Voiceless uvular plosive

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.

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.

Varieties of [q]

Occurrence

See also

• List of phonetics topics
• Qoph

References

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.