Talk:Glottal stop

Stød

This page should mention the Danish langauge where the glottal stop is called "stød". But I've read that it can be analysed to be much more than a glottal stop even though this is the way it is most commonly described. Hippietrail 07:58, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Stød is never a glottal stop, only a type of laryngalization. It's only transcribed as a glottal stop in Dania, a phonetic alphabet extrapolated from IPA, but unique and specific to Danish. That's where the misunderstanding seems to come from.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:16, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Guess I was a bit too sure of myself. Stød is most commonly (in Standard Danish) a laryngealization, but some variants apparantly exist according to Basbøll. In West Jutish, stød is realized as something akin to a glottal stop, but I'm unsure of the exact nature. I'll maintain that it's probably not a good idea to mention Danish or stød in this article, though, and that the feature is primarily suprasegmental.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Even if stød is never a glottal stop I strongly feel this page should mention it if even to discredit the claim that it is - which is common enough. A Google search turns up 333 pages which include both terms (including Wikipedia). I've definitely seen them mentioned together in print too or I never would have asked about it here in the first place. I've also put a link in see also which I thought was already there. — Hippietrail 19:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It should not be mentioned, since it's very unsure exactly what the sound is. That X amount of Wikipedia pages have (wrongly) associated the two is irrelevant. If you want to include it, you should find a credible source that supports it. A Google search is not enough.

Peter ^Isotalo 04:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Here are some references that indicate both that many sources still describe the stød as a glottal stop, and that others go to the trouble to say that a stød is not a glottal stop. Either of these is enough for a See also link:

• Principles of Phonetics, John Laver: "Fischen-Jørgensen (1985: 197) is emphatic that stød in normal Danish speech is not a glottal stop."
• Danish: An Elementary Grammar and Reader, Elias Bredsdorff: "One of the most characteristic features of Danish pronunciation is the use of the glottal stop, or ‘stod ', ..."
• The Sounds of the World's Languages, Peter Ladefoged: "The glottal stop usually occurs a few milliseconds before the consonant ... many words have a brief superimposed glottal constriction known as a stød."
• Danish: An Essential Grammar, Robin Allan, Philip Holmes, Tom Lundskr-Nielsen: "In Danish the glottal stop or ‘stød '..."
• Colloquial Danish: The Complete Course for Beginners, W Glyn Jones, Andrew R Mitchell, Gly W Jones, Kirsten Gade: "Danish is famous for its stød, the glottal stop..."
• Concise Compendium of the World's Languages, George Campbell: "The stød (glottal stop) corresponds in Danish to the acute tone in Swedish and Norwegian."
• Denmark, Lonely Planet Publications: "...the peculiarity of the glottal stop or stod"
• Writing Systems: An Introduction to Their Linguistic Analysis, Florian Coulmas: "Consider as an example Danish stød (literally ‘thrust'), a kind of glottal stop..."
• Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction, Benjamin W Fortson: "Most Danish dialects have an unusual phonetic feature called stød, which is similar to a glottal stop near final consonants in monosyllables."
• Danish Dictionary: Danish-English, English-Danish, Routledge: "The stød, or glottal stop, can occur virtually anywhere in Danish words."
• Bibiographie Linguistique De L'Annee 1999/Bibliography for the Year 1999: Et Complements..., Sijmen Tol, Mark Janse, Hella Olbertz: "Some irregularities of the so-called West Jutland Stod (glottal stop)..."
• Research Potentials in Voice Physiology: "All phoneticians agree that the standard Danish stod is not a glottal stop."

— Hippietrail 17:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

gemination

Is there any relationship at all between the glottal stop and gemination? I'm guessing that there is. — Hippietrail 01:02, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The two aren't anywhere near the same thing. Gemination is, as the article says, is when a consonant is given quantitative length. It's not phonemic and only marginally extant in English, but the usual example given is the "nn" in the word "penknife". A glottal stop is a plosive consonant, just like "t", "p", or "k", it just sounds weirder --user:Cevlakohn

disputed

I deny the existence of the glottal stop, as a sound at least: Show me one that is not merely a schwa or an unaspirated cluster. lysdexia 09:42, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'm afraid you're arguing against the vast mass of scholarly research in phonetics and phonology. There are plenty of examples of the role of glottal stop in phonology, including those on this page. Nohat 21:29, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

---

In Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) the word for denying (No or Not) is "tidak". That "k" at the end of the word is definitely a glottal stop.

---

In Maltese at least, the glottal stop is a very common sound. It can occur anywhere in a word and is written as the letter q. For example, ghaqda, baqbaq, qrun, moqziez, qanfud, wisq, etc etc. It therefore is unrelated to gemination, but is a sound of its own, since those words would sound very different otherwise. I fail to see any relation to a schwa, and as for the unaspirated cluster, I think some of those example words would counter that claim. -E. Farrugia, 16:39, 29 Nov 2004 (GMT -5)

Hamza ibn Abd al-Muttalib

Hi!

Ther is a very famous personb named "hamza".

Since this page have that namne, its reasonable that it tells lost wiki users how to go to that person. Thats why i added that. Thank you :)

--Striver 5 July 2005 21:18 (UTC)

This redirect from a letter directly to a phoneme is not a good idea, I added a stub instead.

Thank you :)

--Striver 5 July 2005 23:25 (UTC)

ummm, Hamza the person has a letter Ha' in the beginning, the letter starts with a normal H (heh).

German

In Austria nobody would dream of inserting a glottal stop into a word, not even in the main evening news of the public-owned TV channels. "Beeilen" is pronounced with a double vowel (more or less IPA epsilon). Pronouncing one word as if it were two sentences is something the Germans do, and probably not all of them. So I edited that paragraph. David Marjanović david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at 23:22 CET-summertime

The glottal stop is more common in Northern German, so the fact that it's rare in Oesterreich is not the least bit surprising.Cameron Nedland 19:22, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe not in "beeilen" but how about "Arbeitsamt"? Wouldn't you make a stop between "arbeits" and "amt"? I only know one native speaker from the Salzkammergut area, he does the glottal stop. But he has been living in Muenchen for quiet a while already.142.243.254.224 (talk) 16:49, 1 December 2010 (UTC)Gilbert

Dutch

From the German section:

Otherwise the glottal stop is only used in front of words (or, for faster speakers, sentences) that begin with a vowel.

This applies to Dutch as well. Of course I don't know if this is also true in all dialects. Shinobu 06:15, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Japanese

As far as I know, there is no glottal stop in Japanese. It appears geminates have been confused with glottal stops, or that there is some coarticulation. --Vuo 13:48, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

How embarrassing. I copy edited that without paying attention to what it said! (It was very late and I was running on yawns.) Japanese does have a glottal stop, and it is written sokuon, but it's only found in interjections like aaa’! Not part of the normal inventory. kwami 20:01, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Japanese DO have glottal stops when comes when two of the same consonants are side by side.Sparky-sama (talk) 03:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Japanese does have glottal stops and it is represented by 'っ' which is usually transcribed into English as a double consonant (though can vary in Japanese). It's often (but not always) used when certain unvoiced consonants are next to each other within a word or for verb conjugations. Examples: いち(one) いっかい(one time, "ichikai" is reduced to "ikkai" where the double 'k' represents a glottal stop), いく(go) いった(went) - without the glottal stop it would become いた(was (in reference to living things)). I don't have time to find references but I do speak the language. I imagine it would be easy to find some, someone with time and an account go to it! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.98.223.132 (talk) 07:43, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

German again

Regarding German (my native tongue) again, I'm not sure in which dialect "sehen" would be pronounced with a glottal stop, but it's not something I've ever heard, and I actually find it rather difficult to pronounce it that way when I try, too (even though the glottal stop in "Beamter" and "beeilen" is not a problem for me to pronounce). In fact, I'd say that "sehen" is usually pronounced [ˈzeːən] or even [ˈzeːn]; [ˈzeːhən] would also be possible (although I don't think you'd encounter that in spoken German, at least not where I live; it's more what you'd get if you tried to pronounce the word 100% correctly), but [ˈzeːʔən] doesn't sound like something you'd encounter to me.

Of course, I'm not a linguist, but I do think that "sehen" is not the best example here. It's also possible to pronounce "Beamter" or "beeilen" etc. without a glottal stop, especially when you're talking a bit faster, but at least in those cases, it's clearly there when you take care to pronounce the word correctly. -- Schnee (cheeks clone) 03:47, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, that fits with everything I've ever heard about German. kwami 01:52, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

When pronouncing extra-slowly, I might insert a glottal stop in beeilen, but I wouldn't dream of doing it in Beamter. (Pluricentric language.) On the other hand, I've never heard of anyone putting a glottal stop into sehen. I'm comparatively sure that nobody does that.

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 0:20 CET | 2006/2/19

Vowel separation in Finnish

I've added a {{citationneeded}} tag to where it says that the glottal stop can be used to separate wovels of different words in Finnish, as it is not the very reason why there is a glottal stop. For example, iso auto and siili yöpyi onkalossa have no glottal stops and still the words are easily distinguishable. I've heard a theory that words with glottal stops have in some point of time lost a final consonant and the glottal stop is a relict of that; in the film Unna ja Nuuk, where the characters spoke ancient Finnish, the word meaning Come! was pronounced /tulek/ as it nowadays is /tuleʔ/. I have no proof for this, though, so I'm leaving it as it is. –Mysid 09:44, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Hawaiian

There is no such word as "Hawai`ian". It only exists as a mistake used by people who are ignorant of both English and Hawaiian. See the Hawaiian language talk page for discussions on this point. Hawaiian is an English word, not a Hawaiian word. The English alphabet has 26 letters, none of which is conventionally used to represent a glottal stop in English. Speakers of English in Hawaii often use a glottal stop in pronouncing the word Hawaii, but NOT in pronouncing the word Hawaiian. The word Hawaiian is NEVER published in Hawaii with any symbol representing a glottal stop. It's very irritating to see the error being repeated by Wikipedia users, who supposedly care about getting things right. Agent X 19:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Funnily enough, Wikipedia isn't about getting things "right", mostly because exactly what is "right" is arguable. Someone else could come along and say that "Hawaiian" is incorrect and is only used by people who are ignorant of Hawai'ian. Who are we to believe?

If it's true that it's always written Hawaiian in Hawaii and never Hawai'ian, then articles about Hawaiian topics should conform to that, just like Britain-related articles follow British spelling and US-related articles follow American. But besides that, "Hawai'ian" is acceptable, as it is in use in English.

And regardless of what the English alphabet may or may not include, English writers often use foreign letters for foreign words, so that isn't an argument against a particular spelling. --Ptcamn 20:07, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Challenge to user Ptcamn

Do your homework. The Pukui-Elbert dictionary is the "Hawaiian Dictionary", NOT the "Hawai`ian Dictionary". I gave a specific citation to that source. Did you check it out? Did you check out the Hawaiian language talk page? The Wikipedia article is on the "Hawaiian language", NOT the "Hawai`ian language". I have lived in Hawaii since before it became a state in 1959. Have you? It IS true that it's NEVER written "Hawai`ian" in Hawaii. And yes, as you said, "articles about Hawaiian topics should conform to that". Just because something is "in use", that alone does NOT make it "acceptable". Hawaiian Creole English is "in use", but the English version of Wikipedia is not written in HCE. The word aint is "in use", but it is not acceptable as correct usage in an English Wikipedia article. Not everything that is "right" is credibly "arguable". Will anyone seriously disagree that one plus two equals three? What is right in Wikipedia is based on (1) what is published, (2) what is the prevailing consensus or majority-held view, and (3) common sense. If you want to challenge my contribution, then you should abide by Wikipedia policy, and check out its merits. Don't just delete a user contribution when you personally lack expertise on the topic. Agent X 20:49, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Whoa there folks, no need to assume bad faith from the start! I'm sure this is just a simple misunderstanding.

Ptcamn, it is never spelled "Hawai'ian", in any context - "Hawai'i" may be used instead of "Hawaii" are often used, but it really isn't proper to use the okina in the english possessive of the word. It ranks somewhere above using split infinitives, but below using the 'n'-word to describe black people.

But it is spelled "Hawai'ian". E.g. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]..

(And Hawaiian isn't a "posessive".) --Ptcamn 00:59, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, IANALinguist! Those websites are spelling it improperly, as websites often will. Check out http://www.ulukau.org/, a site dedicated to the language to see proper use. --JereKrischel 01:05, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

You said 'it is never spelled "Hawai'ian', in any context'. If you meant 'it is sometimes spelled "Hawai'ian", but that's incorrect', you should've said so. --Ptcamn 01:22, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, you're correct - it is mispelled in some contexts :) --JereKrischel 01:54, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The history of the okina in both Hawaiian and English is very complex, and Agent X is probably one of less than a hundred people in the world with a comprehensive understanding of the language, its history, its usage, and its conventions. No need for anyone to get bristled, we can just do the right thing, make the changes to conform to best practices, and move on! --JereKrischel 00:11, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

It's hard to "just do the right thing" when there's a dispute as to what the right thing is. :/ --Ptcamn 00:59, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, besides website spelling errors, we can pore over the scholarly sources (Pukui/Elbert), or we can ask a Hawaiian language scholar (like Agent X). I suppose if you found some sort of scholarly insistence that "Hawai'ian" is proper, we could put both positions in, but I don't think you'll find a dispute, only examples of bad spelling. --JereKrischel 01:05, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language includes an apostrophe in a'a, so the statement that the English spelling is aa and that English spelling doesn't indiciate glottal stops is incorrect. Even Pukui/Elbert uses apostrophes in the English text: "2. nvs. ʻAʻā lava; stony, abounding with ʻaʻa lava.".

Agent X is not a "language scholar". Every real linguist I know is a descriptivist. --Ptcamn 01:22, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

You're citing the Hawaiian - English section of Pukui/Elbert there. That's a Hawaiian spelling. In the English - Hawaiian section (p389 if you've got the book), it's clearly spelled "aa". Oh, and trust me, Agent X is a serious authority on the Hawaiian language! His damn dissertation is hundreds of pages long, and it's taking me ages to finish! --JereKrischel 01:54, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

A pretty good citation would be Hawai`i's official state government website [6], which uses the spelling 'Hawai`i' throughout. Czoller 05:03, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Check out their spelling of "Hawaiian" though - with these search results. Hawai'i is often spelled with the okina, as a Hawaiian spelling. There is no word "Hawaiian" in olelo Hawai'i, so it retains its English spelling properly. --JereKrischel 05:15, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

A search of "Hawai'ian" shows only 46 mispellings, and "Hawaiian" shows 8820 proper spellings. --JereKrischel 05:18, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Using plain old google as a measure, "Hawai'ian" rings up 183,000 results, and "Hawaiian" gets 68,400,000. I think it's pretty clear that "Hawaiian" is certainly the most common practice, and arguably the best scholarly practice. I'd be willing to hear refutations, though, if someone cares to make a point of it. --JereKrischel 05:28, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The most common spelling isn't the only acceptable one. The USA has a bigger population than the UK, but that doens't mean British English is incorrect.

It's only best scholarly practice if you follow the rule that you have to remove any non-English letters before you're allowed to stick affixes on it. Unfortunately for you, such a rule does not exist. For example, Gödelian is an acceptable spelling, even though ö is not an English letter and Gödelian is not a German word. --Ptcamn 14:08, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

GoogleUK has 56,300,000 hits for "Hawaiian", GoogleUK has 183,000 hits for "Hawai'ian" - I think both British English and American English are in agreement on the best practice here. I think the rationale behind the best scholarly practice here is the assertion that words written in Hawaiian contain okina and kahako, and words written in English (of any arbitrary variety) don't. Googling for "Godelian" and "Gödelian" give fairly close numbers of results, so I can see your point about the best practice there being fairly flexible, but with "Hawaiian" I think the issue is relatively clear cut. --JereKrischel 17:06, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Why shouldn't words written in English contain okina? They have umlauts. What makes Hawaiian so special? --Ptcamn 17:34, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Common and scholarly convention (amongst olelo Hawai'i scholars, that is). Agent X can lay out more of the historical issues, from the very beginning of the Hawaiian alphabet, but suffice it to say that english is filled with exceptional cases! Otherwise, I could order fried ghoti at a restaurant :) --JereKrischel 17:55, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Any particular group of scholars can follow whatever conventions they like, it doesn't make other conventions incorrect. --Ptcamn 18:18, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Sure it does - otherwise, you're arguing for no standards at all. No ghoti on fridays wouldn't be "incorrect" by your measure, but it is arguably incorrect. Since olelo Hawai'i scholars are de facto those defining the "rules" of Hawaiian (both in Hawaiian english spelling, and English spellings), I think we should give deference, don't you? You're absolutely right that we can argue for exceptionalism in this case, but is it a policy point worth debating? Do we lose anything on Wikipedia by aligning our spelling of "Hawaiian" to the commonly accepted and scholarly approved spelling? --JereKrischel 18:32, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy only conforms to one particular spelling if the article is particularly associated with a standard that uses that spelling (i.e. Hawaiian language but not glottal stop). Otherwise, it only asks that each article uses one spelling consistently, and editing articles just to change the spelling is frowned upon. You contend that some people prefer one spelling (for questionable, inconsistent reasons), but I see no reason why the other spelling should not also be acceptable. --Ptcamn 19:01, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Do you have a cite for that particular "frowned upon"? It seems to me since glottal stop is a linguistic article, it should use the best practices for spellings of "Hawaiian", and the fix is relatively benign (even if it induces a downward curling of the lips) - I found # If an article is predominantly written in one type of English, aim to conform to that type rather than provoking conflict by changing to another. in Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National varieties of English. Since in all examples of "proper" English we observe (UK, US, etc), "Hawaiian" is correct, I think it's worthwhile to keep the corrected spelling. Insofar as "acceptability", you've got statistics from google, google UK, and the Hawaii State Government website - and if that's not enough, you've got professional opinion from a serious scholar of olelo Hawai'i too. Apologies to all if the change is frowned upon, but it doesn't seem that there is any contention here prehaps beyond the initial politeness of the change. Is there any other particular reason you'd like to return to the incorrect spelling? Certainly in the future for other articles, any wholesale change should probably be a little bit more gentle, but I think we can both agree the fix is good here. --JereKrischel 20:30, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The first section of the style guide reads: In June 2005, the Arbitration Committee ruled that, when either of two styles is acceptable, it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change. For example, with respect to British spelling as opposed to American spelling, it would only be acceptable to change from American spelling to British spelling if the article concerned a British topic.

"Since in all examples of "proper" English we observe (UK, US, etc), "Hawaiian" is correct, I think it's worthwhile to keep the corrected spelling."

Evidence? "Hawaiian" is more common, but all you've done is asserted that "Hawai'ian" is incorrect, you haven't proved it. --Ptcamn 20:38, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see your confusion. You don't believe that either statistical analysis of usage represents a breakdown of what is "correct" and what is "incorrect", nor do you accept any scholarly authority which asserts that one is "correct" and that another is "incorrect".

"Hawai'ian" is a mispelling, not an alternate spelling dependent upon whether or not you are in Britain or the U.S. What would you accept as proof of the assertion that it is incorrect? --JereKrischel 20:54, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Ptcamn --- here's the text that you apparently want to "fight" for:

Finally, there are loanwords into English, usually from languages where the glottal stop is a phoneme, where a glottal stop is part of the accepted pronunciation, for example Hawaiʻian ʻaʻa lava.

Here's my edit of that text:

Finally, there are loanwords into English, usually from languages where the glottal stop is a phoneme, where a glottal stop is part of the foreign pronunciation. For example, the Hawaiian word ‘a‘ā is used by geologists to specify lava which is relatively thick, chunky, and rough. The Hawaiian spelling indicates the two glottal stops in the word, but the most widely used English spelling, aa, does not (Pukui and Elbert 1986:2, 389). Loans often retain aspects of their foreign pronunciation until such time as they become fully nativized in the borrowing language.

My goal is to improve the article in these specific ways:

• 1. Point out that a loanword and its pronunciation are initially foreign to the borrowing language. The specific example is Hawaiian ‘a‘ā.
• 2. Provide the correct Hawaiian spelling of the example word. Take note that the version you put back fails to show that the second vowel is phonemically long in Hawaiian. I'm basing the correct spelling on the published source which I properly cited, the Hawaiian Dictionary.
• 3. Provide the correct English spelling (aa) of the example word. I based the correct spelling on the same cited source. However, I also know the English spelling aa from a published, authoritative geology textbook used at the University of Hawaii by professors who are volcanologists. The book title is something like Volcanoes in the Sea, a standard text. There are also over 18,000 hits on Google for "aa lava". For example,

[7]

I first wrote "the English spelling". I have updated that to "the most widely used English spelling". The reason for the update is to take care of those cases where someone attempts to show knowledge of Hawaiian spelling, but ends up using a form which is actually a different word in Hawaiian, such as a‘a or ‘a‘a. The first form is missing the initial glottal and the long vowel. The second form is missing the long vowel. So both of those forms are wrong as a Hawaiian word for "lava" in terms of spelling, pronunciation, and meaning. In Hawaiian, a‘a means "vein" (not "rough lava") while ‘a‘a means "challenge" (not "rough lava").

• 4. Show that nativization of loanwords is not necessarily instantaneous. I did that with the final sentence that I contributed in that brief paragraph. It can take a while for a loanword to lose all of its foreign-ness, and become completely assimilated into the borrowing language in terms of spelling and pronunciation. So a loan with a glottal stop can keep it temporarily, but foreign phonemes typically get altered or dropped. That's what naturally happens to glottal stops in Hawaiian words that get borrowed into English. Words of high-frequency use, such as Hawai‘i, can be more resistant to alteration than low-frequency words. But for most users of English, there is no glottal in Hawaii. The article says that, but it was not contributed by me. Someone else wrote it, long before I first looked at the article.

Do you have a valid challenge to point 1, point 2, point 3, or point 4 of my contribution? For each point that you do not challenge, you should not be deleting the contribution. For any point that you do challenge, you need to specify something more substantial than just "it is used" by someone. Because many humans make many mistakes, and many of those mistakes get published. Wikipedia values book usage by recognized authorities far more than internet usage by anonymous individuals or people who are not recognized authorities. You should also admit that dictionaries are not immune to containing errors, or poor choices.

In my copy of the Pukui-Elbert Hawaiian Dictionary, on page 2, for the entry for ‘a‘ā, meaning number 2, the first use of ‘a‘ā is the Hawaiian spelling, but with an error --- the first glottal is missing. The second use is aa, the English spelling. It correctly omits both of the glottal stops, and the macron. It sometimes requires common sense to recognize that a mistake or error has been published. That applies to the American Heritage Dictionary as well.

I looked at the five webpages where you found instances of "Hawai`ian". The 1st focuses on racism, and has racist phrases like "WhitestLawSchools". (It also uses "Hawaiian" more than "Hawai`ian".) The 2nd is a government webpage which has clearly erroneous "facts", such as "forced annexation of Hawaii in 1893", and "Hawaiian was banned from all spheres of life under threat of punishment". It also contains a (dead) link to Mark Warschauer and a live link to this Wikipedia Glottal Stop article. (It also uses "Hawaiian" 45 times, "Hawai`ian" 4 times.) The 3rd is merely a one-paragraph student writing assignment at the U of Minnesota, amounting to a political plug for the Akaka Bill. The 4th is merely a list of links at asiansinamerica.org with stuff like "Reinstated Government of Hawaii" and "Office of Hawaiian Affairs". (Note that it is not the Office of "Hawai`ian" Affairs.) The 5th is merely an isolated course handout, an exercise, prepared by a faculty member at U of N Carolina who clearly lacks experience with the Hawaiian language. (The Hawaiian word for "school" is kula, not kola "sexually excited".) Not one of those sources is authoritative at all.

Bear in mind that there is no personal attack here. Users can challenge one another's contributions. I don't know if you contributed the aa lava bit. But I do know that you deleted my contribution, and you still have not credibly justified your decision to oppose correct Hawaiian spelling as well as correct English spelling. If your position is that everything is acceptable because there's no such thing as a mistake, then that will not fly. If there are no mistakes, then there is never any need for anyone to edit anything. Agent X 23:08, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Recent Modifications

I added the stuff about the d, and the history and the word list. Any objections? thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.244.41.155 (talk • contribs)

I'm dubious about adding so much information without any sourcing. I took out the word list because we don't need so many examples. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

That's cool. btw-do u know how to get the character for a syllabic n on here? I know it's the n with a subscript, but they don't even have it on the main page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.244.41.155 (talk • contribs)

The syllabic diacritic is a separate character <̩>. If you scroll down to the diacritics section of the IPA article you'll see them laid out. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:11, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Hebrew

Umm, the Hebrew example doesn't actually have a glottal stop in its IPA. oops. If I knew anything about Hebrew I'd correct this.

Good catch! I've fixed it. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 09:46, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Use of the glottal stop

How come the word is not self-descriptive? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.86.0.10 (talk) 13:17, August 22, 2007 (UTC)

It is pretty self descriptive. Glottal meaning of the glottis and stop meaning a stop in airflow. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 15:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Other languages

The glottal stop is also very prominent in African American Vernacular English and many American Indian languages, but I can't find that this is mentioned in this article. I think it should be. Badagnani 08:40, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

A few Indian languages are mentioned already but more couldn't hurt. AAVE, as far as I know, doesn't use the glottal stop much more than any other dialect of English. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 16:21, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Which American Indian languages are already mentioned? I didn't see Cherokee on there (the largest tribe by population according to the most recent census). Regarding AAVE, yes, it does, because, with rare exceptions (even many radio and television personalities), the final "d" of words such as "wanted" are glottalized. It's a marker of this dialect. Badagnani 17:32, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Even if that were true about AAVE (which sources I've seen indicate it is not), it would be a minor extension of /t/ glottalization, which is present in almost all varieties of American English and even more so in Estuary English. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:47, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with what Badagnani said about AAVE. I hear it quite often. "D's" at the end of words are at least sometimes glottalized. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 21:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Well we need a reliabe source that says this. Otherwise it's original research. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:00, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I know you've heard it before in your life, Ƶ§œš¹. If you haven't, I would be surprised. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 09:04, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Whether I've heard it is pretty moot. Wikipedia is built on use of reliabile sources. Check out the link and you'll see. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:12, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't care if it's moot or not. I just want you to admit that you've heard that pronunciation before in your life. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 20:24, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

General American

Do glottal stops happen in General American at the end of words like "night", "lot ", and "wrote"? I have noticed that the t's in these words aren't pronounced the same as the one in "hotel". Thanks. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 21:47, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe so. It's certainly the case that many Americans do it, though it's possible that it is instead a glottalized unrelease /t/ (that is, the tongue does make contact with the alveolar ridge but doesn't move away until the glottis has completely restricted airflow), which sounds identical to my ears. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:50, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks so much. I know what you mean. I, as a speaker of General American, can't tell the difference between the "sound" I make at the end of the word "night" and the sound a speaker of the Cockney dialect makes at the end of the same word. The Cockney sound is supposed to be a glottal stop, but I did not know American English had that sound. In fact, I read an article (seemingly a reliable one) that said American English does not have glottal stops. Whatever the sound is in words like "gotten" and "written" in my idiolect, it also sounds similar to a glottal stop. I'm welcome to any other thoughts on this matter. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 03:59, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Word-initial glottal stop

It seems to me that there can be no distinction between a word-initial vowel and a word-inital glottal stop followed by a vowel. Is there, for instance, a difference between /əʔoʊ/ and /ʔəʔoʊ/? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rdr0 (talk • contribs) 21:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

No, though I think utterance-initial vowels are often preceded by glottal stops in English. So she said "uh-oh" is more likely to have the former than the latter. Since this is entirely predictable on phonetic grounds, this is not a phonemic glottal stop. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:10, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Glo'al stop in England & Oz

Surely it's nonsense to say "It is only found marginally in English" when the glottal stop is such a major feature of city dialects in England? And I'm sure it's equally common in 'Straiyan (aka 'Strine as in 'Strine chicks...). Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:09, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Glo'al stop in Low Saxony

In Low Saxon dialect parts of the Netherlands (north/east) and Germany (north), Glottal Stops occur more often. The Glotal stop is used for more or less difficult consonants in words like weten (knowing) wee'n, (cooking) koken becomes koo'n, etc.82.75.214.253 (talk) 22:14, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

GA and Cockney examples

We have [kʰɛ̝ʔ] for Cockney and [kʰæʔt] for General American - shouldn't these be the other way round? Lfh (talk) 15:09, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

No. GA speakers may have a glottal stop with no unreleased [t] afterwards, but AFAIK, Cockney never does. Also, the vowels are correct for each. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:38, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes I was only looking at the vowels. Looks like I'll have to revise my cockney. Lfh (talk) 20:05, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

At some point, I offered cat shit and catch it as a minimal pair of sorts to demonstrate English's tenuous distinction between affricates and stop-fricative clusters. Of course, even in my own speech the vowel of catch is raised but the vowel of cat is not. I'm not sure what to make of this. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:22, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I can't help there, sorry. The reason they looked the wrong way round to me is that the [ɛ̝] given for Cockney reminded me of American [ɛə], while I was sure that some cockneys do indeed use [æ]. But I don't suppose it matters much in the context of the glottal stop. Lfh (talk) 20:51, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Occurence in Japanese

In the occurences table, Japanese seems to be missing. Is the small "tsu" not an indicator of a glottal stop in Japanese? K3fka (talk) 01:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

tsu indicates [tsɯ]. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:30, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

To my knowledge, a small tsu before a consonant indicates [ː] after the consonant, i.e., a geminated consonant; however, I am not an expert on Japanese phonology, so I might be wrong. 22:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC) Never mind, I just checked this page and it looks like I was correct. 22:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

"button" in RP

In "RP", "button" is NEVER pronounced with a glottal stop. I didn't think it was in General American either, but I'm not really experienced in that field. Someone is apparently mixing up cockney with RP.--86.176.85.90 (talk) 22:12, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Did you check the source? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:37, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

As someone who can style-shift between RP and a South London accent I have to agree with 86.176.85.90. In speaking to Londoners I would pronounce button as Bu'un, Saturday as Sa'uday, etc. but would never use this in my RP register. Perhaps it is Since the source costs £20 I am not about to check it. Perhaps it is referring to pre-glottalization. -- Q Chris (talk) 14:06, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Influence on Spanic language

I have a suspicion that the feature of spanish language which calls for obligatory e at the beginning of words starting with 'sp' and 'sk' (like in 'escuela' for 'school', 'español' for 'spanish') was developed under Arabic influence during Arabic rule of Spain. For example, if you listen to the song "Speedy Gonzales" sung in Spanish by Kumbia All Starz, you will hear a glottal stop ['espeedy gonzales] (best heard at about 2:08 in the video, not obstructed by music). Did anynone hear anything in this respect? Mukadderat (talk) 16:41, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

phonemci vs non-phonemic glottal stop

Could someone write an article section about the distinction of phonemic vs. non-phonemic glottal stop discussed in #Word-initial glottal stop above and in article Hamza (hamzatu l-qatʻ vs. hamzatu l-waṣl)? Mukadderat (talk) 16:51, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Two phenomena

Actually two phenomena are described here without emphasizing the difference. One is the solitary glottal stop, the closure of the glottis as e.g. in GA "cat" before the "t", which is, as a consequence not audible. The other being the crack sound occurring with the opening of the glottis "under pressure" after its closure, as in RP "button" before the "n".

BTW, neither of them occurs in German "Verwaltung".

--Felix Tritschler (talk) 17:13, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Modern Scots

May I say that as a former resident of Renfrewshire and now a current resident of Perthshire, glottal stops are extremely common in modern Scottish speech, mostly representing the word T. The most common word in this style is "that" (from what I can hear at least), or similar sounding words such as "hat". I have noticed that Scots words like "bitty" up here are also pronounced with a glottal stop, as well as "tatties" and "banter" and so on and so forth.

A list I have compiled is as follows:

That, Hat, Banter, Canter, Tatties (for both Ts), Bitty (for both Ts), What, Scotland, Scots, Pit (as well as names like Pitlochry), Bent, Burnt, Shut

The list goes on.

In each of these, the T is a glottal stop.

I hope this is useful information.

--Venerable John (talk) 19:10, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Seems more common than this article makes out

It appears to me the glottal stop used whenever a vowel is pronounced "by itself", like in the words eye, a or in. In the article, it's claimed that one appears halfway in the phrase "uh-oh". However I can't personally detect any difference in beginnings of the pronunciations of the of the "uh" and the "oh", perhaps someone can convince me otherwise? Woscafrench (talk) 21:07, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Danish again

I simply do not understand this sentence: "There are intricate interactions between falling tone and the glottal stop in the histories of such languages as Danish (cf. stød), Chinese and Thai." I do not think this applies to neither the Danish "Stød" or instances of glottal stop in the Danish language. The "stød" is, according to the analysis I know, a purely syllabic feature. Maybe from some diachronic perspective the sentence makes sense, but this should be calirfied. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.105.37.95 (talk) 22:33, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

German ...

"German: Beamter, Verwaltung"

Yeah, good job on reinforcing stupid stereotypes ... in an article about glottal stops, goddangit. --89.244.89.99 (talk) 21:06, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

What about Klingon?

Glottal stops are used in the Klingon language, so why isn't Klingon listed as using them?