Glottal stop (letter)

The symbol ⟨ʔ⟩ is a letter of the Latin alphabet, used to represent a glottal stop in several phonetic transcription schemes, as well as in the alphabets of some languages. A superscript version, ⟨ˀ⟩, is also used.

Its shape is based on an enlarged curly apostrophe ⟨’⟩,^{[citation needed]} which is also widely used to represent a glottal stop.

Where the glottal stop character is not available, it is sometimes replaced by a question mark ⟨?⟩, which is also its official representation in SAMPA, and to which it bears a striking resemblance.

Glottal stops

In phonetic transcription as well as in several languages, a single, tall glyph is used in all situations, with no distinction between uppercase and lowercase. However, in the Chipewyan, Dogrib, and Slavey languages, the tall version is only used for the uppercase, and a short version is used for the lowercase.

Usage

Technical transcription

• Americanist phonetic notation — either ˀ or ʔ.
• Transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages — occasionally ʔ.
• International Phonetic Alphabet — ʔ only.
• Uralic Phonetic Alphabet — ˀ only.

Vernacular orthographies

• Languages of Canada
  • Chipewyan — both Ɂ and ɂ.
  • Dogrib — both Ɂ and ɂ.
  • Kootenai — ʔ only.
  • Musqueam — ʔ only.
  • Nootka — ʔ only.
  • Slavey — both Ɂ and ɂ.
  • Nitinaht — ʔ only.
  • Thompson — ʔ only.
  • Lushootseed

Computing codes

In Unicode 1.0, only the tall version and superscript version were included. In version 4.1 (2005), an uppercase character was added, and the existing tall glottal stop was redefined as its lowercase. Finally, in version 5.0 (2006) it was decided to separate the cased and caseless usages, assigning separate characters to each. The rationale for this decision can be found here.

character	ʔ		ˀ		Ɂ		ɂ
Unicode name	LATIN LETTER GLOTTAL STOP		MODIFIER LETTER GLOTTAL STOP		LATIN CAPITAL LETTER GLOTTAL STOP		LATIN SMALL LETTER GLOTTAL STOP
character encoding	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	660	0294	704	02C0	577	0241	578	0242
UTF-8	202 148	CA 94	203 128	CB 80	201 129	C9 81	201 130	C9 82
Numeric character reference	ʔ	ʔ	ˀ	ˀ	Ɂ	Ɂ	ɂ	ɂ

See also

• ʾ
• ʕ
• ʡ
• ʢ
• ʖ
• ƾ
• ʻOkina
• Aleph
• Apostrophe
• Hamza
• Saltillo (letter)
• Sokuon
• Spiritus lenis

References

The ISO basic Latin alphabet
Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp	Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv	Ww	Xx	Yy	Zz
Related
History Palaeography Derivations Diacritics Punctuation Numerals Unicode List of letters ISO/IEC 646