Voiceless uvular implosive explained

A voiceless uvular implosive is a rare consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is (IPA|ʛ̥ ) or (IPA|qʼ↓). A dedicated IPA letter, (IPA|ʠ), was withdrawn in 1993.

Occurrence

A voiceless uvular implosive has been claimed for several Mayan languages.

Language	Word		Meaning	Notes
Kaqchikel[1]	'''qʼ'''ijobʼäl	pronounced as /[ʛ̥iχoˈɓəɬ]/	'watch, clock'	In word final position, [ʛ̥] is in free variation with [qʼ]; elsewhere only [ʛ̥] appears. See Kaqchikel language.
Mam[2]	'''qʼ'''ootj	pronounced as /[ʛ̥oːtʰχ]/	'dough'
Uspantek[3]	j'''q’'''aab	pronounced as /[χʛ̥aːpˀ]/	'his/her hand'	[ʛ̥] is in free variation with [qˀ] in all positions.

See also

• List of phonetics topics
• Voiced uvular implosive

External links

pronounced as /navigation/

Notes and References

1. Patal Majzul et al., 2000, pp. 24ff.
2. Book: England, Nora C.. A grammar of Mam, a Mayan language. 1983. University of Texas Press. 0292729278. Austin. 748935484.
3. Bennett . Ryan . Harvey . Meg . Henderson . Robert . Méndez López . Tomás Alberto . September 2022 . The phonetics and phonology of Uspanteko (Mayan) . Language and Linguistics Compass . en . 16 . 9 . 10.1111/lnc3.12467 . 1749-818X. free .