Glottal Stop (letter)

Glottal Stop (letter)

The symbol ⟨ʔ⟩ is a letter of the Latin alphabet, used to represent a glottal stop in several phonetic transcription schemes, as well as in the alphabets of some languages. A superscript version, ⟨ˀ⟩, is also used.

Its shape is based on an enlarged curly apostrophe ⟨’⟩, which is also widely used to represent a glottal stop.

Where the glottal stop character is not available, it is sometimes replaced by a question mark ⟨?⟩, which is also its official representation in SAMPA, and to which it bears a striking resemblance.

In phonetic transcription as well as in several languages, a single, tall glyph is used in all situations, with no distinction between uppercase and lowercase. However, in the Chipewyan, Dogrib, and Slavey languages, the tall version is only used for the uppercase, and a short version is used for the lowercase.