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Glottal consonants are
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced w ...
s using the glottis as their primary articulation. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the glottal fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have, while some do not consider them to be consonants at all. However, glottal consonants behave as typical consonants in many languages. For example, in
Literary Arabic Literary Arabic (Arabic: ' ) may refer to: * Classical Arabic * Modern Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of standardized, literary Arabic that develo ...
, most words are formed from a root ''C-C-C'' consisting of three consonants, which are inserted into templates such as or . The glottal consonants and can occupy any of the three root consonant slots, just like "normal" consonants such as or . The glottal consonants 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 standardized representation ...
are as follows:


Characteristics

In many languages, the "fricatives" are not true fricatives. This is a historical usage of the word. They instead represent transitional states of the glottis ( phonation) without a specific place of articulation, and may behave as
approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce ...
s. is a voiceless transition. is a breathy-voiced transition, and could be transcribed as . Lamé is one of very few languages that contrasts voiceless and voiced glottal fricatives. The glottal stop occurs in many languages. Often all vocalic onsets are preceded by a glottal stop, for example in
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
(in careful pronunciation; often omitted in practice). The Hawaiian language writes the glottal stop as the ‘okina ‘, which resembles a single open quotation mark. Some alphabets use
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...
s for the glottal stop, such as hamza in the Arabic alphabet; in many languages of
Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Wit ...
, the Latin letter is used for glottal stop, in Maltese, the letter is used, and in many indigenous languages of the Caucasus, the letter commonly referred to as heng is used. Because the glottis is necessarily closed for the glottal stop, it cannot be voiced. So-called voiced glottal stops are not full stops, but rather creaky voiced glottal approximants that may be transcribed . They occur as the intervocalic allophone of glottal stop in many languages. Gimi contrasts and , corresponding to and in related languages.


See also

* Glottalic consonant * Glottalization * Place of articulation * Index of phonetics articles * Guttural


References

* {{IPA navigation Place of articulation