Everything about Uvular Consonant totally explained
Uvulars are
consonants articulated with the back of the
tongue against or near the
uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than
velar consonants. Uvulars may be
plosives,
fricatives,
nasal stops,
trills, or
approximants, though the IPA doesn't provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and the symbol for the voiced fricative is used instead. Uvular
affricates can certainly be made but are very rare: they may occur in a few African and Native American languages. (Ejective uvular affricates occur in as realizations of uvular stops in
Lillooet and
Georgian.)
The uvular consonants identified by the
International Phonetic Alphabet are:
English has no uvular consonants, and they're unknown in the indigenous languages of Australia and
the Pacific. Uvular consonants are however found in many African and Middle-Eastern languages, most notably
Arabic, and in
Native American languages. In parts of the Caucasus mountains and northwestern North America, nearly every language has uvular stops and fricatives. Two
uvular Rs are found in north-western Europe, where they spread from northern
French.
The
voiceless uvular
plosive is transcribed as [q] in both the IPA and
SAMPA. It is pronounced somewhat like the
voiceless velar plosive [k], but with the middle of the tongue further back, against the uvula rather than the
velum. The most familiar use will doubtless be in the transliteration of Arabic place names such as
Qatar and
Iraq into English, though, since English lacks this sound, this is generally pronounced as the most similar sound that occurs in English, [k].
[ɢ], the
voiced equivalent of [q], is much rarer. It is like the
voiced velar plosive [g], but articulated in the same uvular position as [q]. Few languages use this sound, but it's found in some varieties of
Persian and in several
Northeast Caucasian languages, notably
Tabasaran.
The voiceless uvular fricative [χ] is similar to the
voiceless velar fricative [x], except that it's articulated on the uvula. It is found instead of [x] in some dialects of German and Arabic.
Uvular flaps have been reported for
Kube (
Trans-New Guinea) and for the variety of
Khmer spoken in
Battambang.
The
Tlingit language of the Alaskan Panhandle has ten uvular consonants:
| tenuis plosive |
qákʷ |
tree spine |
| aspirated plosive |
qʰákʷ |
basket |
| ejective stop |
qʼakʷ |
screech owl |
| labialized tenuis plosive |
náaqʷ |
octopus |
| labialized aspirated plosive |
qʷʰáan |
people, tribe |
| labialized ejective stop |
qʷʼátɬ |
cooking pot |
| voiceless fricative |
χaakʷ |
fingernail |
| ejective fricative |
χʼáakʷ |
freshwater sockeye salmon |
| labialized voiceless fricative |
χʷastáa |
canvas, denim |
| labialized ejective fricative |
χʷʼáaɬʼ |
down (feathers) |
and the
Ubykh language of Turkey has
20.
Uvular Rhotics
The uvular
trill [ʀ] is used in certain
dialects (especially those associated with European capitals) of
French,
German,
Dutch,
Portuguese,
Swedish and
Norwegian, as well as
Hebrew, for the
rhotic phoneme. In many of these it has a uvular fricative (either
voiced [ʁ] or
voiceless [χ]) as an
allophone when it follows one of the
voiceless stops /p/, /t/, or /k/ at the end of a word, as in
maître [mɛtχ].
As with most trills, uvular trills are often reduced to a single contact, especially between vowels.
Unlike other uvular consonants, the uvular trill is articulated without a retraction of the tongue, and therefore doesn't lower neighboring high vowels the way uvular stops commonly do.
Several other languages, including
Inuktitut,
Abkhaz and some varieties of Arabic, have a voiced uvular fricative but don't treat it as a
rhotic consonant.
In
Lakhota the uvular trill is an allophone of the voiced uvular fricative before /i/.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Uvular Consonant'.
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