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 phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
It is an oral consonant, which means that air is exclusively allowed to escape through the mouth.
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.
Possible realisation of /k/. In the speech of people aged 40 to 80 years, the consonant is in free variation with [qˤ], [qʰ] and [k] in post-tonic or primarily or secondarily stressed syllables.[4]
Mostly in Hindi–Urdu loanwords from Arabic, pronounced mainly in Urdu and by educated Hindi speakers, with rural Hindi speakers often pronouncing it as a [k]. See Hindustani phonology[10][11][12]
In Western Iranian dialects /q/ and /ɣ/ have merged into /ɢ/. Though some dialects in eastern Iran may preserve the distinction in some words. See Persian phonology.
There is also the voiceless post-velar or pre-uvular plosive[15] in some languages, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical uvular consonant, though not as front as the prototypical velar consonant. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for that sound, though it can be transcribed as ⟨q̟⟩, ⟨q˖⟩, or ⟨q᫈⟩ (all symbols denote an advanced⟨q⟩) or ⟨k̠⟩ (retracted⟨k⟩).
↑ Shapiro, Michael C. (1989). A Primer of Modern Standard Hindi. Motilal Banarsidass Publ. p.20. ISBN978-81-208-0508-8. In addition to the basic consonantal sounds discussed in sections 3.1 and 3.2, many speakers use any or all five additional consonants (क़ ḳ, ख़ ḳh,ग़ ġ, ज़ z, फ़ f) in words of foreign origin (primarily from Persian, Arabic, English, and Portuguese). The last two of these, ज़ z and फ़ f, are the initial sounds in English zig and fig respectively. The consonant क़ ḳ is a voiceless uvular stop, somewhat like k, but pronounced further back in the mouth. ख़ ḳh is a voiceless fricative similar in pronunciation to the final sound of the German ach. ग़ ġ is generally pronounced as a voiceless uvular fricative, although it is occasionally heard as a stop rather than a fricative. In devanāgari each of these five sounds is represented by the use of a subscript dot under one of the basic consonant signs. In practice, however, the dot is often omitted, leaving it to the reader to render the correct pronunciation on the basis of his prior knowledge of the language.
↑ Morelli, Sarah (20 December 2019). A Guru's Journey: Pandit Chitresh Das and Indian Classical Dance in Diaspora. University of Illinois Press. ISBN978-0-252-05172-2. Hindi has a nasal sound roughly equivalent to the n in the English sang, transliterated here as ṅ or ṁ, and has two slightly differing sh sounds, transliterated as ś and ṣ. ... A few words contain consonants…from Arabic, Persian, Portuguese, and English: क़ (ق) is transliterated as q, ख़ (خ) as kh, ग़ (غ) as g, ज़ (ظ ,ز, or ض) as z, झ़ (ژ) as zh, and फ़ (ف) as f.
↑ Kulshreshtha, Manisha; Mathur, Ramkumar (24 March 2012). Dialect Accent Features for Establishing Speaker Identity: A Case Study. Springer Science & Business Media. p.19. ISBN978-1-4614-1137-6. A few sounds, borrowed from the other languages like Persian and Arabic, are written with a dot (bindu or nukta) as shown in Table 2.2. …those who come from rural backgrounds and do not speak really good Khariboli, pronounce these sounds as the nearest equivalents in Hindi.
↑ Instead of "pre-uvular", it can be called "advanced uvular", "fronted uvular", "post-velar", "retracted velar" or "backed velar". For simplicity, this article uses only the term "pre-uvular".
Qafisheh, Hamdi A. (1977), A short reference grammar of Gulf Arabic, Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, ISBN0-8165-0570-5
Mc Laughlin, Fiona (2005), "Voiceless implosives in Seereer-Siin", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 35 (2): 201–214, doi:10.1017/S0025100305002215, S2CID145717014
Watson, Janet C. E. (2002), The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic, The Phonology of the World's Languages, New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN9780199257591
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