Voiceless uvular plosive

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IPA – number	111
IPA – text	q
IPA – image
Entity	q
X-SAMPA	`q`
Kirshenbaum	`q`
Sound sample (help·info)

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.

1 Features
2 Occurrence
3 See also
4 References
5 Bibliography

Features

Features of the voiceless uvular plosive:

Its manner of articulation is plosive or stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
Its place of articulation is uvular which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) against or near the uvula.
Its phonation type 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.
It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Aleut	Atkan dialect	qaataa	[qɑːtɑː]	'where'
Arabic	Standard^[1]	القرآن	[ʔalqurˈʔaːn]	'the Qur'an'	See Arabic phonology
Avar		рахъу	[raˈqːu]	'ashes'	always geminated
Chechen		кхоъ/qo’	[qɔʔ]	'three'
Eyak		g̣u^.jih	[quːtʃih]	'wolf'
Inuktitut		ᐃ"ᐃᑉᕆᐅᖅᑐᖅ	[ihipɢiuqtuq]	'explore'	Represented by a <ᕆ>. See Inuit phonology
Iraqw		[qeːt]		'break'
Kabardian		экхъыл	[ɑqɪɮ]	'intellect'	Contrasts with a labialized form
Kabyle		aqcic	[aqʃiʃ]	'boy'
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
Sahaptin		qu	[qu]	'heavy'
Somali		qaab	[qaːb]	'shape'	See Somali phonology
St’át’imcets		teq	[təq]	'to touch'
Tadaksahak		[qoq]		'dry'
Tlingit		ghagw	[qɐ́kʷ]	'tree spine'	Tlingit contrasts six different uvular plosives
Tsimshian		gwildmḵa̱p'a	[gʷildmqɑpʼa]	'tobacco'
Ubykh		/maqʷəta/		'hoe'	Ubykh has ten different uvular plosives. See Ubykh phonology
Yukaghir	Northern	маарх	[maːrq]	'one'
Yukaghir	Southern	атахл	[ataql]	'two'