| Voiceless upper-pharyngeal plosive | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ꞯ | |||
| q (q˗) | |||
| Audio sample | |||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) | ꞯ | ||
| Unicode (hex) | U+A7AF | ||
| |||
A voiceless upper-pharyngeal plosive or stop is a rare consonant.
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According to laryngoscopic studies, pharyngeal and epiglottal consonants are both pronounced in the pharynx, being separated into the upper and lower regions, respectively. [1] This has lead some phoneticians such as John Esling to propose the merging of epiglottal consonants into the pharyngeal column in the International Phonetic Alphabet chart. [2] By this definition, ⟨ ʡ ⟩ may serve as either an epiglottal (lower-pharyngeal) or a pharyngeal (upper-pharyngeal) plosive. However, this plosive is typically considered voiceless, as a voiced epiglottal plosive may not be possible. If the distinction is maintained between pharyngeal and epiglottal consonants in place of articulation due to their position within the pharynx, then ⟨ʡ⟩ remains a voiceless lower-pharyngeal plosive, while the pair ⟨ꞯ⟩ and ⟨ 𝼂 ⟩ are provided by the extIPA for a voiceless and voiced upper-pharyngeal plosive, respectively. [3] [4]
No language is known to have a phonemic upper pharyngeal plosive. The Nǁng language (Nǀuu) is claimed to have an upper pharyngeal place of articulation among its click consonants— clicks in Nǁng have a rear closure that is said to vary between uvular or upper pharyngeal, depending on the click type. [5] However, if the place were truly pharyngeal, they could not occur as nasal clicks, which they do. [5]
Otherwise, upper pharyngeal plosives are only known from disordered speech. They appear for example in the speech of some children with cleft palate, as compensatory backing of stops to avoid nasalizing them. [note 1] The extIPA provides the letter ⟨ꞯ⟩ (a small capital Q), equivalent to IPA ⟨q⟩ or ⟨q˗⟩ (a retracted ⟨ q ⟩), to transcribe such a voiceless upper pharyngeal plosive.
