Velar ejective stop

"Kʼ" redirects here. For Greenlandic letter, see Kra (letter). For The King of Fighters character, see K'.

The velar ejective is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨kʼ⟩.

Velar ejective stop
kʼ
IPA Number	109 + 401
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	k​ʼ
Unicode (hex)	U+006B U+02BC
X-SAMPA	k_>
Image

Features

Features of the velar ejective:

• 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 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	Notes
Abkhaz		акы/aky	[akʼə]	'one'
Adyghe	Temirgoy	шкӏэ/س̈ڃە/šč̣ʼǎ	[ʃkʼa]ⓘ	'calf'
	Shapsug	кӏьэ / ڃیە / č̣yė	[kʲʼa]ⓘ	'tail'	Palatalized. Corresponds to [t͡ʃʼ] in other dialects.
Amharic		ቀን/ḳän	[kʼɜn]ⓘ	'day'
Archi[1]		кIан/k'an	[kʼan]	'bottom'
Armenian	Yerevan dialect[2]	կեղծ/kekhts	[kʼɛʁt͡sʼ]	'false'	Some speakers. Corresponds to tenuis [k⁼] in most speakers and other Eastern dialects.
	Tbilisi dialect	կարմիր/karmir	[kʼɑɹmiɹ]	'red'
Avar		кӀул / گۇل / ḳul	[kʼuɫ]	'key'
Chechen		кӀант/khant/ࢰانت	[kʼənt]	'boy'
English[3][4]	Non-local Dublin[5]	back	[bækʼ]	'back'	Allophone of /k/ for some speakers.[5]
	Northern English[6][7][8]				Pre-pausal allophone of /k/ for some speakers;[7] may be somewhat palatalised. See English phonology
	Southern English[5][6][7]
	Scottish[9]				Occasional word-final allophone of /k/.[9]
Georgian		კაბა/kʼaba	[kʼɑbɑ]	'dress'
Haida		ttsanskkaagid	[tsʼanskʼaːkit]	'beams'
Hausa		ƙoƙari / ࢼُوْࢼَرِی	[kʼòːkʼɐ̄ɾī]	'effort'
Kabardian	Baslaney	кӏьапсэ / ࢰالسە / ćalse	[kʲʼaːpsa]ⓘ	'rope'	Palatalized. Corresponds to [t͡ʃʼ] in other dialects.
Kʼicheʼ		k'ak'	[kʼaːkʼ]	'new'
Lak		кӀлла/ⱪalla/ࢰالّا	[kʼalːa]	'rootless, foreign'[10]
Lezgian		кIир/k'ir	[kʼir]	'fang'
Mpade[11]		takʼwa	[takʼʷa]	'to vomit'
Navajo		k'os	[kʼòs]	'cloud'
Ossetian	Iron	къона/khona	[ˈkʼonä]	'hearth'
	Digoron	дзæкъолæ/dzækholæ	[d͡zəˈkʼoɫə]	'bag'
Quechua		k'aspi	[kʼaspi]	'stick'
Sotho		[example needed]
Yeyi		[example needed]			Contrasts /kʼ kʲʼ ᵑkʼ/.

See also

• List of phonetics topics

Notes

1. "The Archi Language Tutorial" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2021-05-01.
2. Dum-Tragut (2009:17–18)
3. Wells & Colson (1971:3)
4. "Ejectives in English | Linguism | Linguistics, Pronunciation and Phonetics". 21 August 2008. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
5. "Glossary". Retrieved 11 February 2015.
6. Cruttenden (2008:167)
7. Wells (1982:261)
8. Gimson (1970:34)
9. McCarthy & Stuart-Smith (2013) harvcoltxt error: no target: CITEREFMcCarthyStuart-Smith2013 (help)
10. лакско-русский словарь Link
11. Allison (2006).

References

• Cruttenden, Alan, ed. (2008), Gimson's Pronunciation of English (7th ed.), London: Hodder, ISBN 978-0340958773
• Dum-Tragut, Jasmine (2009), Armenian: Modern Eastern Armenian, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company
• Gimson, Alfred C. (1970), An Introduction to the pronunciation of English, London: Edward Arnold
• Wells, John C.; Colson, Greta (1971), Practical Phonetics, London: Pitman, ISBN 0-273-43949-9
• Wells, John C. (1982), Accents of English I: An Introduction, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-29719-2
• Allison, Sean (2006), Alphabet et orthographe de Kotoko de Makary (mpadɨ) (Makary Kotoko Orthography Statement), SIL

External links

• List of languages with [kʼ] on PHOIBLE