vocal tract.
Its phonation
Phonation

Phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, phonation is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration....
type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibration of the vocal cords; necessarily so, because the vocal cords are held tightly together, preventing vibration.
It is an oral consonant
Oral consonant

An oral consonant is a consonant sound in Speech communication that is made by allowing air to escape from the mouth, as opposed to the nose. To create an intended oral consonant sound, the entire mouth plays a role in modifying the air's passageway....
, which means the air released when the closure is relaxed is allowed to escape through the mouth rather than the nasal cavity
Nasal cavity

The nasal cavity is a large air-filled space above and behind the nose in the middle of the face....
.
Because it is pronounced in the larynx, situated in the windpipe; i.e. it has no component involved in the description of movements of the organs of the mouth, for example the tongue, so the central
Central consonant

A central or medial consonant is a consonant sound that is produced when air flows across the center of the mouth over the tongue.Examples of central consonants are the voiceless velar plosive , the voiced alveolar fricative and the alveolar nasal ....
/lateral
Lateral consonant

Laterals are "L"-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue....
dichotomy does not apply, and nor do the tongue-front features such as coronal
Coronal

Coronal may refer to:* anything relating to a corona* Coronal loop* In linguistics, coronals refer to coronal consonants.* In zoology, the coronal plane is an anatomical term of location...
and distributed.

Occurrence

Language		Word	Meaning	Notes
Abkhaz Abkhaz language Abkhaz is a Northwest Caucasian languages spoken mainly by the Abkhaz people in Georgia , Turkey, and in Abkhazia, the republic that is generally accepted as part of Georgia, but that is recognized as independent by Russia and Nicaragua....			'no'	See Abkhaz phonology Abkhaz phonology Abkhaz language is a language of the Northwest Caucasian languages which, like the other Northwest Caucasian languages, is very rich in consonants. Abkhaz has a large consonantal inventory that contrasts over 50 consonants in the literary Abzhywa Abkhaz dialect, coupled with just two phonemic vowels....
Arabic Arabic language Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....	Standard		'God, 'Allah Allah Allah is the standard Arabic language word for God. While the term is best known in the Western world for its use by Muslims as a reference to God, it is used by Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, in reference to "God".... '	See Arabic phonology Arabic phonology While many languages have numerous dialects that differ in phonology, the Arabic language is more properly described as a varieties of Arabic or Macrolanguage....
	Metropolitan dialects	??? Arabic alphabet The Arabic alphabet is the writing system used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic language, Persian language, and Urdu language....	'apartment'
Bikol Bikol language Central Bicolano , is one of the individual languages of the Bikol language , which in is part of the group of Bikol languages. It belongs to Coastal Bikol....			'new'
Burmese Burmese language The Burmese language is the official language of Burma. Although the government officially recognizes the language as Myanmar in English, most continue to refer to the language as Burmese....			'rivers'
Cebuano Cebuano language Cebuano is an Austronesian language language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people. It is the largest member of the Visayan languages, and is also referred to as "Visayan"....			'new'
Chamorro Chamorro language It is an agglutinative language, grammatically allowing root words to be modified by an unlimited number of affixes. For example, masanganen?aihon "talked awhile ", passivizing prefix ma-, root verb sangan, directional suffix i "to" with excrescent consonant n, and suffix ?aihon "a short amount of time"....			'shark'
Chechen Chechen language The Chechen language is spoken by more than 1.3 million people, mostly in Chechnya and by Chechen people elsewhere....		/	'three'
Chinese Chinese language Chinese or the Sinitic language is a language family consisting of language mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan languages of languages....	Shanghainese Shanghainese Shanghainese , sometimes referred to as the Shanghai dialect, is a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken in the city of Shanghai, and the surrounding region....	/	'superb'
Czech Czech language Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czech people worldwide....			'to use'	See Czech phonology Czech phonology For assistance in making phonetic transcriptions of Czech for Wikipedia articles, see WP:IPA for CzechThis article discusses the phonology system of the Czech language...
Danish Danish language Danish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the status of minority language....			'hand'	See Danish phonology Danish phonology Consonants Danish has 17 to 19 consonants, depending on analysis: are voiceless and Aspiration : . are voiceless and lenis: . , and are distinguished only in word-initial position or at the beginning of a stressed syllable....
Dutch Dutch language Dutch is a West Germanic languages spoken by over 22 million people as a first language, and about 5 million people as a second language."1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language speakers of Dutch is very small. Most native...			'to confirm'	See Dutch phonology Dutch phonology Dutch is a Germanic language and as such has a similar phonology to other Germanic languages . The Dutch as spoken in Haarlem is popularly said to be closest to northern ?Standard? Dutch, not the Amsterdam dialect....
English English language English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...	Cockney Cockney The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End of London....		'cat'	Allophone of . See glottalization Glottalization Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and voiced consonants is most often realized as creaky voice .... and English phonology English phonology English phonology is the study of the phonology of the English language. Like all languages, spoken English has wide variation in its pronunciation both Historical linguistics and Descriptive linguistics from dialect to dialect....
	GA General American General American is an accent of American English. Within American English, General American and accents approximating it are contrasted with Southern American English, several U.S....		'cat'
	RP Received Pronunciation Received Pronunciation is a form of pronunciation of the English language which has long been perceived as uniquely prestigious amongst British Accent .... or GA General American General American is an accent of American English. Within American English, General American and accents approximating it are contrasted with Southern American English, several U.S....	button English orthography English orthography is the alphabetic Orthography system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of rules that generally governs how speech sounds are represented in writing....	'button'
Scottish Dialect Scottish English Scottish English refers to the Variety of English language spoken in Scotland. It may or may not include Scots language depending on the observer....
Finnish Finnish language Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by Finnish people outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden....			'bus'	See Finnish phonology Finnish phonology This article deals with the sound patterns of the Finnish language. The Finnish grammar and the way in which Spoken Finnish are dealt with in separate articles....
German German language German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....	northern dialects German dialects German dialect is dominated by the geographical spread of the High German consonant shift, and the dialect continuum that connects the German language with the Dutch language....		'civil servant'	See German phonology German phonology This article is about the phonology of the German language based on the Standard German. It deals with current phonology and phonetics as well as with historical developments thereof, including geographical variants ....
Guaraní Guaraní language Guaran? is an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tup?-Guaran? subfamily of the Tupian languages. It is one of the official languages of Paraguay , where it is spoken by 94% of the population....			'Guaraní'	Occurs only between vowels
Hawaiian Hawaiian language The Hawaiian language is an Austronesian languages that takes its name from Hawaii , the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed....			'black'	See Hawaiian phonology Hawaiian phonology This article is a linguistic description of the phonology system of Hawaiian language based on documented experiences of the people who developed the Hawaiian alphabet during the 1820s and scholarly research on the Hawaiian language conducted by lexicographers and linguists from 1949 to present....
Hebrew Hebrew language Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....			'article'	See Hebrew phonology Hebrew phonology This article is about the phonology of the Hebrew language based on the Israeli Hebrew. It deals with current phonology and phonetics as well as with historical developments thereof, including geographical variants....
Indonesian Indonesian language Indonesian is the official national language of Indonesia. It is based on a version of Malay language from the Riau islands in western Indonesia, today called Riau Indonesian....			'meatball'
Kabardian Kabardian language The Kabardian language is closely related to the Adyghe language , both members of the Northwest Caucasian languages family. It is spoken mainly in the Russian republics of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia and in Turkey and the Middle East ....			'to tell'
Maltese Maltese language Maltese is the national language of Malta, and a co-official Languages of Malta alongside English language,while also serving as an Languages of the European Union European Union, the only Semitic languages so distinguished....			'cat'
Persian Persian language name=Persian\|nativename=\|pronunciation=[f??r'si]\|image=\|caption=Farsi in Perso-Arabic script \|states= Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Bahrain....			'meaning'	See Persian phonology Persian phonology The Persian language has six vowel phonemes and twenty-three consonant phonemes. It features contrastive stress and syllable-final consonant clusters....
Pirahã Pirahã language Pirah? is a language spoken by the Pirah? people — an indigenous people of Amazonas , Brazil, who live along the Maici river, a tributary of the Amazon River....			'parent'
Rotuman Rotuman language Rotuman, also referred to as Rotunan, Rutuman or F?eag Rotuma, is an Austronesian languages spoken by the indigenous people of the Oceania island group of Rotuma, an island with a Polynesian culture-influenced culture that was incorporated as a dependency into the Colony of Fiji in 1881....		Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....	'to box'
Seri Seri language Seri is a language isolate spoken by the Seri in two villages on the coast of Sonora, Mexico....			'I'
Tagalog Tagalog language Tagalog is one of the major languages used in the Philippines. It is a basis for the Filipino language, which is the principal language of the national television and radio, though broadsheet newspapers are almost completely in English....			'will urinate'
Tahitian Tahitian language Tahitian, a Tahitic languages, is one of the two official languages of French Polynesia . It is an Eastern Polynesian language closely related to Rarotongan language, Maori language, and Hawaiian language....		puaa Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....	'pig'
Tongan Tongan language Tongan is an Austronesian languages language spoken in Tonga. It has around 100,000 speakers and is a national language of Tonga. It is a Verb Subject Object language....		tuu Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....	'stand'
Vietnamese Vietnamese language Vietnamese , formerly known under French colonization as Annamese , is the national language and official language language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of the Vietnamese people , who constitute 86% of Demographics of Vietnam, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese, most of whom live in the United States....			'by the way'	See Vietnamese phonology Vietnamese phonology This article is a technical description the sound system of the Vietnamese language, including phonetics and phonology....
Võro Voro language The Voro language can refer to two different languages:# Voro language ? an Adamawa languages language of Nigeria.# V?ro language ? a Finno-Ugric languages language of Estonia....		piniq Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....	'dogs'
Welayta Welayta language Wolaytta is an Omotic languages language spoken in the Wolaita Zone and some parts of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region of Ethiopia....			'wet'
Yapese Yapese language Yapese is a language spoken by 6,600 people on the island of Yap .It belongs to the Austronesian languages, more specifically to the Oceanic languages....

Glottal stop

Phonology and symbolization of the glottal stop in selected languages

Phonetic and phonological features

Occurrence

See also

Bibliography