Glottal stop (letter)

Glottal stop
Ɂ ʔ ɂ
Usage
Writing systemLatin script
Typealphabetic
Language of originAbidji language, Cayuga, Cebaara, Tsilhqotʼin, Chipewyan, Okanagan, Comox, Slavey, Hassaniya Arabic, Kutenai, Lushootseed, Nuu-chah-nulth, Nyarafolo, shíshálh, Tamasheq[citation needed], Thompson, Dogrib, Washo, Whulshootseed dialect, Wyandot
Phonetic usage[ʔ]
Unicode codepointU+0241, U+0294, U+0242
Alphabetical position15th
History
Development
Time perioduntil 1921
Transliteration equivalentsĶ
Other
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
Unicase and cased glottal-stop letters

The character ʔ called glottal stop, is an alphabetic letter in some Latin alphabets, most notably in several languages of Canada where it indicates a glottal stop sound. Such usage derives from phonetic transcription, for example the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), that use this letter for the glottal stop sound. The letter derives graphically from use of the apostrophe ʼ or the symbol ʾ for glottal stop.

Graphic variants

Road sign in British Columbia showing the use of the digit ⟨7⟩ to represent /ʔ/ in the Squamish language.

Where ⟨ʔ⟩ is not available, not being in the basic Latin alphabet, it is sometimes replaced by a question mark ⟨?⟩, which is its official representation in the SAMPA transcription scheme. In Skwomesh or Squamish, ⟨ʔ⟩ may be replaced by the digit ⟨7⟩ (see image).

In Unicode, four graphic variants of the glottal stop letter are available.

Other notations

Other common symbols for the glottal stop sound are variants of the punctuation mark apostrophe that was the historical basis of the glottal stop letters. These include the 9-shaped modifier letter apostrophe, ⟨ʼ⟩, which is probably the most common (and the direct ancestor of ⟨ʔ⟩), the 6-shaped ʻokina of Hawaiian, ⟨ʻ⟩, and the straight-apostrophe shaped saltillo of many languages of Mexico, which has the case forms ⟨Ꞌ ꞌ⟩.

Usage

Technical transcription

Vernacular orthographies

Computing codes

In Unicode 1.0, only the unicase and superscript variants were included. In version 4.1 (2005), an uppercase character was added, and the existing unicase character was redefined as its lowercase. Then, in version 5.0 (2006), it was decided to separate the cased and caseless usages by adding a dedicated lowercase letter. The IPA character is first from left, while the extended Latin alphabet characters are third and fourth from left.

Character ʔ ˀ Ɂ ɂ
Unicode name LATIN LETTER
GLOTTAL STOP
MODIFIER LETTER
GLOTTAL STOP
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER
GLOTTAL STOP
LATIN SMALL LETTER
GLOTTAL STOP
Character encoding decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 660 0294 704 02C0 577 0241 578 0242
UTF-8 202 148 CA 94 203 128 CB 80 201 129 C9 81 201 130 C9 82
Numeric character reference ʔ ʔ ˀ ˀ Ɂ Ɂ ɂ ɂ

See also


This page was last updated at 2024-01-20 11:46 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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