The character , called glottal stop, is an alphabetic letter in some

Latin alphabets The lists and tables below summarize and compare the letter inventories of some of the Latin-script alphabets. In this article, the scope of the word "alphabet" is broadened to include letters with tone marks, and other diacritics used to repres ...

, most notably in several

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

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 ''phones'') 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 transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...

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

apostrophe The apostrophe ( or ) 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 mark that indicates an interrogative clause or phrase in many languages. History In the fifth century, Syriac Bible manuscripts used ques ...

, which is its official representation in the

SAMPA __NOTOC__ 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 ...

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

Unicase A unicase or unicameral alphabet has just one case for its letters. Arabic, Brahmic scripts like Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Old Hungarian (Hungarian Runic), Hebrew, Iberian, Georgian, and Hangul are unicase writing systems, while (modern ...

() is provided for the

and

Americanist phonetic notation Americanist phonetic notation, also known as the North American Phonetic Alphabet (NAPA), the Americanist Phonetic Alphabet or the American Phonetic Alphabet (APA), is a system of phonetic notation originally developed by European and American an ...

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

Salishan languages The Salishan (also Salish) languages are a family of languages of the Pacific Northwest in North America (the Canadian province of British Columbia and the American states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana). They are characterised by ag ...

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

Athabaskan languages Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific C ...

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

Uralic Phonetic Alphabet The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) or Finno-Ugric transcription system is a phonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for the transcription and reconstruction of Uralic languages. It was first published in 1901 by Eemil Nesto ...

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 The modifier letter apostrophe is a letter in Unicode encoding, used primarily for various glottal sounds. Encoding The letter apostrophe is encoded at , which is in the ''Spacing Modifier Letters'' Unicode block. In Unicode code charts it loo ...

, , which is probably the most common (and the direct ancestor of ), the 6-shaped ʻokina of Hawaiian, , and the straight-apostrophe shaped

saltillo Saltillo () is the capital and largest city of the northeastern Mexican state of Coahuila and is also the municipal seat of the municipality of the same name. Mexico City, Monterrey, and Saltillo are all connected by a major railroad and highwa ...

of many

languages of Mexico Many languages are spoken in Mexico, though Spanish is the ''de facto'' national language spoken by the vast majority of the population, making Mexico the world's most populous Hispanophone country. The indigenous languages are from eleven lan ...

, which has the case forms .

Usage

Technical transcription

and the

—unicase ʔ or superscript ˀ *

Transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Australian Aboriginal languages had been purely spoken languages, and had no writing system. On their arrival, Latin script became a standard for transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages, but the detail ...

—occasionally unicase ʔ *

—superscript ˀ only

Vernacular orthographies

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

Chipewyan The Chipewyan ( , also called ''Denésoliné'' or ''Dënesųłı̨né'' or ''Dënë Sųłınë́'', meaning "the original/real people") are a Dene Indigenous Canadian people of the Athabaskan language family, whose ancestors are identified ...

—uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ɂ ** Dogrib—uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ɂ **

Kootenai The Kutenai ( ), also known as the Ktunaxa ( ; ), Ksanka ( ), Kootenay (in Canada) and Kootenai (in the United States), are an indigenous people of Canada and the United States. Kutenai bands live in southeastern British Columbia, northern ...

—unicase ʔ ** Musqueam language—unicase ʔ ** Nootka—unicase ʔ **

Slavey The Slavey (also Slave and South Slavey) are a First Nations indigenous peoples of the Dene group, indigenous to the Great Slave Lake region, in Canada's Northwest Territories, and extending into northeastern British Columbia and northwestern ...

—uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ɂ **

Nitinaht Ditidaht (also Nitinaht, Nitinat, Southern Nootkan) or diitiidʔaaʔtx̣ is a South Wakashan (Nootkan) language spoken on the southern part of Vancouver Island. Nitinaht is related to the other South Wakashan languages, Makah and the neighboring ...

—unicase ʔ **

Thompson Thompson may refer to: People * Thompson (surname) * Thompson M. Scoon (1888–1953), New York politician Places Australia *Thompson Beach, South Australia, a locality Bulgaria * Thompson, Bulgaria, a village in Sofia Province Canada * ...

—unicase ʔ **

Lushootseed Lushootseed (txʷəlšucid, dxʷləšúcid), also Puget Salish, Puget Sound Salish or Skagit-Nisqually, is a language made up of a dialect continuum of several Salish tribes of modern-day Washington state. Lushootseed is one of the Coast Salish ...

—unicase ʔ **

Squamish language Squamish (; ', ''sníchim'' meaning "language") is a Coast Salish language spoken by the Squamish people of the Pacific Northwest. It is spoken in the area that is now called southwestern British Columbia, Canada, centred on their reserve comm ...

, where it is sometimes represented with .

Computing codes

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

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.

Graphic variants

Other notations

Usage

Technical transcription

Vernacular orthographies

Computing codes

See also

References

External links