Voiced uvular plosive

Not to be confused with the Latin letter G or the Cyrillic Komi letter Ԍ.

The voiced uvular plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɢ⟩, a small capital version of the Latin letter g, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is G\.

Voiced uvular plosive
ɢ
IPA number	112
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɢ
Unicode (hex)	U+0262
X-SAMPA	G\
Braille
Image

[ɢ] is a rare sound, even compared to other uvulars.^[1] Vaux proposes a phonological explanation: uvular consonants normally involve a neutral or a retracted tongue root, whereas voiced stops often involve an advanced tongue root: two articulations that cannot physically co-occur. This leads many languages of the world to have a voiced uvular fricative [ʁ] instead as the voiced counterpart of the voiceless uvular plosive. Examples are Inuit; several Turkic languages such as Uyghur; several Northwest Caucasian languages such as Abkhaz; as well as several Northeast Caucasian languages such as Ingush.

There is also the voiced pre-uvular plosive^[2] in some languages, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical uvular plosive, though not as front as the prototypical velar plosive. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for that sound, though it can be transcribed as ⟨ɢ̟⟩ (advanced ⟨ɢ⟩), ⟨ɡ̠⟩ or ⟨ɡ˗⟩ (both symbols denote a retracted ⟨ɡ⟩). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are G\_+ and g_-, respectively.

Features

Features of the voiced uvular stop:

• Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also oral, with no nasal outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely, and the consonant is a plosive.
• Its place of articulation is uvular, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) at the uvula.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• 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.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Family	Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Semitic	Arabic	Sudanese	بقرة	[bɑɢɑrɑ]	'cow'	Corresponds to /q/ in Standard Arabic. See Arabic phonology
		Yemeni[3]	قات	[ɢɑːt]ⓘ	'Khat'	Some dialects.[3] Corresponds to /q/ in Standard Arabic. See Arabic phonology
Germanic	English	Australian[4]	gaudy	[ˈɡ̠oːɾi]	'gaudy'	Pre-uvular; allophone of /ɡ/ before /ʊ oː ɔ oɪ ʊə/.[4] See Australian English phonology
	Low German	Rügen dialect	lang	[la̱ɴɢ̥]	'long'
Yeniseian	Ket[5]		báŋquk	[baŋ˩˧ɢuk˧˩]	'cave in the ground'	Allophone of /q/ after /ŋ/.[5]
Wakashan	Kwak'wala		ǥilakas'la	[ɢilakasʔla]	'thank you'
Semitic	Lishan Didan	Urmi Dialect	בקא‎/baqqa	[baɢːɑ]	'frog'	Allophone of /q/ when between a vowel/sonorant and a vowel.
Dravidian	Malto		तेंग़े	[t̪eɴɢe]	'to tell'	Allophone of /ʁ/ after /ŋ/, /ʁ, ŋʁ/ is /h/ in Southern and Western dialects.
Mongolic	Mongolian		Монгол ᠮᠣᠩᠭᠣᠯ	[mɔɴɢɔ̆ɮ]	'Mongolian'	Allophone of /g/ before back vowels, phonemic word-finally.
Isolate	Nivkh		ньыӈ ӷан	[ɲɤŋ ɢæn]	'our dog'	Allophone of /q/
Indo-Iranian	Persian	Iranian	قهوه	[ɢæhˈve]	'coffee'	See Persian phonology.
Cushitic	Somali		Muqdisho	[muɢdiʃɔ]	'Mogadishu'	Allophone of /q/. See Somali phonology
Northeast Caucasian	Tabasaran		дугу	[d̪uɢu]	'he' (ergative)
Na-Dene	Tlingit		ghooch	[ɢuːt͡ʃʰ]	'hill'	Among some younger speakers, for standard [quːt͡ʃʰ]. See Tlingit phonology
Northeast Caucasian	Tsakhur		къгяйэ	[ɢajɛ]	'stone'
Turkic	Turkmen		gar	[ɢɑɾ]	'snow'	An allophone of /ɡ/ next to back vowels
Qiangic	Xumi	Lower[6]	[ɢʶo˩˥]		'to stew'	Slightly affricated; occurs only in a few words.[7] Corresponds to the cluster /Nɡ/ in Upper Xumi.[8]
Pama-Nyungan	Yanyuwa[9]		kuykurlu	[ɡ̠uɡ̟uɭu]	'sacred'	Pre-uvular.[9] Contrasts plain and prenasalized versions

See also

• Index of phonetics articles