Uvular ejective

Uvular ejective
qʼ
Image
IPA number	111 + 401
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	q​ʼ
Unicode (hex)	U+0071 U+02BC
X-SAMPA	q_>
Kirshenbaum	q`
Sound

The uvular ejective is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨qʼ⟩.

Features

Features of the uvular ejective:

• Its manner of articulation is stop, or plosive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. (The term plosive contrasts with nasal stops, where the blocked airflow is redirected through the nose.)
• Its place of articulation is uvular, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) at the uvula.
• Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is ejective (glottalic egressive), which means the air is forced out by pumping the glottis upward.

Occurrence

One ejective
A single plain uvular ejective is found in almost all Northeast Caucasian languages, all South Caucasian languages, and some Athabaskan languages, as well as Itelmen, Quechua and Aymara.

• Itelmen, where it is written ӄ': ӄ'ил'хч [qʼilˀxt͡ʃ] to depart.
• Georgian, where it is written ყ: ტყავი [tʼqʼavi] skin, pelt. Unlike its velar counterpart, it does not contrast with voiced or voiceless uvular plosives; the voiceless uvular plosive of Old Georgian has merged with the voiceless velar fricative in modern Georgian. Some scholars view this Georgian phoneme as being rather an uvular ejective fricative /χʼ/.
• Tahltan: [qʼaχaːdiː] door.

Two ejectives
Most Salishan languages, the Tlingit language, and Adyghe and Kabardian (Northwest Caucasian) demonstrate a two-way contrast between labialised and plain uvular ejectives.

• Klallam: wəq̕ə́q̕ [wəqʼəqʼ] frog, sq̕ʷúŋi(ʔ) [sqʷʼuɴi(ʔ)] head.
• Lezgian, where the two are written кь and кьв: кьакьан [qʼaqʼan] tall, high, кьвех [qʷʼeχ] groin.
• North Straits Salish, where the two are written K and K̴ in the Saanich orthography: Saanich KEYOṮEN [qʼəjat͡ɬʼənˀ] slug, snail, SK̴EḰĆES [sqʷʼəqʷt͡ʃəs] red huckleberry.

The Akhvakh language appears to have a contrast between lax and tense uvular ejectives: [qʼaː] soup, broth (lax) vs. [qːʼama] cock's comb (tense).

Three ejectives

• Abkhaz contrasts plain, palatalised and labialised uvular ejectives, written ҟ ҟь ҟə: аҟаҧшь [aqʼapʃ] red, -ҵəҟьа [-t͡ɕʷʼqʲʼa] really, indeed (a verbal suffix), Аҟәа [aqʷʼa] Sukhum. As with Georgian, Abkhaz has no non-ejective uvular plosives; the historically present uvular aspirates have merged with their corresponding fricatives, although the aspirates are preserved in Abaza.

Five ejectives

• The plain uvular ejective is one of the most common consonants in Ubykh, due to its presence in the past tense suffix /-qʼa/. But in addition to palatalised, labialised and plain uvular ejectives, Ubykh also possesses a pharyngealised version and a concurrently labialised and pharyngealised version, making a total of five: [qʼaqʼa] he said it, [məqʲʼ] small and round, [qʷʼa] to seize, [qˤʼaqˤʼ] to chew, [qʷˤʼa] cavern.

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning
Adyghe		къӀэб	[qʼab]	'zucchini'

See also

• List of phonetics topics