Voiceless velar plosive

Voiceless velar plosive
k
IPA Number109
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)k
Unicode (hex)U+006B
X-SAMPAk
Braille⠅ (braille pattern dots-13)

The voiceless velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨k⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is k.

The sound is a very common sound cross-linguistically. Most languages have at least a plain , and some distinguish more than one variety. Most Indo-Aryan languages, such as Hindi and Bengali, have a two-way contrast between aspirated and plain . Only a few languages lack a voiceless velar plosive, e.g. Tahitian and Mongolian.

Some languages have the voiceless pre-velar plosive, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical velar plosive, though not as front as the prototypical palatal plosive.

Conversely, some languages have the voiceless post-velar plosive, which is articulated slightly behind the place of articulation of the prototypical velar plosive, though not as back as the prototypical uvular plosive.

Features

Features of the voiceless velar stop:

Varieties

IPA Description
k plain k
aspirated k
palatalized k
labialized k
k with no audible release
voiced k
tense k
ejective k

Occurrence

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Abkhaz ақалақь/ak̇halak̇h' 'the city' See Abkhaz phonology
Adyghe Shapsug кьэт/k′ėt 'chicken' Dialectal; corresponds to in other dialects.
Temirgoy пскэн/pskėn 'to cough'
Ahtna gistaann 'six'
Aleut kiikax̂ 'cranberry bush'
Arabic Modern Standard كتب/kataba 'he wrote' See Arabic phonology
Armenian Eastern քաղաք/ k'aġak'/k'aghak 'town' Contrasts with unaspirated form.
Assamese কম/kom 'less'
Assyrian ܟܬܒ̣ܐ ctava 'book' Used in most varieties, with the exception of the Urmia and Nochiya dialects
where it corresponds to .
Basque katu 'cat'
Bengali কম/kom 'less' Contrasts with aspirated form. See Bengali phonology
Bulgarian как/kak 'how' See Bulgarian phonology
Cantonese / 'home' See Cantonese phonology
//kìuh 'bridge'
Catalan cors 'hearts' See Catalan phonology
Chuvash кукка 'mother's brother'
Czech kost 'bone' See Czech phonology
Danish Standard gås 'goose' Usually transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɡ̊⟩ or ⟨ɡ⟩. Contrasts with aspirated form, which is usually transcribed in IPA with ⟨kʰ⟩ or ⟨k⟩. See Danish phonology
Dutch koning 'king' See Dutch phonology
English kiss 'kiss' See English phonology
Esperanto rakonto 'tale' See Esperanto phonology
Estonian kõik 'all' See Estonian phonology
Filipino kuto 'lice'
Finnish kakku 'cake' See Finnish phonology
French cabinet 'office' See French phonology
Georgian ქვა/kva 'stone'
German Käfig 'cage' See Standard German phonology
Greek καλόγερος / kalógeros 'monk' See Modern Greek phonology
Gujarati કાંદો/kaṃde 'onion' See Gujarati phonology
Hebrew כסף / kesef 'money' See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hiligaynon kadlaw 'laugh'
Hindustani काम / کام 'work' Contrasts with aspirated form. See Hindustani phonology
Hokkien /koa 'song' See Hokkien phonology
//khu 'district'
Hungarian akkor 'then' See Hungarian phonology
Italian casa 'house' See Italian phonology
Japanese / kaban 'handbag' See Japanese phonology
Kagayanen kalag 'spirit'
Khmer កម្ពុជា / kâmpŭchéa 'Cambodia' See Khmer phonology
Korean 감자 / kamja 'potato' See Korean phonology
Lakota kimímela 'butterfly'
Luxembourgish geess 'goat' Less often voiced . It is usually transcribed in IPA as ⟨ɡ⟩, and it contrasts with aspirated form, which is usually transcribed ⟨k⟩. See Luxembourgish phonology
Macedonian кој 'who' See Macedonian phonology
Marathi कवच 'armour' Contrasts with aspirated form. See Marathi phonology
Malay kaki 'leg' Unreleased in syllable codas in some words, See Malay phonology
Malayalam കഥ/kada 'story' See Malayalam phonology
Mandarin /gāo 'high' See Mandarin phonology
/kǎo 'roast' (v.)
Nepali केरा 'banana' Contrasts with aspirated form. See Nepali phonology
Norwegian kake 'cake' See Norwegian phonology
Odia କାମ/kāma 'work' Contrasts with aspirated form.
Pashto كال/kal 'year'
Persian کارد/kārd 'knife'
Polish buk 'beech tree' See Polish phonology
Portuguese corpo 'body' See Portuguese phonology
Punjabi ਕਰ/کر/kar 'do' Contrasts with aspirated form.
Romanian când 'when' See Romanian phonology
Russian короткий/korotkiy 'short' See Russian phonology
Serbo-Croatian кост / kost 'bone' See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Slovak kosť 'bone' See Slovak phonology
Slovene kost 'bone' Aspirated before close vowels. See Slovene phonology
Spanish casa 'house' See Spanish phonology
Swedish ko 'cow' See Swedish phonology
Sylheti ꠇꠤꠔꠣ/kita 'what'
Tamil கை/kai 'hand' See Tamil phonology
Telugu కాకి/kāki 'crow' Contrasts with aspirated form.
Thai ไก่/kị̀ 'chicken' Contrasts with an aspirated form.
Turkish kulak 'ear' See Turkish phonology
Ubykh кауар/kawar 'slat' Found mostly in loanwords. See Ubykh phonology
Ukrainian колесо/koleso 'wheel' See Ukrainian phonology
Vietnamese cam 'orange' See Vietnamese phonology
Welsh calon 'heart' See Welsh phonology
West Frisian keal 'calf' See West Frisian phonology
Yi / ge 'foolish' Contrasts aspirated and unaspirated forms.
Zapotec Tilquiapan canza 'walking'

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Instead of "pre-velar", it can be called "advanced velar", "fronted velar", "front-velar", "palato-velar", "post-palatal", "retracted palatal" or "backed palatal".
  2. ^ Instead of "post-velar", it can be called "retracted velar", "backed velar", "pre-uvular", "advanced uvular" or "fronted uvular".
  3. ^ Ladefoged (2005), p. 165.
  4. ^ Thelwall (1990), p. 37.
  5. ^ Dum-Tragut (2009), p. 13.
  6. ^ Carbonell & Llisterri (1992), p. 53.
  7. ^ Basbøll (2005:61)
  8. ^ Gussenhoven (1992), p. 45.
  9. ^ Fougeron & Smith (1993), p. 73.
  10. ^ Shosted & Chikovani (2006), p. 255.
  11. ^ Rogers & d'Arcangeli (2004), p. 117.
  12. ^ Okada (1999), p. 117.
  13. ^ Olson et al. (2010), pp. 206–207.
  14. ^ a b Gilles & Trouvain (2013:67–68)
  15. ^ Jassem (2003), p. 103.
  16. ^ Cruz-Ferreira (1995), p. 91.
  17. ^ DEX Online:
  18. ^ Padgett (2003), p. 42.
  19. ^ Landau et al. (1999), p. 66.
  20. ^ Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté (2003), p. 255.
  21. ^ Danyenko & Vakulenko (1995), p. 4.
  22. ^ Thompson (1959), pp. 458–461.
  23. ^ Merrill (2008), p. 108.

References

External links