Uvular ejective

The uvular ejective is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is IPA|qʼ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is q_>.

Features

Features of the uvular ejective:

* 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 center of the tongue, rather than the sides.
* The airstream mechanism is glottalic egressive, which means it is produced by pushing air with the glottis, rather than with the diaphragm.

Occurrence

"One ejective"
A single plain uvular ejective is found in almost all Northeast Caucasian languages, all South Caucasian languages, and some Athabaskan languages, as well as Itelmen, Quechua and Aymara.
*Itelmen, where it is written unicode|ӄ': unicode|ӄ'ил'хч [IPA|qʼilˀxʧ] "to depart".
*Georgian, where it is written unicode|ყ: unicode|ტყავი [IPA|tʼqʼavi] "skin", "pelt". Unlike its velar counterpart, it does not contrast with voiced or voiceless uvular plosives; the voiceless uvular plosive of Old Georgian has merged with the voiceless velar fricative in modern Georgian. Some scholars view this Georgian phoneme as being rather an uvular ejective fricative /IPA|χʼ/.
*Tahltan: [IPA|qʼaχaːdiː] "door".

"Two ejectives"
Most Salishan languages, the Tlingit language, and Adyghe and Kabardian (Northwest Caucasian) demonstrate a two-way contrast between labialised and plain uvular ejectives.
*Klallam: unicode|wəq̕ə́q̕ [IPA|wəqʼəqʼ] "frog", unicode|sq̕ʷúŋi(ʔ) [IPA|sqʷʼuɴi(ʔ)] "head".
*Lezgian, where the two are written unicode|кь and unicode|кьв: unicode|кьакьан [IPA|qʼaqʼan] "tall", "high", unicode|кьвех [IPA|qʷʼeχ] "groin".
*North Straits Salish, where the two are written K and K̴ in the Saanich orthography: Saanich KEYOṮEN [IPA|qʼəjat͡ɬʼənˀ] "slug", "snail", SK̴EḰĆES [IPA|sqʷʼəqʷʧəs] "red huckleberry".The Akhvakh language appears to have a contrast between lax and tense uvular ejectives: [IPA|qʼaː] "soup", "broth" (lax) vs. [IPA|qːʼama] "cock's comb" (tense).

"Three ejectives"
*Abkhaz contrasts plain, palatalised and labialised uvular ejectives, written unicode|ҟ ҟь ҟə: unicode|аҟаҧшь [IPA|aqʼapʃ] "red", unicode|-ҵəҟьа [IPA|-ʨʷʼqʲʼa] "really", "indeed" (a verbal suffix), unicode|Аҟәа [IPA|aqʷʼa] "Sukhum". As with Georgian, Abkhaz has no non-ejective uvular plosives; the historically present uvular aspirates have merged with their corresponding fricatives, although the aspirates are preserved in Abaza.

"Five ejectives"
*The plain uvular ejective is one of the most common consonants in Ubykh, due to its presence in the past tense suffix /IPA|-qʼa/. But in addition to palatalised, labialised and plain uvular ejectives, Ubykh also possesses a pharyngealised version and a concurrently labialised "and" pharyngealised version, making a total of five: [IPA|qʼaqʼa] "he said it", [IPA|məqʲʼ] "small and round", [IPA|qʷʼa] "to seize", [IPA|qˁʼaqˁʼ] "to chew", [IPA|qʷˁʼa] "cavern".

ee also

* List of phonetics topics