Talk:Glottal stop

Stød

This page should mention the Danish langauge where the glottal stop is called "stød". But I've read that it can be analysed to be much more than a glottal stop even though this is the way it is most commonly described. Hippietrail 07:58, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Stød is never a glottal stop, only a type of laryngalization. It's only transcribed as a glottal stop in Dania, a phonetic alphabet extrapolated from IPA, but unique and specific to Danish. That's where the misunderstanding seems to come from.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:16, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Guess I was a bit too sure of myself. Stød is most commonly (in Standard Danish) a laryngealization, but some variants apparantly exist according to Basbøll. In West Jutish, stød is realized as something akin to a glottal stop, but I'm unsure of the exact nature. I'll maintain that it's probably not a good idea to mention Danish or stød in this article, though, and that the feature is primarily suprasegmental.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Even if stød is never a glottal stop I strongly feel this page should mention it if even to discredit the claim that it is - which is common enough. A Google search turns up 333 pages which include both terms (including Wikipedia). I've definitely seen them mentioned together in print too or I never would have asked about it here in the first place. I've also put a link in see also which I thought was already there. — Hippietrail 19:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It should not be mentioned, since it's very unsure exactly what the sound is. That X amount of Wikipedia pages have (wrongly) associated the two is irrelevant. If you want to include it, you should find a credible source that supports it. A Google search is not enough.

Peter ^Isotalo 04:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Here are some references that indicate both that many sources still describe the stød as a glottal stop, and that others go to the trouble to say that a stød is not a glottal stop. Either of these is enough for a See also link:

• Principles of Phonetics, John Laver: "Fischen-Jørgensen (1985: 197) is emphatic that stød in normal Danish speech is not a glottal stop."
• Danish: An Elementary Grammar and Reader, Elias Bredsdorff: "One of the most characteristic features of Danish pronunciation is the use of the glottal stop, or ‘stod ', ..."
• The Sounds of the World's Languages, Peter Ladefoged: "The glottal stop usually occurs a few milliseconds before the consonant ... many words have a brief superimposed glottal constriction known as a stød."
• Danish: An Essential Grammar, Robin Allan, Philip Holmes, Tom Lundskr-Nielsen: "In Danish the glottal stop or ‘stød '..."
• Colloquial Danish: The Complete Course for Beginners, W Glyn Jones, Andrew R Mitchell, Gly W Jones, Kirsten Gade: "Danish is famous for its stød, the glottal stop..."
• Concise Compendium of the World's Languages, George Campbell: "The stød (glottal stop) corresponds in Danish to the acute tone in Swedish and Norwegian."
• Denmark, Lonely Planet Publications: "...the peculiarity of the glottal stop or stod"
• Writing Systems: An Introduction to Their Linguistic Analysis, Florian Coulmas: "Consider as an example Danish stød (literally ‘thrust'), a kind of glottal stop..."
• Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction, Benjamin W Fortson: "Most Danish dialects have an unusual phonetic feature called stød, which is similar to a glottal stop near final consonants in monosyllables."
• Danish Dictionary: Danish-English, English-Danish, Routledge: "The stød, or glottal stop, can occur virtually anywhere in Danish words."
• Bibiographie Linguistique De L'Annee 1999/Bibliography for the Year 1999: Et Complements..., Sijmen Tol, Mark Janse, Hella Olbertz: "Some irregularities of the so-called West Jutland Stod (glottal stop)..."
• Research Potentials in Voice Physiology: "All phoneticians agree that the standard Danish stod is not a glottal stop."

— Hippietrail 17:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest this paper by Tomas Riad for the Danish stød: 2000. The origin of Danish stød. In: Aditi Lahiri (ed.) Analogy, Levelling and Markedness. Principles of change in phonology and morphology. Berlin/New York, Mouton de Gruyter. 261–300. There should be more. --Per W (talk) 07:27, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

gemination

Is there any relationship at all between the glottal stop and gemination? I'm guessing that there is. — Hippietrail 01:02, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The two aren't anywhere near the same thing. Gemination is, as the article says, is when a consonant is given quantitative length. It's not phonemic and only marginally extant in English, but the usual example given is the "nn" in the word "penknife". A glottal stop is a plosive consonant, just like "t", "p", or "k", it just sounds weirder --user:Cevlakohn

disputed

I deny the existence of the glottal stop, as a sound at least: Show me one that is not merely a schwa or an unaspirated cluster. lysdexia 09:42, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'm afraid you're arguing against the vast mass of scholarly research in phonetics and phonology. There are plenty of examples of the role of glottal stop in phonology, including those on this page. Nohat 21:29, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

---

In Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) the word for denying (No or Not) is "tidak". That "k" at the end of the word is definitely a glottal stop.

---

In Maltese at least, the glottal stop is a very common sound. It can occur anywhere in a word and is written as the letter q. For example, ghaqda, baqbaq, qrun, moqziez, qanfud, wisq, etc etc. It therefore is unrelated to gemination, but is a sound of its own, since those words would sound very different otherwise. I fail to see any relation to a schwa, and as for the unaspirated cluster, I think some of those example words would counter that claim. -E. Farrugia, 16:39, 29 Nov 2004 (GMT -5)

Hamza ibn Abd al-Muttalib

Hi!

Ther is a very famous personb named "hamza".

Since this page have that namne, its reasonable that it tells lost wiki users how to go to that person. Thats why i added that. Thank you :)

--Striver 5 July 2005 21:18 (UTC)

This redirect from a letter directly to a phoneme is not a good idea, I added a stub instead.

Thank you :)

--Striver 5 July 2005 23:25 (UTC)

ummm, Hamza the person has a letter Ha' in the beginning, the letter starts with a normal H (heh).

German

In Austria nobody would dream of inserting a glottal stop into a word, not even in the main evening news of the public-owned TV channels. "Beeilen" is pronounced with a double vowel (more or less IPA epsilon). Pronouncing one word as if it were two sentences is something the Germans do, and probably not all of them. So I edited that paragraph. David Marjanović david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at 23:22 CET-summertime

The glottal stop is more common in Northern German, so the fact that it's rare in Oesterreich is not the least bit surprising.Cameron Nedland 19:22, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe not in "beeilen" but how about "Arbeitsamt"? Wouldn't you make a stop between "arbeits" and "amt"? I only know one native speaker from the Salzkammergut area, he does the glottal stop. But he has been living in Muenchen for quiet a while already.142.243.254.224 (talk) 16:49, 1 December 2010 (UTC)Gilbert

Late to the party, but nope, I wouldn't put one in Arbeitsamt, and neither would the TV news – from the pronunciation alone, you can't tell if it's Arbeit + -s- + Amt (which of course it is) or Arbeit + Samt "velvet". (...No, we don't do [z] either.)

But then, neither would people in northern Germany; they insert glottal stops in front of stressed vowels that would otherwise find themselves stranded at the beginning of a syllable. Asteroiden und Kometen comes out as [ˌʔastɐʁoˈʔiːdn̩ʊntkoˈmeːtn̩]; I'd drop the second [ʔ] entirely and use the first only after a pause.

I still wonder about the alleged [ʔ] in "western" Verwaltung. It's imaginable that [ʋ] counts as a vowel in someone's phonology, but I doubt it.

Edit: forgot I wasn't logged in anymore. David Marjanović (talk) 18:01, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Dutch

From the German section:

Otherwise the glottal stop is only used in front of words (or, for faster speakers, sentences) that begin with a vowel.

This applies to Dutch as well. Of course I don't know if this is also true in all dialects. Shinobu 06:15, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Japanese

As far as I know, there is no glottal stop in Japanese. It appears geminates have been confused with glottal stops, or that there is some coarticulation. --Vuo 13:48, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

How embarrassing. I copy edited that without paying attention to what it said! (It was very late and I was running on yawns.) Japanese does have a glottal stop, and it is written sokuon, but it's only found in interjections like aaa’! Not part of the normal inventory. kwami 20:01, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Japanese DO have glottal stops when comes when two of the same consonants are side by side.Sparky-sama (talk) 03:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Japanese does have glottal stops and it is represented by 'っ' which is usually transcribed into English as a double consonant (though can vary in Japanese). It's often (but not always) used when certain unvoiced consonants are next to each other within a word or for verb conjugations. Examples: いち(one) いっかい(one time, "ichikai" is reduced to "ikkai" where the double 'k' represents a glottal stop), いく(go) いった(went) - without the glottal stop it would become いた(was (in reference to living things)). I don't have time to find references but I do speak the language. I imagine it would be easy to find some, someone with time and an account go to it! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.98.223.132 (talk) 07:43, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Those are geminates. Japanese glottal stops are also written っ, but only at the end of an utterance (e.g. いてっ! "ouch!") Double sharp (talk) 12:47, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

German again

Regarding German (my native tongue) again, I'm not sure in which dialect "sehen" would be pronounced with a glottal stop, but it's not something I've ever heard, and I actually find it rather difficult to pronounce it that way when I try, too (even though the glottal stop in "Beamter" and "beeilen" is not a problem for me to pronounce). In fact, I'd say that "sehen" is usually pronounced [ˈzeːən] or even [ˈzeːn]; [ˈzeːhən] would also be possible (although I don't think you'd encounter that in spoken German, at least not where I live; it's more what you'd get if you tried to pronounce the word 100% correctly), but [ˈzeːʔən] doesn't sound like something you'd encounter to me.

Of course, I'm not a linguist, but I do think that "sehen" is not the best example here. It's also possible to pronounce "Beamter" or "beeilen" etc. without a glottal stop, especially when you're talking a bit faster, but at least in those cases, it's clearly there when you take care to pronounce the word correctly. -- Schnee (cheeks clone) 03:47, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, that fits with everything I've ever heard about German. kwami 01:52, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

When pronouncing extra-slowly, I might insert a glottal stop in beeilen, but I wouldn't dream of doing it in Beamter. (Pluricentric language.) On the other hand, I've never heard of anyone putting a glottal stop into sehen. I'm comparatively sure that nobody does that.

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 0:20 CET | 2006/2/19

Vowel separation in Finnish

I've added a {{citationneeded}} tag to where it says that the glottal stop can be used to separate wovels of different words in Finnish, as it is not the very reason why there is a glottal stop. For example, iso auto and siili yöpyi onkalossa have no glottal stops and still the words are easily distinguishable. I've heard a theory that words with glottal stops have in some point of time lost a final consonant and the glottal stop is a relict of that; in the film Unna ja Nuuk, where the characters spoke ancient Finnish, the word meaning Come! was pronounced /tulek/ as it nowadays is /tuleʔ/. I have no proof for this, though, so I'm leaving it as it is. –Mysid 09:44, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

There are sources for that. I will try to find them. --Per W (talk) 08:36, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, @Mysid: tule was /tulek/ as still is in some dialects. --Per W (talk) 13:18, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

References

Hawaiian

There is no such word as "Hawai`ian". It only exists as a mistake used by people who are ignorant of both English and Hawaiian. See the Hawaiian language talk page for discussions on this point. Hawaiian is an English word, not a Hawaiian word. The English alphabet has 26 letters, none of which is conventionally used to represent a glottal stop in English. Speakers of English in Hawaii often use a glottal stop in pronouncing the word Hawaii, but NOT in pronouncing the word Hawaiian. The word Hawaiian is NEVER published in Hawaii with any symbol representing a glottal stop. It's very irritating to see the error being repeated by Wikipedia users, who supposedly care about getting things right. Agent X 19:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Funnily enough, Wikipedia isn't about getting things "right", mostly because exactly what is "right" is arguable. Someone else could come along and say that "Hawaiian" is incorrect and is only used by people who are ignorant of Hawai'ian. Who are we to believe?

If it's true that it's always written Hawaiian in Hawaii and never Hawai'ian, then articles about Hawaiian topics should conform to that, just like Britain-related articles follow British spelling and US-related articles follow American. But besides that, "Hawai'ian" is acceptable, as it is in use in English.

And regardless of what the English alphabet may or may not include, English writers often use foreign letters for foreign words, so that isn't an argument against a particular spelling. --Ptcamn 20:07, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Challenge to user Ptcamn

Do your homework. The Pukui-Elbert dictionary is the "Hawaiian Dictionary", NOT the "Hawai`ian Dictionary". I gave a specific citation to that source. Did you check it out? Did you check out the Hawaiian language talk page? The Wikipedia article is on the "Hawaiian language", NOT the "Hawai`ian language". I have lived in Hawaii since before it became a state in 1959. Have you? It IS true that it's NEVER written "Hawai`ian" in Hawaii. And yes, as you said, "articles about Hawaiian topics should conform to that". Just because something is "in use", that alone does NOT make it "acceptable". Hawaiian Creole English is "in use", but the English version of Wikipedia is not written in HCE. The word aint is "in use", but it is not acceptable as correct usage in an English Wikipedia article. Not everything that is "right" is credibly "arguable". Will anyone seriously disagree that one plus two equals three? What is right in Wikipedia is based on (1) what is published, (2) what is the prevailing consensus or majority-held view, and (3) common sense. If you want to challenge my contribution, then you should abide by Wikipedia policy, and check out its merits. Don't just delete a user contribution when you personally lack expertise on the topic. Agent X 20:49, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Whoa there folks, no need to assume bad faith from the start! I'm sure this is just a simple misunderstanding.

Ptcamn, it is never spelled "Hawai'ian", in any context - "Hawai'i" may be used instead of "Hawaii" are often used, but it really isn't proper to use the okina in the english possessive of the word. It ranks somewhere above using split infinitives, but below using the 'n'-word to describe black people.

But it is spelled "Hawai'ian". E.g. [1] [2] [3] [http://www.asiansinamerica.org/directory/dir_e_ha.html] [4]..

(And Hawaiian isn't a "posessive".) --Ptcamn 00:59, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, IANALinguist! Those websites are spelling it improperly, as websites often will. Check out http://www.ulukau.org/, a site dedicated to the language to see proper use. --JereKrischel 01:05, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

You said 'it is never spelled "Hawai'ian', in any context'. If you meant 'it is sometimes spelled "Hawai'ian", but that's incorrect', you should've said so. --Ptcamn 01:22, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, you're correct - it is mispelled in some contexts :) --JereKrischel 01:54, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The history of the okina in both Hawaiian and English is very complex, and Agent X is probably one of less than a hundred people in the world with a comprehensive understanding of the language, its history, its usage, and its conventions. No need for anyone to get bristled, we can just do the right thing, make the changes to conform to best practices, and move on! --JereKrischel 00:11, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

It's hard to "just do the right thing" when there's a dispute as to what the right thing is. :/ --Ptcamn 00:59, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, besides website spelling errors, we can pore over the scholarly sources (Pukui/Elbert), or we can ask a Hawaiian language scholar (like Agent X). I suppose if you found some sort of scholarly insistence that "Hawai'ian" is proper, we could put both positions in, but I don't think you'll find a dispute, only examples of bad spelling. --JereKrischel 01:05, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language includes an apostrophe in a'a, so the statement that the English spelling is aa and that English spelling doesn't indiciate glottal stops is incorrect. Even Pukui/Elbert uses apostrophes in the English text: "2. nvs. ʻAʻā lava; stony, abounding with ʻaʻa lava.".

Agent X is not a "language scholar". Every real linguist I know is a descriptivist. --Ptcamn 01:22, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

You're citing the Hawaiian - English section of Pukui/Elbert there. That's a Hawaiian spelling. In the English - Hawaiian section (p389 if you've got the book), it's clearly spelled "aa". Oh, and trust me, Agent X is a serious authority on the Hawaiian language! His damn dissertation is hundreds of pages long, and it's taking me ages to finish! --JereKrischel 01:54, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

A pretty good citation would be Hawai`i's official state government website [5], which uses the spelling 'Hawai`i' throughout. Czoller 05:03, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Check out their spelling of "Hawaiian" though - with these search results. Hawai'i is often spelled with the okina, as a Hawaiian spelling. There is no word "Hawaiian" in olelo Hawai'i, so it retains its English spelling properly. --JereKrischel 05:15, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

A search of "Hawai'ian" shows only 46 mispellings, and "Hawaiian" shows 8820 proper spellings. --JereKrischel 05:18, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Using plain old google as a measure, "Hawai'ian" rings up 183,000 results, and "Hawaiian" gets 68,400,000. I think it's pretty clear that "Hawaiian" is certainly the most common practice, and arguably the best scholarly practice. I'd be willing to hear refutations, though, if someone cares to make a point of it. --JereKrischel 05:28, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The most common spelling isn't the only acceptable one. The USA has a bigger population than the UK, but that doens't mean British English is incorrect.

It's only best scholarly practice if you follow the rule that you have to remove any non-English letters before you're allowed to stick affixes on it. Unfortunately for you, such a rule does not exist. For example, Gödelian is an acceptable spelling, even though ö is not an English letter and Gödelian is not a German word. --Ptcamn 14:08, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

GoogleUK has 56,300,000 hits for "Hawaiian", GoogleUK has 183,000 hits for "Hawai'ian" - I think both British English and American English are in agreement on the best practice here. I think the rationale behind the best scholarly practice here is the assertion that words written in Hawaiian contain okina and kahako, and words written in English (of any arbitrary variety) don't. Googling for "Godelian" and "Gödelian" give fairly close numbers of results, so I can see your point about the best practice there being fairly flexible, but with "Hawaiian" I think the issue is relatively clear cut. --JereKrischel 17:06, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Why shouldn't words written in English contain okina? They have umlauts. What makes Hawaiian so special? --Ptcamn 17:34, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Common and scholarly convention (amongst olelo Hawai'i scholars, that is). Agent X can lay out more of the historical issues, from the very beginning of the Hawaiian alphabet, but suffice it to say that english is filled with exceptional cases! Otherwise, I could order fried ghoti at a restaurant :) --JereKrischel 17:55, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Any particular group of scholars can follow whatever conventions they like, it doesn't make other conventions incorrect. --Ptcamn 18:18, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Sure it does - otherwise, you're arguing for no standards at all. No ghoti on fridays wouldn't be "incorrect" by your measure, but it is arguably incorrect. Since olelo Hawai'i scholars are de facto those defining the "rules" of Hawaiian (both in Hawaiian english spelling, and English spellings), I think we should give deference, don't you? You're absolutely right that we can argue for exceptionalism in this case, but is it a policy point worth debating? Do we lose anything on Wikipedia by aligning our spelling of "Hawaiian" to the commonly accepted and scholarly approved spelling? --JereKrischel 18:32, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy only conforms to one particular spelling if the article is particularly associated with a standard that uses that spelling (i.e. Hawaiian language but not glottal stop). Otherwise, it only asks that each article uses one spelling consistently, and editing articles just to change the spelling is frowned upon. You contend that some people prefer one spelling (for questionable, inconsistent reasons), but I see no reason why the other spelling should not also be acceptable. --Ptcamn 19:01, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Do you have a cite for that particular "frowned upon"? It seems to me since glottal stop is a linguistic article, it should use the best practices for spellings of "Hawaiian", and the fix is relatively benign (even if it induces a downward curling of the lips) - I found # If an article is predominantly written in one type of English, aim to conform to that type rather than provoking conflict by changing to another. in Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National varieties of English. Since in all examples of "proper" English we observe (UK, US, etc), "Hawaiian" is correct, I think it's worthwhile to keep the corrected spelling. Insofar as "acceptability", you've got statistics from google, google UK, and the Hawaii State Government website - and if that's not enough, you've got professional opinion from a serious scholar of olelo Hawai'i too. Apologies to all if the change is frowned upon, but it doesn't seem that there is any contention here prehaps beyond the initial politeness of the change. Is there any other particular reason you'd like to return to the incorrect spelling? Certainly in the future for other articles, any wholesale change should probably be a little bit more gentle, but I think we can both agree the fix is good here. --JereKrischel 20:30, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The first section of the style guide reads: In June 2005, the Arbitration Committee ruled that, when either of two styles is acceptable, it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change. For example, with respect to British spelling as opposed to American spelling, it would only be acceptable to change from American spelling to British spelling if the article concerned a British topic.

"Since in all examples of "proper" English we observe (UK, US, etc), "Hawaiian" is correct, I think it's worthwhile to keep the corrected spelling."

Evidence? "Hawaiian" is more common, but all you've done is asserted that "Hawai'ian" is incorrect, you haven't proved it. --Ptcamn 20:38, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see your confusion. You don't believe that either statistical analysis of usage represents a breakdown of what is "correct" and what is "incorrect", nor do you accept any scholarly authority which asserts that one is "correct" and that another is "incorrect".

"Hawai'ian" is a mispelling, not an alternate spelling dependent upon whether or not you are in Britain or the U.S. What would you accept as proof of the assertion that it is incorrect? --JereKrischel 20:54, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Ptcamn --- here's the text that you apparently want to "fight" for:

Finally, there are loanwords into English, usually from languages where the glottal stop is a phoneme, where a glottal stop is part of the accepted pronunciation, for example Hawaiʻian ʻaʻa lava.

Here's my edit of that text:

Finally, there are loanwords into English, usually from languages where the glottal stop is a phoneme, where a glottal stop is part of the foreign pronunciation. For example, the Hawaiian word ‘a‘ā is used by geologists to specify lava which is relatively thick, chunky, and rough. The Hawaiian spelling indicates the two glottal stops in the word, but the most widely used English spelling, aa, does not (Pukui and Elbert 1986:2, 389). Loans often retain aspects of their foreign pronunciation until such time as they become fully nativized in the borrowing language.

My goal is to improve the article in these specific ways:

• 1. Point out that a loanword and its pronunciation are initially foreign to the borrowing language. The specific example is Hawaiian ‘a‘ā.
• 2. Provide the correct Hawaiian spelling of the example word. Take note that the version you put back fails to show that the second vowel is phonemically long in Hawaiian. I'm basing the correct spelling on the published source which I properly cited, the Hawaiian Dictionary.
• 3. Provide the correct English spelling (aa) of the example word. I based the correct spelling on the same cited source. However, I also know the English spelling aa from a published, authoritative geology textbook used at the University of Hawaii by professors who are volcanologists. The book title is something like Volcanoes in the Sea, a standard text. There are also over 18,000 hits on Google for "aa lava". For example,

[6]

I first wrote "the English spelling". I have updated that to "the most widely used English spelling". The reason for the update is to take care of those cases where someone attempts to show knowledge of Hawaiian spelling, but ends up using a form which is actually a different word in Hawaiian, such as a‘a or ‘a‘a. The first form is missing the initial glottal and the long vowel. The second form is missing the long vowel. So both of those forms are wrong as a Hawaiian word for "lava" in terms of spelling, pronunciation, and meaning. In Hawaiian, a‘a means "vein" (not "rough lava") while ‘a‘a means "challenge" (not "rough lava").

• 4. Show that nativization of loanwords is not necessarily instantaneous. I did that with the final sentence that I contributed in that brief paragraph. It can take a while for a loanword to lose all of its foreign-ness, and become completely assimilated into the borrowing language in terms of spelling and pronunciation. So a loan with a glottal stop can keep it temporarily, but foreign phonemes typically get altered or dropped. That's what naturally happens to glottal stops in Hawaiian words that get borrowed into English. Words of high-frequency use, such as Hawai‘i, can be more resistant to alteration than low-frequency words. But for most users of English, there is no glottal in Hawaii. The article says that, but it was not contributed by me. Someone else wrote it, long before I first looked at the article.

Do you have a valid challenge to point 1, point 2, point 3, or point 4 of my contribution? For each point that you do not challenge, you should not be deleting the contribution. For any point that you do challenge, you need to specify something more substantial than just "it is used" by someone. Because many humans make many mistakes, and many of those mistakes get published. Wikipedia values book usage by recognized authorities far more than internet usage by anonymous individuals or people who are not recognized authorities. You should also admit that dictionaries are not immune to containing errors, or poor choices.

In my copy of the Pukui-Elbert Hawaiian Dictionary, on page 2, for the entry for ‘a‘ā, meaning number 2, the first use of ‘a‘ā is the Hawaiian spelling, but with an error --- the first glottal is missing. The second use is aa, the English spelling. It correctly omits both of the glottal stops, and the macron. It sometimes requires common sense to recognize that a mistake or error has been published. That applies to the American Heritage Dictionary as well.

I looked at the five webpages where you found instances of "Hawai`ian". The 1st focuses on racism, and has racist phrases like "WhitestLawSchools". (It also uses "Hawaiian" more than "Hawai`ian".) The 2nd is a government webpage which has clearly erroneous "facts", such as "forced annexation of Hawaii in 1893", and "Hawaiian was banned from all spheres of life under threat of punishment". It also contains a (dead) link to Mark Warschauer and a live link to this Wikipedia Glottal Stop article. (It also uses "Hawaiian" 45 times, "Hawai`ian" 4 times.) The 3rd is merely a one-paragraph student writing assignment at the U of Minnesota, amounting to a political plug for the Akaka Bill. The 4th is merely a list of links at asiansinamerica.org with stuff like "Reinstated Government of Hawaii" and "Office of Hawaiian Affairs". (Note that it is not the Office of "Hawai`ian" Affairs.) The 5th is merely an isolated course handout, an exercise, prepared by a faculty member at U of N Carolina who clearly lacks experience with the Hawaiian language. (The Hawaiian word for "school" is kula, not kola "sexually excited".) Not one of those sources is authoritative at all.

Bear in mind that there is no personal attack here. Users can challenge one another's contributions. I don't know if you contributed the aa lava bit. But I do know that you deleted my contribution, and you still have not credibly justified your decision to oppose correct Hawaiian spelling as well as correct English spelling. If your position is that everything is acceptable because there's no such thing as a mistake, then that will not fly. If there are no mistakes, then there is never any need for anyone to edit anything. Agent X 23:08, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Recent Modifications

I added the stuff about the d, and the history and the word list. Any objections? thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.244.41.155 (talk • contribs)

I'm dubious about adding so much information without any sourcing. I took out the word list because we don't need so many examples. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

That's cool. btw-do u know how to get the character for a syllabic n on here? I know it's the n with a subscript, but they don't even have it on the main page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.244.41.155 (talk • contribs)

The syllabic diacritic is a separate character <̩>. If you scroll down to the diacritics section of the IPA article you'll see them laid out. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:11, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Hebrew

Umm, the Hebrew example doesn't actually have a glottal stop in its IPA. oops. If I knew anything about Hebrew I'd correct this.

Good catch! I've fixed it. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 09:46, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Use of the glottal stop

How come the word is not self-descriptive? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.86.0.10 (talk) 13:17, August 22, 2007 (UTC)

It is pretty self descriptive. Glottal meaning of the glottis and stop meaning a stop in airflow. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 15:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe the Glottal Stop should look like this V Ꮭ Ipafan222 (talk) 14:25, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Other languages

The glottal stop is also very prominent in African American Vernacular English and many American Indian languages, but I can't find that this is mentioned in this article. I think it should be. Badagnani 08:40, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

A few Indian languages are mentioned already but more couldn't hurt. AAVE, as far as I know, doesn't use the glottal stop much more than any other dialect of English. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 16:21, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Which American Indian languages are already mentioned? I didn't see Cherokee on there (the largest tribe by population according to the most recent census). Regarding AAVE, yes, it does, because, with rare exceptions (even many radio and television personalities), the final "d" of words such as "wanted" are glottalized. It's a marker of this dialect. Badagnani 17:32, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Even if that were true about AAVE (which sources I've seen indicate it is not), it would be a minor extension of /t/ glottalization, which is present in almost all varieties of American English and even more so in Estuary English. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:47, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with what Badagnani said about AAVE. I hear it quite often. "D's" at the end of words are at least sometimes glottalized. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 21:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Well we need a reliabe source that says this. Otherwise it's original research. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:00, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I know you've heard it before in your life, Ƶ§œš¹. If you haven't, I would be surprised. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 09:04, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Whether I've heard it is pretty moot. Wikipedia is built on use of reliabile sources. Check out the link and you'll see. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:12, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't care if it's moot or not. I just want you to admit that you've heard that pronunciation before in your life. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 20:24, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

It's even more prominent in Klingon! 107.15.138.28 (talk) 23:15, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Chinese Hokkien also has it. Someone please add itYoshiciv (talk) 09:27, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

General American

Do glottal stops happen in General American at the end of words like "night", "lot ", and "wrote"? I have noticed that the t's in these words aren't pronounced the same as the one in "hotel". Thanks. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 21:47, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe so. It's certainly the case that many Americans do it, though it's possible that it is instead a glottalized unrelease /t/ (that is, the tongue does make contact with the alveolar ridge but doesn't move away until the glottis has completely restricted airflow), which sounds identical to my ears. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:50, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I am a General American speaker and can attest that it is in fact a glottalized unreleased /t/ sound, which is distinct from the Cockney (and other regional English) word-final glottal stop. Some Americans pronounce it as a glottal stop (rather than a glottalized /t/), but this is rather stigmatized.Chalkieperfect (talk) 07:17, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks so much. I know what you mean. I, as a speaker of General American, can't tell the difference between the "sound" I make at the end of the word "night" and the sound a speaker of the Cockney dialect makes at the end of the same word. The Cockney sound is supposed to be a glottal stop, but I did not know American English had that sound. In fact, I read an article (seemingly a reliable one) that said American English does not have glottal stops. Whatever the sound is in words like "gotten" and "written" in my idiolect, it also sounds similar to a glottal stop. I'm welcome to any other thoughts on this matter. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 03:59, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

To me, a dead giveaway is the presence of glottal frication after the glottal stop (it may or may not be there). When you hear [nɑəʔh, lɒʔh, ɹɐʊʔh], you can be sure that the person is speaking Cockney/Estuary. Mr KEBAB (talk) 21:51, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Word-initial glottal stop

It seems to me that there can be no distinction between a word-initial vowel and a word-inital glottal stop followed by a vowel. Is there, for instance, a difference between /əʔoʊ/ and /ʔəʔoʊ/? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rdr0 (talk • contribs) 21:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

No, though I think utterance-initial vowels are often preceded by glottal stops in English. So she said "uh-oh" is more likely to have the former than the latter. Since this is entirely predictable on phonetic grounds, this is not a phonemic glottal stop. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:10, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

None can shake initial "invisible" consonants, mostly /ʔ/, ʔoff from a sentence beginning with a vowel. Ɂa human is born with a glottis with such a structure. Wbxshiori (talk) 18:09, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Glo'al stop in England & Oz

Surely it's nonsense to say "It is only found marginally in English" when the glottal stop is such a major feature of city dialects in England? And I'm sure it's equally common in 'Straiyan (aka 'Strine as in 'Strine chicks...). Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:09, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Glo'al stop in Low Saxony

In Low Saxon dialect parts of the Netherlands (north/east) and Germany (north), Glottal Stops occur more often. The Glotal stop is used for more or less difficult consonants in words like weten (knowing) wee'n, (cooking) koken becomes koo'n, etc.82.75.214.253 (talk) 22:14, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

GA and Cockney examples

We have [kʰɛ̝ʔ] for Cockney and [kʰæʔt] for General American - shouldn't these be the other way round? Lfh (talk) 15:09, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

No. GA speakers may have a glottal stop with no unreleased [t] afterwards, but AFAIK, Cockney never does. Also, the vowels are correct for each. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:38, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes I was only looking at the vowels. Looks like I'll have to revise my cockney. Lfh (talk) 20:05, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

At some point, I offered cat shit and catch it as a minimal pair of sorts to demonstrate English's tenuous distinction between affricates and stop-fricative clusters. Of course, even in my own speech the vowel of catch is raised but the vowel of cat is not. I'm not sure what to make of this. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:22, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I can't help there, sorry. The reason they looked the wrong way round to me is that the [ɛ̝] given for Cockney reminded me of American [ɛə], while I was sure that some cockneys do indeed use [æ]. But I don't suppose it matters much in the context of the glottal stop. Lfh (talk) 20:51, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Occurence in Japanese

In the occurences table, Japanese seems to be missing. Is the small "tsu" not an indicator of a glottal stop in Japanese? K3fka (talk) 01:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

tsu indicates [tsɯ]. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:30, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

To my knowledge, a small tsu before a consonant indicates [ː] after the consonant, i.e., a geminated consonant; however, I am not an expert on Japanese phonology, so I might be wrong. 22:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC) Never mind, I just checked this page and it looks like I was correct. 22:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

"button" in RP

In "RP", "button" is NEVER pronounced with a glottal stop. I didn't think it was in General American either, but I'm not really experienced in that field. Someone is apparently mixing up cockney with RP.--86.176.85.90 (talk) 22:12, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Did you check the source? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:37, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

As someone who can style-shift between RP and a South London accent I have to agree with 86.176.85.90. In speaking to Londoners I would pronounce button as Bu'un, Saturday as Sa'uday, etc. but would never use this in my RP register. Perhaps it is Since the source costs £20 I am not about to check it. Perhaps it is referring to pre-glottalization. -- Q Chris (talk) 14:06, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

The pronunciation the article refers to is not the equivalent of "bu'un" or "sa'urday"; those pronunciations involve a glottal stop before a schwa (which, indeed, neither RP nor GA ever uses). What the article is referring to is something entirely different, namely a glottal stop preceding a syllabic /n:/. Listen to the embedded sound file; it correctly represents the GA pronunciation of the word "button." However, I believe it is inaccurate to characterize this as a glottal stop. In fact it is a glottalized /t/, although it is nearly impossible to distinguish the two in that position.Chalkieperfect (talk) 07:22, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I have a question about the symbol for "syllabic" n in "bɐʔn̩". Can a phoneme expert start an article for the correct symbol for this n sound after glottal stops, such as mountain, Clinton, certain, etc.? I thought it was a nasal n. DBlomgren (talk) 19:16, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

@DBlomgren: The problem is that the syllabic n is actually two symbols, the ⟨n⟩ and the ⟨◌̩⟩. They both have articles: alveolar nasal and syllabic consonant. — Eru·tuon 19:48, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

n is a nasal consonant. An oral 'n' is [d]. Mr KEBAB (talk) 20:23, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you both for your replies. I was hoping for an article on n̩ (syllabic n), but at least now, I have the correct symbol. By "nasal n," it was the best description I could come up with for the sound of "n" in "ngoma" (Swahili and Lingala) and in "button" where the sound is realized with the mouth closed and it passes through the nose (very similar to /ŋ/). Note that in Swahili and Lingala, this n isn't considered syllabic (ngo - ma). I wouldn't call the final n in "gone" nasal because it ends with the mouth open. I was hoping there was a term for the difference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DBlomgren (talk • contribs) 18:05, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

@DBlomgren: I guess the ng combination in Swahili is /ᵑɡ/, one of that language's prenasalized stops; see the table in Swahili language § Consonants. That may be true in Lingala, though the table in Lingala § Consonants doesn't currently list any prenasalized stops. — Eru·tuon 20:00, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

@DBlomgren: Nasal stops may be purely nasal (like the bilabial [m]) or nasal-oral (like the alveolar [n] and the velar [ŋ]). The latter are usually called 'nasal' as well. The difference is that in the case of [m] the air passes exclusively through the nose (because the mouth is closed), whereas in the case of [n] and [ŋ] the mouth is open, though the degree of openness of the mouth as well as the shape of your lips may vary. The IPA normally doesn't bother itself with such details.

The closest sound to a 'non-nasal [n]' is actually [l], an alveolar lateral approximant (nasal stops sound like rather strongly articulated approximants and you can elongate them, unlike oral stops). You also can't pronounce "n" with your mouth closed, because then the result would be [m]. Nobody says "bu'm" for "button". (Ok, pronouncing a doubly-articulated bilabial-alveolar nasal is perfectly possible, but in English it's only as a potential allophone of /n/ before bilabial consonants. Outside of that context, it'd always be interpreted as /m/). Mr KEBAB (talk) 20:23, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Influence on Spanic language

I have a suspicion that the feature of spanish language which calls for obligatory e at the beginning of words starting with 'sp' and 'sk' (like in 'escuela' for 'school', 'español' for 'spanish') was developed under Arabic influence during Arabic rule of Spain. For example, if you listen to the song "Speedy Gonzales" sung in Spanish by Kumbia All Starz, you will hear a glottal stop ['espeedy gonzales] (best heard at about 2:08 in the video, not obstructed by music). Did anynone hear anything in this respect? Mukadderat (talk) 16:41, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Nope, not at all, other Romance languages also have this feature (étudier, épice in French from studiare, specie through 'estudiare', 'especie'). This so called prothesis appears even in English: Especially from special, estate from state and so on... The Arabic influence in Spain is very often plain overkill, Spain is a Latin country and Spanish, apart from some vocabulary (mainly nouns for objects), shows very little influence of Arabic (in phonetics and grammar, almost nil) but instead a great many remainders of Latin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.147.8.7 (talk) 19:15, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

phonemci vs non-phonemic glottal stop

Could someone write an article section about the distinction of phonemic vs. non-phonemic glottal stop discussed in #Word-initial glottal stop above and in article Hamza (hamzatu l-qatʻ vs. hamzatu l-waṣl)? Mukadderat (talk) 16:51, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Two phenomena

Actually two phenomena are described here without emphasizing the difference. One is the solitary glottal stop, the closure of the glottis as e.g. in GA "cat" before the "t", which is, as a consequence not audible. The other being the crack sound occurring with the opening of the glottis "under pressure" after its closure, as in RP "button" before the "n".

BTW, neither of them occurs in German "Verwaltung".

--Felix Tritschler (talk) 17:13, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Modern Scots

May I say that as a former resident of Renfrewshire and now a current resident of Perthshire, glottal stops are extremely common in modern Scottish speech, mostly representing the word T. The most common word in this style is "that" (from what I can hear at least), or similar sounding words such as "hat". I have noticed that Scots words like "bitty" up here are also pronounced with a glottal stop, as well as "tatties" and "banter" and so on and so forth.

A list I have compiled is as follows:

That, Hat, Banter, Canter, Tatties (for both Ts), Bitty (for both Ts), What, Scotland, Scots, Pit (as well as names like Pitlochry), Bent, Burnt, Shut

The list goes on.

In each of these, the T is a glottal stop.

I hope this is useful information.

--Venerable John (talk) 19:10, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Pretty much all final Ts, I think 109.149.92.81 (talk) 13:33, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Seems more common than this article makes out

It appears to me the glottal stop used whenever a vowel is pronounced "by itself", like in the words eye, a or in. In the article, it's claimed that one appears halfway in the phrase "uh-oh". However I can't personally detect any difference in beginnings of the pronunciations of the of the "uh" and the "oh", perhaps someone can convince me otherwise? Woscafrench (talk) 21:07, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Danish again

I simply do not understand this sentence: "There are intricate interactions between falling tone and the glottal stop in the histories of such languages as Danish (cf. stød), Chinese and Thai." I do not think this applies to neither the Danish "Stød" or instances of glottal stop in the Danish language. The "stød" is, according to the analysis I know, a purely syllabic feature. Maybe from some diachronic perspective the sentence makes sense, but this should be calirfied. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.105.37.95 (talk) 22:33, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

German ...

"German: Beamter, Verwaltung"

Yeah, good job on reinforcing stupid stereotypes ... in an article about glottal stops, goddangit. --89.244.89.99 (talk) 21:06, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

These are nothing more than example words, goddangit. Peter238 (talk) 13:22, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

I don’t have a single clue about glottal stops or phonetics in general, goddangit. 2600:1702:9B1:4E80:B90C:3BC3:5CB9:4D71 (talk) 23:16, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

What about Klingon?

Glottal stops are used in the Klingon language, so why isn't Klingon listed as using them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.15.138.28 (talk) 23:13, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Because it's not intended to be a complete list. A complete list would have thousands of entries.

David Marjanović (talk) 18:00, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Because Klingon is a fantasy language, not a real one. Yes, there are people who study and speak it, but it is not a natural language, but a constructed one, like Tolkien's Quenya.--Manfariel (talk) 23:15, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Non-self-referential term

The term #could# contain what it describes (glo'al stop) but does not. Jackiespeel (talk) 16:34, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Sardinian language

The Barbagia of Ollolai

In the Sardinian language it is present in the dialect of nine countries: Ollolai, Fonni, Orgosolo, Mamoiada, Olzai, Ovodda, Gavoi, Lodine and Oliena, constituents the Barbagia of Ollolai in Province of Nuoro. In handwriting Sardinian denoted by the letter Q. Ex. Piqe [Piʔɛ], isqire [izʔirɛ], qonnosqer [ʔɔnnɔsʔɛr], paqe [paʔɛ], than the dialect logudorese central pike, iskire, connosker, pake. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.16.80.131 (talk) 13:22, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

the "occurrence" table

It needs cleaning. I suggest a more objective format and parameters:

1. one example per language
2. for languages in which contributors have made long notes (e.g. Danish), or for languages with multiple varieties ("dialects") (English): write prose subsections of the article outside the table, labelled by language; include small tables in the subsection on the language/variety, as needed
3. add a yes-no column (title: 'Grapheme') on whether glottal stop has its own proper sign in that language's orthography (if the language has an orthography besides IPA)
   1. if yes, show: the symbol and include its name in that language
   2. if no, show: nothing
4. add a yes-no column (title: 'Phoneme') on whether glottal stop is phonemic in that language
5. languages should link to the articles on their phonology (sound-system) since glottal stop is an acoustic-phonetic (sound) phenomenon
6. delete messy & subjective "Notes" column once data is moved to separate prose subsections

I am making two easy changes to begin:

1. change table title: "Glottal stop in world languages"
2. Add a bit of prose to introduce the table. I suggest the following, which I record here because it cannot all be written until such time as the table as suggested above may be complete:

"This table demonstrates how widely the sound of glottal stop is found among the world's vocal languages. It is not intended to be a complete list. Any of the languages which appear may have varieties which are not represented. For more information on glottal stop within the variety, see the subsection of this article on that language."

Seraphimek (talk) 21:36, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

1. Strongly disagreed. There's nothing wrong with including more than one variety of a language, but feel free to delete all unsourced examples, if that's what you want.

2. The Danish note is not long. It has an average length, and includes all it's needed there. Especially given the fact that the glottal stop is not the usual realization of the stød.

5. They already do.

6. Strongly disagreed. If you find the "notes" column messy, try cleaning it up. It's also not subjective (I don't think that's the word you meant), just maybe not very well sourced, and that's something else. Peter238 (talk) 13:40, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

@Peter238: Thanks for your thoughts. I have concluded I should take these ideas to a higher forum, as they do not pertain just to the current article. But I would just like to clarify my thoughts where I might have been clearer in the first post here.

re 1. You are right, there is nothing wrong with including varieties. But how many? I think too many can make a mess of the info we want to cover, and my concern is to keep the table clean. I believe it will improve the presentation if we limit the table to surveying glottal stop, across languages, not including varieties, "dialects," acrolects, basilects, idiolects, and all other such subcategories or analyses of language. Nevertheless they are important. So I suggest we make a new place for discussion of varieties and other subcategories into subsections of this article.

re 2. If the purpose of this table is a survey of a phone's distribution across human language, all we need to know on the table is that it is attested in Danish. More about the distribution of glottal stop as a phenomenon of Danish stød is interesting; it deserves its own discussion, clearly, at length, in a subsection of this article. That way, a general audience may be better able to grasp its importance. As it is, the three complete sentences in the current notes column are not long enough a discussion, in spite of being as long as the longest notes in rest of the table.

re. 5 & 6. Most of the current notes say "see X phonology." Why would we only suggest this for those particular languages? Why not for all languages? What purpose are we serving by linking to some phonologies, but not others? I offer that there is no purpose. The "notes" column, as it is being used now, is noise. If we use the "language" column to link to the phonology of each language, we could probably eliminate the current "notes" column, or reserve it for truly circumstantial or exceptional info, the usual purpose of notes within tables. Seraphimek (talk) 22:08, 13 May 2016 (UTC)Seraphimek

@Seraphimek: It sounds like you're proposing a major restructuring of articles on phones. If we do the restructuring in this article, it would have to be done in others. You would do better to go to the WikiProject Linguistics talk page and suggest this there. You need to get comments from more linguistics editors; only a few of them are likely to watch this particular phone page.

Now, I like the idea of explaining phone occurrence in prose, and going into more detail than the current Notes columns do. I doubt the idea of a yes–no column will work, because the question of whether a language has a glottal stop as phoneme or not is more complicated than yes or no. In some cases, scholars disagree on whether it's a phoneme or not; in other cases, there are several glottal stop phonemes, or the glottal stop occurs but it's an allophone of another phoneme, or it's both an allophone of another phoneme and a phoneme in its own right at the same time. Anyway, your suggestions need to be taken to a place where other editors will be able to respond. Maybe no one will want to implement the idea because it's not well developed and too complicated to figure out. — Eru·tuon 18:43, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

@Erutuon: Appreciate the thoughts. I will take these as general suggestions to a Linguistics talk page. Whatever the particulars, I think we can do much better to present more succinct, more consistent, more informative tables of phonetic data by-language. Seraphimek (talk) 22:08, 13 May 2016 (UTC)Seraphimek

Huh?

As a more-or-less RP speaker, I'm baffled by the claim that 'In Received Pronunciation, a glottal stop is inserted before a tautosyllabic voiceless stop, e.g. sto’p, tha’t, kno’ck, wa’tch, also lea’p, soa’k, hel’p, pin’ch'. I can't access the cited source for this claim, but I wonder if it is accepted by any other authorities? I suppose that as a matter of physiology there must be some break point at which the larynx changes from a voiced to a voiceless state, but to call this a glottal stop in the same sense as the Cockney bu'er, or even the common RP pronunciation of a word like 'button' without a clear enunciation of the 't', seems to me stretching the term too far. Is it suggested that the pronunciation of a word like 'soak' is different in RP from, say, standard American?109.150.7.193 (talk) 19:24, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

The sound sample is incorrect

There is no consonant in the sound sample, let alone glottal plosive. Please correct it. --How come why not (talk) 08:21, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

There is a quite abrupt start of the vowel (stronger than it often is): that's the glottal stop. The reason that you're not perceiving a consonant is because your native language interprets a glottal stop as nothing, not because there is nothing there. --JorisvS (talk) 17:35, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Voiced glottal plosive

Is there such a thing as a voiced glottal plosive. Other pulmonic plosives have voiced varieties, such as the velar, /k/, voiced, /ɡ/, bilabial, /p/, voiced, /b/, alveolar, /t/, voiced, /d/, uvular, /q/, voiced, /ɢ/, palatal, /c/, voiced, /ɟ/, etc. Pharyngeal (or epiglottal), and glottal seem to be the only voiced pulmonic plosives that don't exist. Or do they? --How come why not (talk) 08:41, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

No, there isn't, because you can't close the glottis and then release it, while at the same time having air flowing through it that the glottis can cause to vibrate. On the other hand, epiglottal plosives can be pretty easily be voiced, but because they are even less stable than [ɢ] and the relative rarity of epiglottals, they are not known to be contrastive in any language. Properly pharyngeal plosives are rather difficult, but can be produced, including a voiced one.

The overall trend is that the further back in the mouth/throat a plosive is produced, the more difficult (and hence rarer) the voiced variant is. This is due to the air cavity in which the air has to be pushed before the plosive's release is smaller the further back the plosive is produced, and hence the harder it is to maintain an airflow that can be made to vibrate by the glottis. For the glottal plosive, no such cavity can be produced, and hence voiced glottal plosives are impossible. --JorisvS (talk) 17:43, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

"Symbolization" section title

What the heck "Symbolization" is supposed to mean? The three paragraphs of the section speak of various things, none of which seem to fit the meanings of wikt:symbolization. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:36, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Done with it. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:57, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

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Glottal stop is essential for some English words, at least in Australia

Words such as French, inch, bunch, lunch, hunch, bench etc. all need a glottal stop. Without a glottal stop "French" would become "Frensh".

Compare this with the phrase "More dollars than cents", where "cents" and "sense" sound identical due to a lack of a glottal stop in "cents".

Linguists could choose to view this glottal stop as an intrusive consonant whose appearance is defined by rules. However most students of ESL are not linguists, so for ESL purposes this glottal stop needs to be treated as a distinct phoneme.

I have found no reference to this anywhere in my large collection of books about language.Luo Shanlian (talk) 07:03, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

<ch> is a voiceless postalveolar affricate in my opinion. The affricate has a stop part in the start. Per W (talk) 20:13, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, this affricate has a stop part. But this stop part ([t]) would be completely meaningless if following an [n]. [n] is a stop, directing the breath through the nose. How does one change a nasal stop into an oral stop when it is followed by an 'sh'. It's not possible, except by inserting something between the [n] and the [t]. You could insert silence, you could insert a vowel, or you could insert a glottal stop. This latter is what English speakers do, but don't look in any Linguistics textbook for it.210.185.113.143 (talk) 05:58, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Vocal Hiccup Redirect

@Staszek Lem: Why is the link to Michael Jackson's thriller necessary?

It is no longer a redirect, but a real article. Staszek Lem (talk) 16:17, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

@Staszek Lem: They are related by mechanism: obstruction of air flow. If so where in the article is that explained? What articulatory activity is "vocal hiccup" exactly? And how does it relate to the glottal stop? Most consonants involve "obstruction of air flow". Nardog (talk) 17:44, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Did you read the article in question? he [Buddy Holly] cuts off the sound at the back of the throat, blocking the flow of sound. It related by similarity. I see the similarity and I think it is interesting enough for other readers to look at. This is the purpose of "See also" section. Your view is that of a linguist, while mine is that of an encyclopedia reader. Therefore you are more strict in judging relations between these things. For me they are similar, even if superficially, hence an interesting analogy. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:57, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Letter

"is transcribed with an apostrophe, ⟨ʼ⟩, which is the source of the IPA character ⟨ʔ⟩." Really? As I can see online, the figure ʔ is that of the Demotic Egyptian script for glottal stop.--Manfariel (talk) 00:59, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't care about your original research, but thanks anyway for pointing out that this is something that requires a source. The following is from the Phonetic Symbol Guide (²1996:211):

• "The shape may have been suggested by the Greek “smooth breathing” symbol ⟨΄⟩ (called spiritus lenis in Latin), which indicates a frictionless vowel onset (as opposed to [h])."

So what the article currently says is at least controversial. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 04:11, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

That's a bit harsh a comeback. Also, it is potentially confusing because on the one and, it doesn't require research to doubt that a questionmark like symbol cannot be derived from a simple tick--nomatter the counterclaim which is anyway not original research if it may be sourced--on the other hand the tickets that exist can be easily confused. The one used today in transcription over at wiktionary is actually cusp shaped, ʾ, e. g. "אֶרֶץ‎ f (ʾéreṣ)", "/ˈʔeres/". This might of course depend on your system font. Since demotic and greek script are related _distantly it could be you mean the same thing. The IPA sign was a-signed in living memory so this shouldn't be a matter of guess-work anyhow. 2A00:20:6005:F20A:657A:9ADA:7F68:E7D6 (talk) 22:55, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Minimal phrase pair in English

I am pretty sure I have seen phrases that form a minimal pair somewhere here in wikipedia. It would be nice to have one in this article. The idea is that the stop should break an unintended meaning from joined up compounds. I am not sure if it has to be actually minimal in the phonemic sense.

Obviously I cannot give an example if I came here to find an example that I cannot remember. 2A00:20:6005:F20A:657A:9ADA:7F68:E7D6 (talk) 23:14, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

No word listed for Dahalo under the list of languages

In the list of languages, the entry for Dahalo has no word or pronunciation listed. I don't know Dahalo, so I can't fix it myself.

Milkstran (talk) 19:27, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

The pronunciation example in the article is not correct

The first wasn't pronounced correct, the second time he did, the third time he didn't. 2001:1970:55E8:7F00:609B:FE9D:97B6:926F (talk) 22:24, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Which one?

Is it a Consonant or Vowel, and is it best represented by "uh-oh" or "uh(-)oh"

Ultradestroya48 (talk) 22:59, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

proposal to change the audio example

I recorded a sound recording where you can clearly hear the glottal stop:

Glottal stop [ʔ] during and after pronouncing [ǎ]: [ǎˤʔ]

Emdosis (talk) 23:58, 1 April 2024 (UTC)