Velar ejective affricate

The velar ejective affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨kxʼ⟩. [kxʼ] is a common realization of a velar ejective often transcribed /kʼ/, and it is rare for a language to distinguish /kʼ/ and /kxʼ/, though several of the Nguni languages do so,^[1] as well as the Northeast Caucasian language Karata-Tukita.

Velar ejective affricate
kxʼ
Audio sample
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Features

Features of the velar ejective affricate:

• Its manner of articulation is affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the airflow entirely, then allowing air flow through a constricted channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is velar, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) at the soft palate.
• Its phonation 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 only.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is ejective (glottalic egressive), which means the air is forced out by pumping the glottis upward.

Occurrence

Language	Word	IPA	Meaning
Hadza	dlaggwa	[c𝼆ʼakxʷ’a]	'to cradle'
Haida	ttsanskkaagid	[tsʼanskxʼaːkit]	'beams'
Karata-Tukita	[example needed]
Xhosa	krola	[kxʼola]	'inscribe '

See also

• List of phonetic topics
• k𝼄ʼ