Voiceless uvular plosive

Voiceless uvular plosive
q
Image
IPA number	111
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	q
Unicode (hex)	U+0071
X-SAMPA	q
Kirshenbaum	q
Sound

The voiceless uvular plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is pronounced like [k], except that the tongue makes contact not on the soft palate but on the uvula. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨q⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is q.

Features

Features of the voiceless uvular plosive:

• 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. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
• 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 pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Aleut		ҟи́гаҟъ/qiighax̂	[qiːɣaχ]	'grass'
Arabic	Standard	قرآن	[qurˈʔaːn]	'Quran'	See Arabic phonology
Avar		рахъу	[raˈqːu]	'ashes'	always geminated
Bashkir		ҡош	[qụʃ]	'bird'	Allophone of the voiceless velar plosive before back vowels.
Berber	Kabyle	aqcic	[aqʃiʃ]	'boy'
Chechen		кхоъ/qo’	[qɔʔ]	'three'
Eyak		g̣u.jih	[quːtʃih]	'wolf'
Hindi		क़िला	[qɪlaː]	'fortress'	See Hindi-Urdu phonology
Inuktitut		ᐃ"ᐃᑉᕆᐅᖅᑐᖅ /ihipqiuqtuq’	[ihipɢiuqtuq]	'explore'	Represented by a <ᕆ>. See Inuit phonology
Iraqw		[qeːt]		'break'
Kabardian		экхъыл	[ɑqɪɮ]	'intellect'	Contrasts with a labialized form
Kazakh		Қазақстан	[qɑzɑqˈstɑn]	'Kazakhstan'	An allophone of the voiceless velar plosive before back vowels.
Ket		қан	[qan]	'begin'
Klallam		qəmtəm	[qəmtəm]	'iron'
Kutenai		qaykiťwu	[qajkitʼwu]	'nine'
Nivkh		тяқр̆	[tʲaqr̥]	'three'
Persian	Kermani dialect	قورباغه	[quːrbɒɣe]	'frog'	See Persian phonology
Quechua		qallu	[qaʎu]	'tongue'
Sahaptin		qu	[qu]	'heavy'
Seediq		Seediq	[ˈsəːdʑɪq]	'Seediq'
Seereer-Siin				'-'
Somali		qaab	[qaːb]	'shape'	See Somali phonology
St’át’imcets		teq	[təq]	'to touch'
Dawsahak		[qoq]		'dry'
Tlingit		ghagw	[qɐ́kʷ]	'tree spine'	Tlingit contrasts six different uvular plosives
Tsimshian		gwildmḵa̱p'a	[ɡʷildmqɑpʼa]	'tobacco'
Ubykh		/maqʷəta/		'hoe'	Ubykh has ten different uvular plosives. See Ubykh phonology
Urdu		قِلعہ	[qɪlaː]	'fortress'	See Hindi-Urdu phonology
Uyghur		ئاق / aq	[ɑq]	'white'
Uzbek		quloq'	[qulɒq]	'ear'
Yukaghir	Northern	маарх	[maːrq]	'one'
	Southern	атахл	[ataql]	'two'
Greenlandic		illoqarpoq	[iɬːoqaʁpɔq]	'he has a house'
!Xóõ		!qhàà	[ǃ͡qʰɑ̀ː]	'water'

See also

• List of phonetics topics
• Qoph

Bibliography

• Ladefoged, Peter (2005). Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.). Blackwell. 
• Mc Laughlin, Fiona (2005). "Voiceless implosives in Seereer-Siin". Journal of the International Phonetic Association 35 (2): 201–214. doi:10.1017/S0025100305002215. 
• Watson, Janet (2002). The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic. New York: Oxford University Press.