Glottal stop (letter)

The character ⟨ʔ⟩, called glottal stop, is an alphabetic letter in some Latin alphabets, most notable in several languages of Canada where it indicates a glottal stop sound. Such usage derives from phonetic transcription, for example the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), that use this letter for the glottal stop sound. The letter derives graphically from use of the apostrophe ⟨ʼ⟩ for glottal stop.

Unicase and cased glottal-stop letters

Graphic variants

Road sign in British Columbia showing the use of the digit ⟨7⟩ to represent /ʔ/ in the Squamish language.

Where ⟨ʔ⟩ is not available, not being in the basic Latin alphabet, it is sometimes replaced by a question mark ⟨?⟩, which is its official representation in the SAMPA transcription scheme. In Skwomesh or Squamish, ⟨ʔ⟩ may be replaced by the digit ⟨7⟩ (see image at right).

In Unicode, four graphic variants of the glottal stop letter are available.

• Unicase ⟨ʔ⟩ (U+0294 ʔ LATIN LETTER GLOTTAL STOP) is provided for the International Phonetic Alphabet and Americanist phonetic notation. It is found in a number of orthographies that use the IPA/APA symbol, such as those of several Salishan languages.
• A case pair, uppercase ⟨Ɂ⟩ (U+0241 Ɂ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER GLOTTAL STOP) and lowercase ⟨ɂ⟩ (U+0242 ɂ LATIN SMALL LETTER GLOTTAL STOP), is provided for the orthographies of several Athabaskan languages. Uppercase ⟨Ɂ⟩ may be slightly wider than unicase ⟨ʔ⟩ in fonts that distinguish them.
• Superscript ⟨ˀ⟩ (U+02C0 ˀ MODIFIER LETTER GLOTTAL STOP) that is used in the IPA and the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet.

Other common symbols for the glottal stop sound are variants of the punctuation mark apostrophe that was the historical basis of the glottal stop letters. These include the 9-shaped modifier letter apostrophe, ⟨ʼ⟩, which is probably the most common (and the direct ancestor of ⟨ʔ⟩), the 6-shaped ʻokina of Hawaiian, ⟨ʻ⟩, and the straight-apostrophe shaped saltillo of many languages of Mexico, which has the case forms ⟨Ꞌ ꞌ⟩.

Usage

Technical transcription

• Americanist phonetic notation and the International Phonetic Alphabet — unicase ʔ or superscript ˀ
• Transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages — occasionally unicase ʔ
• Uralic Phonetic Alphabet — superscript ˀ only

Vernacular orthographies

• Languages of Canada
  • Chipewyan — uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ɂ
  • Dogrib — uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ɂ
  • Kootenai — unicase ʔ
  • Musqueam language — unicase ʔ
  • Nootka — unicase ʔ
  • Slavey — uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ɂ
  • Nitinaht — unicase ʔ
  • Thompson — unicase ʔ
  • Lushootseed — unicase ʔ
  • Squamish language, where it is sometimes represented with ⟨7⟩.

Computing codes

In Unicode 1.0, only the unicase and superscript variants were included. In version 4.1 (2005), an uppercase character was added, and the existing unicase character was redefined as its lowercase. Then, in version 5.0 (2006), it was decided to separate the cased and caseless usages by adding a dedicated lowercase letter. The IPA character is first from left, while the extended Latin alphabet characters are third and fourth from left.[1]

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

• Glottal stop#Writing
• ʾ (Modifier letter right half ring)
• ʕ (Voiced pharyngeal fricative in IPA)
• ʡ (Epiglottal stop in IPA)
• ʢ (Voiced epiglottal trill in IPA)
• ʖ and ƾ (Obsolete and nonstandard symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet)
• ˤ (Pharyngealization in IPA)
• ʻOkina
• Aleph
• Apostrophe
• Hamza
• Saltillo (letter)
• Sokuon
• Spiritus lenis

References

1. "Proposal to add LATIN SMALL LETTER GLOTTAL STOP to the UCS" (PDF). 2005-08-10. Retrieved 2013-11-04.