ʔ (majuscule: Ɂ, minuscule: ɂ), called glottal stop, is an alphabetic letter in some Latin alphabets, most notably in several

languages of Canada A multitude of languages have always been spoken in Canada. Prior to Canadian Confederation, Confederation, the territories that would become Canada were home to over 70 distinct languages across 12 or so language family, language families. Today ...

where it indicates a glottal stop sound. Such usage derives from

phonetic transcription Phonetic transcription (also known as Phonetic script or Phonetic notation) is the visual representation of speech sounds (or ''phonetics'') by means of symbols. The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, such as the ...

, for example the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ...

(IPA), that use this letter for the glottal stop sound. The letter derives graphically from use of the

apostrophe The apostrophe (, ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes: * The marking of the omission of one o ...

or the symbol ʾ for glottal stop.

Graphic variants

Where is not available, not being in the basic Latin alphabet, it is sometimes replaced by a

question mark The question mark (also known as interrogation point, query, or eroteme in journalism) is a punctuation, punctuation mark that indicates a question or interrogative clause or phrase in many languages. History The history of the question mark is ...

, which is its official representation in the

SAMPA The Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (SAMPA) is a computer-readable phonetic script using 7-bit printable ASCII characters, based on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). It was originally developed in the late 1980s for six Europ ...

transcription scheme. In Skwomesh or Squamish, may be replaced by the digit (see image). In Unicode, four graphic variants of the glottal stop letter are available. * Unicase () is provided for the

and Americanist phonetic notation. It is found in a number of orthographies that use the IPA/APA symbol, such as those of several

Salishan languages The Salishan languages ( ), also known as the Salish languages ( ), are a Language family, family of languages found in the Pacific Northwest in North America, namely the Canadian province of British Columbia and the American states of Washingt ...

. * A case pair, uppercase () and lowercase (), is provided for the orthographies of

Athabaskan languages Athabaskan ( ; also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large branch of the Na-Dene languages, Na-Dene language family of North America, located in western North America in three areal language ...

in the

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-largest and the most populous of Provinces and territorie ...

. Uppercase may be slightly wider than unicase in fonts that distinguish them. * Superscript () that is used in Cayuga, the IPA and the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet.

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, , which is probably the most common (and the direct ancestor of ), the 6-shaped ʻokina of Hawaiian, , and the straight-apostrophe shaped saltillo of many languages of Mexico, which has the case forms .

Usage

Technical transcription

* Americanist phonetic notation and the

—unicase ʔ or superscript ˀ * Transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages—occasionally unicase ʔ * Uralic Phonetic Alphabet—superscript ˀ only

Vernacular orthographies

Languages of Canada A multitude of languages have always been spoken in Canada. Prior to Canadian Confederation, Confederation, the territories that would become Canada were home to over 70 distinct languages across 12 or so language family, language families. Today ...

** Chipewyan—uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ɂ ** Dogrib—uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ɂ ** Kootenai—unicase ʔ ** Musqueam language—unicase ʔ ** Nootka—unicase ʔ ** Slavey—uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ɂ ** Nitinaht—unicase ʔ ** Thompson—unicase ʔ ** Lushootseed—unicase ʔ ** Squamish language, where it is sometimes represented with . ** Tuscarora—uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ɂ * Cameroon ** Mendankwe-Nkwen—uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ɂ * Côte d’Ivoire ** Abidji—unicase ʔ ** Cebaara—unicase ʔ ** Nyarafolo—unicase ʔ ** Tagwana—unicase ʔ * Mali ** Tamasheq—unicase ʔ * Senegal ** Hassanya—unicase ʔ as uppercase and lowercase ʼ ** Laalaa—uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ʼ

Computing codes

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

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.

References

External links

* {{Latin script

Glottal stop The glottal stop or glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many Speech communication, spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic ...