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 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 (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 ...

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 ...

, which is its official representation in the SAMPA 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 () is provided for the International Phonetic Alphabet 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 a ...

. * 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.

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

Vernacular orthographies

* Languages of Canada ** 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 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 Sali ...

—unicase ʔ ** Squamish language, where it is sometimes represented with .

Computing codes

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...

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