A uvular ejective is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is .
Features Features of a uvular ejective stop:
Occurrence A single plain uvular ejective is found in almost all Northeast Caucasian languages, all South Caucasian languages, and some Athabaskan languages, as well as Itelmen, Quechua and Aymara.
Most Salishan languages, Tlingit, as well as Adyghe and Kabardian (Northwest Caucasian languages), demonstrate a two-way contrast between labialised and plain uvular ejectives.
The Akhvakh language appears to have a contrast between lax and tense uvular ejectives: (lax) vs. (tense).
Abkhaz contrasts plain, palatalised and labialised uvular ejectives, written , e.g., , , . As with Georgian, Abkhaz has no non-ejective uvular stops; the historically present uvular aspirates have merged with their corresponding fricatives, although the aspirates are preserved in Abaza.
A plain uvular ejective is one of the most common consonants in Ubykh, due to its presence in the past tense suffix . But in addition to palatalised, labialised and plain uvular ejectives, Ubykh also possesses a pharyngealised version and a concurrently labialised and pharyngealised version, making a total of five: , , , , .
Examples
Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Abaza / 'red' Abkhaz / Adyghe Hakuchi / 'hand' Dialectal. Corresponds to in other dialects. Archi / 'forelock' Azeri North dialects 'ancient' Batsbi / 'rain' Chechen // 'crow' Dargwa Mehweb 'window' Contrasts with Georgian / 'flower'Unlike the velar ejective, it does not contrast with voiced or voiceless uvular stops; the Old Georgian voiceless uvular stop has merged with the voiceless velar fricative in modern Georgian. Some scholars view this Georgian phoneme as being rather an uvular ejective fricative . Haida 'basket'Itelmen Klallam Contrasts with , e.g., . Kutenai 'St. Mary’s or deep dense woods' Laz / 'loving' Lezgian , Contrasts with , e.g., Lushootseed 'canoe' Mingrelian / 'belt' North Straits Salish Saanich Contrasts with , e.g., . Nuxalk 'tight' Contrasts with Quechua 'yellow' Svan / 'boy' Tahltan Tlingit ‘pitcher’
See also List of phonetics topics
References
External links