Glottal stop (letter)

ʔ (majuscule: Ɂ, minuscule: ɂ), called a gelded question mark or simply a glottal stop, is an alphabetic letter in some Latin alphabets, most notably in several languages of Canada where it indicates a glottal stop sound. Such usage derives from phonetic transcriptions, for example the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), that use this letter for the glottal stop sound. The letter derives historically from an apostrophe , as does the half ring .

Graphic variants

thumb|center|Road sign in [[British Columbia showing the use of the digit to represent in the Squamish language.]]

Where is not available, not being in the basic Latin alphabet, it is sometimes replaced by a question mark , which is its official representation in the SAMPA transcription scheme. In Skwomesh or Squamish, may be replaced by the digit (see image above).

In Unicode, four graphic variants of the glottal stop letter are available.

Unicase () is provided for the International Phonetic Alphabet and Americanist phonetic notation. It is found in a number of orthographies that use the IPA/APA symbol, such as those of several Salishan languages.
A case pair, uppercase () and lowercase (), is provided for the orthographies of Athabaskan languages in the Northwest Territories. Uppercase may be slightly wider than unicase in fonts that distinguish them.
Superscript () that is used in Cayuga, the IPA and the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet.

Additionally, there are two graphic variants with a stroke, both used in phonetic transcriptions.

Caseless
Superscript

Other notations

Other common symbols for the glottal stop sound are variants of the punctuation mark apostrophe that was the historical basis of the glottal stop letters. These include the 9-shaped modifier letter apostrophe, , which is probably the most common (and the direct ancestor of ), the 6-shaped ʻokina of Hawaiian, , and the straight-apostrophe shaped saltillo of many languages of Mexico, which has the case forms .

Usage

Technical transcription

Americanist phonetic notation, International Phonetic Alphabet, Uralic Phonetic Alphabet—unicase ʔ or superscript ˀ
Transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages—occasionally unicase ʔ

Vernacular orthographies

Languages of Canada
Chipewyan—uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ɂ
Dogrib—uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ɂ
Kootenai—unicase ʔ
Musqueam—unicase ʔ
Nootka—unicase ʔ
Slavey—uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ɂ
Nitinaht—unicase ʔ
Thompson—unicase ʔ
Lushootseed—unicase ʔ
Squamish—unicase 7
Samish—unicase 7
Tuscarora—uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ɂ
Cameroon
Mendankwe-Nkwen—uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ɂ
Côte d’Ivoire
Abidji—unicase ʔ
Cebaara—unicase ʔ
Nyarafolo—unicase ʔ
Tagwana—unicase ʔ
Mali
Tamasheq—unicase ʔ
Senegal
Hassanya—unicase ʔ as uppercase and lowercase ʼ
Laalaa—uppercase Ɂ and lowercase ʼ

Computing codes

In Unicode 1.0, only the unicase and superscript variants were included. In version 4.1 (2005), an uppercase character was added, and the existing unicase character was redefined as its lowercase. Then, in version 5.0 (2006), it was decided to separate the cased and caseless usages by adding a dedicated lowercase letter. The IPA character is first from left, while the extended Latin alphabet characters are third and fourth from left.

{| class=wikitable style=text-align:right

|- align=center

! Character

| colspan=2 | ʔ || colspan=2 | ˀ || colspan=2 | Ɂ || colspan=2 | ɂ

|- align=center

! Unicode name

| colspan=2 | LATIN LETTER GLOTTAL STOP || colspan=2 | MODIFIER LETTER GLOTTAL STOP || colspan=2 | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER GLOTTAL STOP || colspan=2 | LATIN SMALL LETTER GLOTTAL STOP

! Character encoding

| decimal || hex || decimal || hex || decimal || hex || decimal || hex

! Unicode

| 660 || 0294 || 704 || 02C0 || 577 || 0241 || 578 || 0242

! UTF-8

| 202 148 || CA 94 || 203 128 || CB 80 || 201 129 || C9 81 || 201 130 || C9 82

! Numeric character reference

| &#660; || &#x0294; || &#704; || &#x02C0; || &#577; || &#x0241; || &#578; || &#x0242;