The voiced uvular plosive or stop is a type of
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 ...
al sound, used in some
spoken language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
s. The symbol 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 ...
that represents this sound is , a
small capital version of the Latin letter
g, and the equivalent
X-SAMPA symbol is
G\
.
is a rare sound, even compared to other uvulars. Vaux proposes a phonological explanation: uvular consonants normally involve a neutral or a
retracted tongue root, whereas voiced stops often involve an
advanced tongue root: two articulations that cannot physically co-occur. This leads many languages of the world to have a
voiced uvular fricative
The voiced uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication, spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , an inverted small uppercase letter , or in broad t ...
instead as the voiced counterpart of the
voiceless uvular plosive. Examples are
Inuit
Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...
; several
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...
such as
Uyghur; several
Northwest Caucasian languages
The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called West Caucasian, Abkhazo-Adyghean, Abkhazo-Circassian, Circassic, or sometimes Pontic languages (from Ancient Greek, ''pontos'', referring to the Black Sea, in contrast to the Northeast Caucasian ...
such as
Abkhaz; as well as several
Northeast Caucasian languages such as
Ingush.
There is also the voiced pre-uvular plosive
[Instead of "pre-uvular", it can be called "advanced uvular", "fronted uvular", "post-velar", "retracted velar" or "backed velar". For simplicity, this article uses only the term "pre-uvular".] in some languages, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical uvular plosive, though not as front as the prototypical
velar plosive. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for that sound, though it can be transcribed as (
advanced ), or (both symbols denote a
retracted ). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are
G\_+
and
g_-
, respectively.
Features

Features of the voiced uvular stop:
Occurrence
See also
*
Index of phonetics articles
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Voiced Uvular stop
Uvular consonants
Pulmonic consonants
Voiced oral consonants
Central consonants