ʼ

See also: ◌̓, ʻ [U+02BB MODIFIER LETTER TURNED COMMA], [U+A78C LATIN SMALL LETTER SALTILLO], ' [U+0027 APOSTROPHE], and [U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK]

ʼ U+02BC, ʼ
MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE
ʻ
[U+02BB]
Spacing Modifier Letters ʽ
[U+02BD]
In IPA usage, the ejective mark always modifies a letter. It may be typeset larger than an apostrophe, as here.

Translingual

Etymology

Use for glottal stop derives from the apostrophe, for example in Hawaiian (now replaced by the okina to distinguish it from an actual apostrophe).

Use to mark ejective consonants started with transliteration of Georgian script; it was an adaptation of the spiritus lenis and contrasted with the spiritus asper used to mark aspirated consonants, as the most salient distinctive feature of Georgian ejectives was that they were not aspirated. Usage extended from there to other languages with ejective consonants.

Symbol

ʼ

  1. (IPA) an ejective consonant
    e.g. [kʼ], [tʼ], [sʼ].
  2. (UPA) glottal closure:
    E.g. is k with simultaneous glottal closure.
    mⁱeʼr or mⁱe̓r with a glottalized vowel.
    ʼeppä ʼollu with epenthetic glottal stops separating the vowels.
  3. transliteration of Semitic glottal stop (aleph and hamza).
    Synonym: ʾ

Usage notes

Americanist phonetic notation may instead use a combining diacritic ◌̓ for ejective consonants.

Derived terms

Letters/digraphs that contain ʼ:

Further reading

Amis

Pronunciation

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Amis alphabet.

See also

Atayal

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Atayal alphabet.

Avokaya

Pronunciation

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Avokaya alphabet.

Bodo (India)

Letter

ʼ (ʼ)

  1. High tone on a short vowel /ɔ/, as in बरʼ /bɔrɔ́/ 'Bodo'.

Bunun

Pronunciation

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Bunun alphabet.

See also

Cayuga

Pronunciation

Letter

ʼ

  1. alternative form of ˀ

Chamorro

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. The first letter of the Chamorro alphabet, used for the glottal stop.

Chiwere

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Chiwere alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Chukchi

Letter

ʼ (ʼ)

  1. The thirty-seventh letter of the Chukchi alphabet, written in the Cyrillic script.

See also

Dogri

ʼ (ʼ)

  1. Low rising tone on a short vowel /ə ɪ ʊ/, e.g. लʼत्त /lə̌tː/ 'leg'.

Kanakanabu

Pronunciation

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Kanakanavu alphabet.

Kavalan

Pronunciation

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Kavalan alphabet.

See also

Khoekhoe

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. (obsolete) the lateral clicks, modern ǁ. (Besides plain ʼ, it is also used for the lateral click consonants ʼk ʼg ʼn ʼh ʼkh.)
    See also ·, , ʻ.

Kildin Sami

Alternative forms

  • Capital Һ (H), lower-case һ (h).

Pronunciation

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. The eleventh letter of the Kildin Sami Cyrillic alphabet

See also

Kwak'wala

Alternative forms

  • ʔ in Liqʼwala dialect

Pronunciation

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Kwak'wala alphabet, written in the Latin script.

See also

Lakota

Pronunciation

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Lakota alphabet, written in the Latin script.

See also

Lhao Vo

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. High lexical tone with a final plosive consonant.

Usage notes

A final glottal stop is unwritten. Thus /a/ with a final plosive and high tone is written abʼ adʼ agʼ aʼ for [áp át ák áʔ]. High tone is written ˮ with a final vowel or nasal.

Lisu

Letter

ʼ

  1. The forty-seventh letter of the Lisu alphabet.

Usage notes

  • Used to indicate nasalisation and is combined with tone marks.

Mam

Pronunciation

Letter

ʼ

  1. A letter of the Mam alphabet.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ʔ/

Letter

ʼ

  1. The nineteenth letter of the Navajo alphabet. It is used before or after a vowel to indicate a glottal stop.

Usage notes

Every Navajo word begins with either the glottal stop or another consonant. If an orthographic vowel begins a word, it is pronounced with a glottal stop: ooljééʼ (sometimes spelled ʼooljééʼ).

ʼ forms the following Navajo letters: chʼ, , , tłʼ, tsʼ.

See also

  • saad niyíłtłáádígíí
  • Appendix:Navajo alphabet

O'odham

Pronunciation

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the O'odham alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Paiwan

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Paiwan alphabet.

Paraguayan Guarani

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. The thirty-third letter of the Guarani alphabet, called puso, used for the glottal stop.

Pilagá

Pronunciation

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Pilagá alphabet, written in the Latin script.

See also

Saaroa

Pronunciation

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Saaroa alphabet.

Saisiyat

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Saisiyat alphabet.

Sakizaya

Pronunciation

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Sakizaya alphabet.

See also

Seneca

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Seneca alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Somali

Pronunciation

  • (phoneme): IPA(key): /ʔ/
  • (letter name): IPA(key): /alef/

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. The first letter of the Somali alphabet, called alef and written in the Latin script.

Usage notes

  • This is the first letter of the Somali alphabet, which follows Arabic abjad order. It is followed by B. It is rarely used in the initial position.

See also

Tabasaran

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. The forty-eighth letter of the Tabasaran alphabet, written in the Cyrillic script.

See also

Tahitian

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

  • (phoneme) IPA(key): /ʔ/
  • (letter) IPA(key): /ʔeta/

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Tahitian alphabet, the ʻeta.

Usage notes

All Tahitian lemmas on Wiktionary use the ʻokina ʻ as the Unicode character for this letter, but Tahitian Wikipedia uses this form.

Thao

Pronunciation

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Thao alphabet.

See also

Tsou

Pronunciation

  • (phoneme) IPA(key): /ʔ/

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. A letter of the Tsou alphabet.

See also

Tundra Nenets

Pronunciation

  • (phoneme) IPA(key): /ʔ/

Letter

ʼ (no case)

  1. The thirty-fifth letter of the Tundra Nenets alphabet, written in the Cyrillic script.

Usage notes

Marks instances of the glottal stop /ʔ/ that alternate with nasal consonants н () /n/, ӈ (ŋ°) /ŋ/ in inflection, in contrast with the letter ˮ. Often transcribed h in scholarly works.

See also