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This article is about the sound in spoken language. For the letter, see Glottal stop (letter). For consonants followed by superscript ˀ, see Glottalization.
A glottal stop, glottal plosive, or glottal catch is a type of consonantal sound used in many spokenlanguages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. It is familiar to English speakers as the catch in the middle of "uh-oh". The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʔ⟩.
As a result of the action of the glottis, glottal vibration either stops or becomes irregular with a low rate and sudden drop in intensity.[1]
Features
Features of a glottal stop:
Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the airflow is blocked entirely, the consonant is a plosive.
One of the possible realizations of stød. Depending on the dialect and style of speech, it can be instead realized as laryngealisation of the preceding sound. See Danish phonology.
Allophone of final /k/ in the syllable coda, pronounced before consonants and at end of the a word. In other positions, /ʔ/ has phonemic status only in loanwords from Arabic. See Malay phonology
Marginal sound. Does not occur after or before a consonant. In Brazilian casual speech, there is at least one [ʔ]–vowel length–pitch accent minimal pair (triply unusual, the ideophones short ih vs. long ih). See Portuguese phonology.
In many languages that do not allow a sequence of vowels (such as Persian), a glottal stop may be used epenthetically to prevent such a hiatus. There are intricate interactions between falling tone and the glottal stop in the histories of such languages as Danish (see stød), Cantonese and Thai.
In many languages, the unstressed intervocalic allophone of the glottal stop is a creaky-voiced glottal approximant. It is known to be contrastive in only one language, Gimi, in which it is the voiced equivalent of the stop.[27]
This section needs expansionwith: More example languages. You can help by adding missing information. (February 2026)
Some languages have glottal stops with secondary articulation (approximant-like release). It has been noted that palatalized and labialized glottal stops, respectively /ʔʲ/ and /ʔʷ/, are quite similar to the glottalized sonorants/ˀj/ and /ˀw/, and either case may be analyzed instead as sequences, /ʔj/ and /ʔw/; the specific interpretation of these sounds is mostly dependent upon how they pattern with other sounds within a particular language's phonological structure.[28]
A few languages (such as Ganza and Tomo-Kan Dogon) have been reported to contain nasalized glottal stops /ʔ̃/ that contrast with non-nasal ones in their phonemic inventories, and a few other languages (such as Kaingang and Standard Thai) have been reported to contain them as allophones in certain environments. While they are all commonly called nasal(ized) glottal stops, the phonological implications of such sounds vary, typically occurring as one of the following:
Inducing nasalization on surrounding vowels, where their non-nasal counterparts do not (such as /Vʔ̃V/ → [Ṽʔ̃Ṽ]).
Nasalizing as a result of adjacency to nasal vowels (such as /ṼʔṼ/ → [Ṽʔ̃Ṽ]).
Similar features have been reported with the nature of creaky-voiced glottal approximants and their spread of creaky-voice to surrounding vowels or presence of pre-/post-creak.
However, the phonetic status of truly "nasalized" glottal stops is debated, depending on one's definition of nasality; similarly, although they may be contrastive in their underlying forms, a perceptual difference in their surface realizations is doubted.[29] Some linguists have argued that because nasal airflow and glottal closure are mutually exclusive features, phonetic nasalized glottal stops are impossible entities.[30] Other linguists have argued that because the gestural lowering of the velum (opening of the velopharyngeal port) that is associated with nasality is entirely compatible with glottal closure, they are not only possible but expected in some environments, particularly those where nasal harmony is not blocked by the presence of a glottal stop (such as in Sundanese, Acehnese, and Warao).[31] Thus, the recognition of nasalized glottal stops as a phonetic possibility is a matter of whether nasality is defined as the presence of nasal airflow or by the exhibition of a lowered velum.
In English, the glottal stop occurs as an open juncture (for example, between the vowel sounds in uh-oh![32]) and allophonically in t-glottalization. In British English, the glottal stop is most familiar in the Cockney pronunciation of "butter" as "bu'er". Geordie English often uses glottal stops for /p,t,k/, and has a unique form of glottalization. Additionally, there is the glottal stop as a null onset for English; in other words, it is the non-phonemic glottal stop occurring before isolated or initial vowels.
Often a glottal stop happens at the beginning of vowel phonation after a silence.[1]
Although this segment is not a phoneme in English, it occurs phonetically in nearly all dialects of English, as an allophone of /t/ in the syllable coda. Speakers of Cockney, Scottish English and several other British dialects also pronounce an intervocalic /t/ between vowels as in city. In Received Pronunciation, a glottal stop is inserted before a tautosyllabic voiceless stop: sto'p, tha't, kno'ck, wa'tch, lea'p, soa'k, hel'p, pin'ch.[33][34]
In American English, /t/ is usually not aspirated in syllables ending either in /Vt/ (where /V/ is a vowel), such as "cat" or "outside"; or in an unstressed /tVn/ segment, such as "mountain" or "Manhattan". This is an unreleased stop[t̚], colloquially referred to as a "held t", as the airflow is stopped by tongue at the ridge behind the teeth. However, there is a trend of younger speakers in the Mid-Atlantic states to replace the "held t" with a glottal stop, so that "Manhattan" sounds like "Man-ha'in" or "Clinton" like "Cli(n)'in", where ⟨'⟩ is the glottal stop. This may have crossed over from African American Vernacular English, particularly that of New York City.[35][36]
Most English speakers today often use a glottal stop before the initial vowel of words beginning with a vowel, particularly at the beginning of sentences or phrases or when a word is emphasized. This is also known as "hard attack".[9] Traditionally in Received Pronunciation, "hard attack" was seen as a way to emphasize a word. Today, in British, American and other varieties of English, it is increasingly used not only to emphasize but also simply to separate two words, especially when the first word ends in a glottal stop.[8][9][37]
In the traditional romanization of many languages, such as Arabic, a glottal stop is transcribed with the apostrophe⟨ʼ⟩ or the symbol ⟨ʾ⟩, which is the source of the IPA character ⟨ʔ⟩. In many Polynesian languages that use the Latin alphabet, however, the glottal stop is written with a rotated apostrophe, ⟨ʻ⟩ (called ʻokina in Hawaiian and Samoan), which is commonly used to transcribe the Arabic ayin as well (also ⟨ʽ⟩) and is the source of the IPA character for the voiced pharyngeal fricative⟨ʕ⟩. In Malay the glottal stop is represented by the letter ⟨k⟩ (at the end of words), in Võro and Maltese by ⟨q⟩. Another way of writing the glottal stop is the saltillo⟨Ꞌ ꞌ⟩, used in languages such as Tlapanec and Rapa Nui.
Other scripts also have letters used for representing glottal stops, such as the Hebrew letteraleph⟨א⟩ and the Cyrillic letter palochka⟨Ӏ⟩, used in several Caucasian languages. The Arabic script uses hamza⟨ء⟩, which can appear both as a diacritic and as an independent letter (though not part of the alphabet). In Tundra Nenets, it is represented by the letters apostrophe⟨ʼ⟩ and double apostrophe⟨ˮ⟩. In Japanese, glottal stops occur at the end of interjections of surprise or anger and are represented by the character ⟨っ⟩.
In the graphic representation of most Philippine languages, glottal stops have no consistent symbolization. In most cases, however, a word that begins with a vowel-letter (e.g. Tagalogaso, "dog") is always pronounced with an unrepresented glottal stop before that vowel (as in Modern German and Hausa). Some orthographies use a hyphen instead of the reverse apostrophe if the glottal stop occurs in the middle of the word (e.g. Tagalog pag-ibig, "love"; or Visayangabi-i, "night"). If it occurs in the end of a word, the last vowel can be written with a circumflex accent (known as the pakupyâ) if both a stress and a glottal stop occur in the final vowel (e.g. basâ, "wet") or a grave accent (known as the paiwà) if the glottal stop occurs at the final vowel, but the stress occurs at the penultimate syllable (e.g. batà, "child").[40][41][42]
Some Canadian indigenous languages, especially some of the Salishan languages, have adopted the IPA letter ⟨ʔ⟩ into their orthographies. In some of them, it occurs as a casing pair, ⟨Ɂ⟩ and ⟨ɂ⟩.[43] The digit ⟨7⟩ or a question mark is sometimes substituted for ⟨ʔ⟩, and is preferred in languages such as Squamish. SENĆOŦEN–whose alphabet is mostly unique from other Salish languages–contrastly uses the comma⟨,⟩ to represent the glottal stop, though it is optional.
In 2015, two women in the Northwest Territories challenged the territorial government over its refusal to permit them to use the letter ⟨ʔ⟩ in their daughters' names: Sahaiʔa, a Chipewyan name, and Sakaeʔah, a Slavey name (the two names are actually cognates). The territory argued that territorial and federal identity documents were unable to accommodate the character. The women registered the names with hyphens instead of the ⟨ʔ⟩, while continuing to challenge the policy.[44]
In the Crow language, the glottal stop is written as a question mark⟨?⟩. The only instance of the glottal stop in Crow is as a question marker morpheme at the end of a sentence.[45]
Use of the glottal stop is a distinct characteristic of the Southern Mainland Argyll dialects of Scottish Gaelic. In such a dialect, the standard Gaelic phrase Tha Gàidhlig agam ("I speak Gaelic"), would be rendered Tha Gàidhlig a'am.
In the Nawdm language of Ghana, the glottal stop is written ɦ, capital Ĥ.
↑Edmondson, J. A.; Esling, J. H.; Harris, J. G., Supraglottal Cavity Shape, Linguistic Register, and Other Phonetic Features of Somali, CiteSeerX10.1.1.570.821.{{citation}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |citeseerx= (help)
↑Schoellner, Joan; Heinle, Beverly D., eds. (2007). Tagalog Reading Booklet(PDF). Simon & Schister's Pimsleur. pp.5–6. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2013-11-27. Retrieved 2012-07-18.
↑Graczyk, Randolph (2007). A grammar of Crow = Apsáalooke Aliláau. Bloomington. American Indian Studies Research Institute Indiana University. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN978-0-8032-2196-3. OCLC104894214.
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Landau, Ernestina; Lončarić, Mijo; Horga, Damir; Škarić, Ivo (1999), "Croatian", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.66–69, ISBN0-521-65236-7
Piggott, G. L. (1992), "Variability in Feature Dependency: The Case of Nasality", Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 10 (1): 33–77, JSTOR4047766
Roach, Peter (2004), "British English: Received Pronunciation", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (2): 239–245, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001768
Sivertsen, Eva (1960), Cockney Phonology, Oslo: University of Oslo{{citation}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
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