phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...

, a glottalic consonant is a

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

produced with some important contribution (movement or closure) of the

glottis The glottis (: glottises or glottides) is the opening between the vocal folds (the rima glottidis). The glottis is crucial in producing sound from the vocal folds. Etymology From Ancient Greek ''γλωττίς'' (glōttís), derived from ''γ ...

. Glottalic sounds may involve motion of the

larynx The larynx (), commonly called the voice box, is an organ (anatomy), organ in the top of the neck involved in breathing, producing sound and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. The opening of larynx into pharynx known as the laryngeal ...

upward or downward, as the initiator of an egressive or ingressive glottalic

airstream mechanism In phonetics, the airstream mechanism is the method by which airflow is created in the vocal tract. Along with phonation and articulation, it is one of three main components of speech production. The airstream mechanism is mandatory for most sou ...

respectively. An egressive glottalic airstream produces ''

ejective consonant In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a Airstream mechanism#Glottalic initiation, glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with Aspirat ...

s'', while an ingressive glottalic airstream produces ''

implosive consonant Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward in additi ...

s''. Ejectives are almost always voiceless stops (plosives) or affricates, while implosives are almost always voiced stops. However, when a sound is said to be '' glottalized'', this is often not what is meant. Rather, glottalization usually means that a normal pulmonic airstream is partially or completely interrupted by closure of the glottis.

Sonorant In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels a ...

s (including vowels) may be glottalized in this fashion. There are three ways this can be represented in 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 ...

: (a) with an apostrophe; (b) with a superscript glottal stop; or (c) with an under-tilde. For example, the Yapese word for ''sick'' with a glottalized ''m'' could be transcribed . (In some conventions, the apostrophe is placed above the letter.) When an obstruent is glottalized but still uses a pulmonic airstream, it may be written , , , , , , , , {{angbr IPA, ˀq etc. The constriction of the larynx and surrounding tissues when pronouncing a glottalized resonant may cause the larynx to rise (usually) or occasionally to fall. However, this is not normally interpreted as an ejective or implosive airstream mechanism, but rather individual variation in the glottalization.Esling, John H.; Moisik, Scott R.; Benner, Allison; Crevier-Buchman, Lise (2019). Voice Quality: The Laryngeal Articulator Model. Cambridge University Press. A language may have more than one kind of glottalic consonant. However, a language that has one kind is not particularly likely to have others. For example, languages in the Americas which have both ejectives and glottalized sonorants may reflect an

areal feature In geolinguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area, particularly when such features are not descended from a common ancestor or proto-language. An areal feature is contrasted with genetic relatio ...

rather than an inherent feature common to the sounds in question. Since none of the three types are very common, languages containing more than one type are relatively rare.Maddieson, Ian. 2008. Glottalized Consonants. In: Haspelmath, Martin & Dryer, Matthew S. & Gil, David & Comrie, Bernard (eds.) ''The World Atlas of Language Structures Online''. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library, chapter 7. Available online at http://wals.info/feature/7 Accessed on 2008-06-05.

Distribution in the world's languages

:''Based on Ian Maddieson's map of the distribution of glottalized consonants, and on the accompanying text, which can be opened in a separate window; all statements are drawn from this source. Click on the symbols in the map legend to remove them from or restore them to the map. Click on the symbols on the map itself to see Maddieson's sources for that language.'' This section gives the distribution of "ejective and ejective-like consonants, implosive and implosive-like consonants, and glottalized resonants" according to the number of languages in which these sounds occur, the geographical location of these languages, and the total number of consonants in the languages. Note that fewer than 10% of the extant languages were surveyed; future research could change some of the conclusions here.

How many languages have glottalized consonants?

In the text accompanying his map, Maddieson writes, “At least some glottalized consonants occur in the consonant inventories of 154 of the 566 languages surveyed for this chapter, that is, in a little over a quarter of the languages (27.2%). Among the three classes of these consonants as defined above, ejectives are more widely found than implosives, and glottalized resonants are the least widespread. Ejectives or ejective-like consonants occur in 92 (16.3%) languages in the survey, implosives or implosive-like consonants occur in 75 (13.3%), and glottalized resonants in just 29 (5.1%).” Note that Maddieson includes such features as stiff voice (but not breathy voice), “It should thus be borne in mind that the terms ejective and implosive are being used here to refer to somewhat more inclusive classes of consonants than is traditional in the phonetic literature” (or in Wikipedia).

Co-occurrence of ejectives, implosives, and glottalized resonants

Maddieson also states, “An overwhelming majority (135 out of 151) hat is, almost 90%of the languages in the survey with implosives or with ejectives do not include members of the other class in their consonant inventories; on the other hand, a majority (22 out of 29) bout 75%of the languages with glottalized resonants also have ejectives.”

Geographic distribution

It appears that these types of consonants cluster in geographic regions more strongly than they cluster in language families (areal distribution rather than genealogical, according to Maddieson).

Ejectives

Over half of the languages with ejectives are in the

Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the 180th meridian.- The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Geopolitically, ...

. Maddieson says, “They are particularly found along the

Andean The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long and wide (widest between 18°S ...

cordillera A cordillera is a chain or network of mountain ranges, such as those in the west coast of the Americas. The term is borrowed from Spanish, where the word comes from , a diminutive of ('rope'). The term is most commonly used in physical geogra ...

in the south, in

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

and

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

, and in the more northwesterly parts of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. Most strikingly, the consonant inventories of almost all the diverse

indigenous language An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by its indigenous peoples. Indigenous languages are not necessarily national languages but they can be; for example, Aymara is both an indigen ...

s of

northern California Northern California (commonly shortened to NorCal) is a geocultural region that comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, spanning the northernmost 48 of the state's List of counties in California, 58 counties. Northern Ca ...

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

and Washington,

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

, the Yukon and

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

include ejectives.” Clusters elsewhere include the

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya language, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew language, Hebrew, Maltese language, Maltese, Modern South Arabian language ...

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

and neighbouring countries. “The dense cluster of languages in the Caucasus with ejectives includes languages of four different families.... Itelmen and Yapese howthat consonants of this type can occasionally develop in geographical isolation.”

Implosives

Over half of the languages with implosives are in

sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the list of sovereign states and ...

; another big cluster is in

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

. Only 16% of the languages with implosives occur elsewhere in world. Maddieson says that about three-quarters of the languages that have both ejectives and implosives occur in eastern and southern Africa.

Glottalized resonants

Two-thirds of the languages with glottalized resonants are in the Americas. Nearly half of them co-occur with ejectives in the cluster from California to the Northwest Territories of Canada. Glottalized resonants are found only in three languages with ejectives outside the Western Hemisphere; Maddieson suggests, “The association between glottalized resonants and ejectives might best be viewed as a result of overlapping patterns of spread in a single area, and not as the consequence of any particular linguistic dependence between the occurrence of these two classes of consonants.”

Glottalized consonants compared to total number of consonants

Maddieson believes that complex consonants, requiring "more intricate coordination" of different parts of the mouth and throat, are more likely to occur in languages with larger numbers of contrasting consonant phonemes. He says, “About 10% of the languages with small consonant inventories 8 or fewer consonantshave any glottalized consonants, whereas two-thirds of those with large inventories 4 or more consonantsinclude one or more glottalized consonants, and the proportion increases with each increase in overall inventory size.”

References

Glottal consonants