Voiceless uvular plosive
The
voiceless uvular plosive is a type of
consonantal sound, used in some
spoken languages. It is pronounced like [k], except that the tongue makes contact not on the hard palate but on the
uvula. The symbol in the
International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent
X-SAMPA symbol is
q.
Features of the voiceless uvular plosive:
* Its
manner of articulation is
plosive or stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
* Its
place of articulation is
uvular which means it is articulated with the back of the
tongue (the dorsum) against or near the
uvula.
* Its
phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
* It is an
oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
* It is a
central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
* The
airstream mechanism is
pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the
lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the
glottis or the mouth.
Arabic and
Syriac use this sound
phonemically, and it is represented by the letters ﻕ (Qaf) and ܩ (Qōph), respectively, as in the names
Iraq and
Qatar. Specific dialects of
Hebrew also have this sound, written with the letter ק (
Qoph, which has a phonetic value of [k] in
Israeli Hebrew).
Kazakh and
Uzbek represent this sound as Қ in the
Cyrillic alphabet.
Uvular [q] is also found in nearly every language in the northwest of
North America, as in
Tlingit tree spine. It is also in
Inuktitut, for example in
explore (
Inuktitut syllabary : ᐃ"ᐃᑉᕆᐅᖅᑐᖅ)
*
List of phonetics topics
