uvular stop

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 ...

and

phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...

, a uvular stop is a type of consonantal sound, made with the back of the tongue in contact with the

uvula The uvula (: uvulas or uvulae), also known as the palatine uvula or staphyle, is a conic projection from the back edge of the middle of the soft palate, composed of connective tissue containing a number of racemose glands, and some muscular fi ...

, which hangs down in front of the throat (hence uvular), held tightly enough to block the passage of air (hence a

stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...

). Uvular stops are acoustically similar to but less common than the

velar stop In phonetics and phonology, a velar stop is a type of consonantal sound, made with the back of the tongue in contact with the soft palate (also known as the velum, hence velar), held tightly enough to block the passage of air (hence a stop consona ...

s (e.g. and ), and do not occur in English. Uvular stops are common in certain parts of the world, e.g. the

Caucasian languages The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Linguistic comparison allows t ...

and the

Pacific Northwest languages The Pacific Northwest languages are the indigenous languages of the Pacific Northwest of North America. This is a geographic term and does not imply any common heritage for these languages. In fact, the Pacific Northwest is an area of exceptiona ...

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 ...

. However, they are unattested in the European languages (outside of a few peripheral areas such as the Caucasus). The most common sound is the voiceless stop . This sound is well known in

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, and occurs (at least in

Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA) is the variety of standardized, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in some usages also the variety of spoken Arabic that ...

) in words such as ''

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

'' (Koran), ''

Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...

'', and '' Al-Qahira'' (Arabic for Cairo). More generally, several kinds are distinguished: * ,

voiceless uvular plosive The voiceless uvular plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is pronounced like a voiceless velar plosive , except that the tongue makes contact not on the soft palate but on the uvula. The symbol in the ...

* ,

voiced uvular plosive The voiced uvular plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a small capital version of the Latin letter g, and the equival ...

* , uvular nasal * , uvular ejective * ,

voiced uvular implosive The voiced uvular implosive is an extremely rare type of consonantal sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a small capital letter G with a rightward pointing hook extending from the upper righ ...

(very rare) * or

voiceless uvular implosive The voiceless uvular implosive is a rare consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is or . A dedicated IPA letter, , was withdrawn in 1993. Features Occ ...

(claimed to exist in Kaqchikel) {{IPA navigation Uvular consonants Plosives