Uvular ejective

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IPA – number	111 + 401
IPA – text	qʼ
IPA – image
Entity	qʼ
X-SAMPA	q_>
Kirshenbaum	q`
Sound sample (help·info)

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 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 ӄ': ӄ'ил'хч [qʼilˀxʧ] to depart.
• Georgian, where it is written ყ: ტყავი [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 /χʼ/.
• Tahltan: [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: wəq̕ə́q̕ [wəqʼəqʼ] frog, sq̕ʷúŋi(ʔ) [sqʷʼuɴi(ʔ)] head.
• Lezgian, where the two are written кь and кьв: кьакьан [qʼaqʼan] tall, high, кьвех [qʷʼeχ] groin.
• North Straits Salish, where the two are written K and K̴ in the Saanich orthography: Saanich KEYOṮEN [qʼəjat͡ɬʼənˀ] slug, snail, SK̴EḰĆES [sqʷʼəqʷʧəs] red huckleberry.

The Akhvakh language appears to have a contrast between lax and tense uvular ejectives: [qʼaː] soup, broth (lax) vs. [qːʼama] cock's comb (tense).

Three ejectives

• Abkhaz contrasts plain, palatalised and labialised uvular ejectives, written ҟ ҟь ҟə: аҟаҧшь [aqʼapʃ] red, -ҵəҟьа [-ʨʷʼqʲʼa] really, indeed (a verbal suffix), Аҟәа [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 /-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: [qʼaqʼa] he said it, [məqʲʼ] small and round, [qʷʼa] to seize, [qˁʼaqˁʼ] to chew, [qʷˁʼa] cavern.

See also

• List of phonetics topics