Glottal

Every sound we make in an effort to use language begins with some air, vibration, and muscle. Beyond that, various sounds are made using different parts of our vocal tract. Glottal is one manner of creating sound and language that uses a part of the vocal tract called the glottis. You may not know it, but you likely use your glottis every day to create a glottal stop, which is one of two glottal consonants in the English language.

Glottal Meaning

The glottal sound is so prevalent in English that you'll hear it often used in any dialect. So what is the meaning of “glottal”?

If you’ve never thought about the distinct parts of your throat, you may also need a definition for glottis.

When a consonant sound is made, the vocal cords are either open to allow air to flow through (as in /r/ in the word hair) or they’re constricted (as in /p/ in the word up).

When the vocal cords are constricted, but some air still passes through, this causes vibration. The resulting buzzing sound is known as voicing or voiced pronunciation. You’ll notice the sound if you make the /v/ sound — as opposed to /f/ where the vocal cords don’t vibrate. Another way to say it is that /v/ is voiced and /f/ is voiceless. Aside from this phenomenon, they both come from the same place of articulation.

Place of articulation refers to the place in the mouth or throat where a sound is produced. There are seven places of articulation:

• Dental (involves the teeth)

• Palatal (involves the palate of the mouth)

• Labial (involves one lip)

• Bilabial (involves both lips)

• Alveolar (involves the alveolar ridge of the mouth)

• Glottal (involves the glottis)

So, glottal is one of several places of articulation. In the example with the words hair and up, the ending sounds /r/ and /p/ don’t share the same place of articulation; /r/ is alveolar (inside the mouth), and /p/ is bilabial (uses both lips).

If you added an /h/ to the word air to get hair, you’d have a word with a glottal place of articulation because /h/ is a glottal consonant.

Glottal Consonants

Glottal consonants are those that are produced using the glottis in some way. The /h/ sound is one of two glottal consonant sounds in the English language.

Did you notice the part of your throat that was engaged when you said the /h/ sound in those words? That’s your glottis! The /h/ sound is one of two glottal consonants; the other is known as the glottal stop.

Glottal Stop

A glottal stop is made by the rapid closure of the vocal cords, almost like when you hold your breath. A good example is to think of the middle part of the phrase “uh-oh.”

It’s easy for English speakers to not be aware of the glottal stop because there isn’t a single corresponding letter of the alphabet (as with /h/). There is, however, a symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet to represent the glottal stop sound, which is /ʔ/.

Languages such as Arabic and Hawaiian must have a way to mark the glottal stop; the ʻokina is represented with an inverted apostrophe (ʻ) in Hawaiian, and the Hamza is represented with a special character (ء) in Arabic. These languages need a way to represent the glottal stop because the sound can mean the difference between two different words.

It’s essential to Hawaiian communication to have a way to represent /ʔ/ to differentiate these (and other) words. The glottal sound doesn’t carry any phonemic meaning in English, though. This means the glottal stop won’t affect the meaning of a word, although it may make it easier to say.

Glottal stops are still common in English, even though they don't signify a particular meaning. When we use a glottal stop in the articulation of another sound, this is called glottalization. One place you might hear an unexpected glottalization is before word-initial vowels.

You likely don't notice this sound, but there is a brief closing of the vocal cords before a vowel at the beginning of a word.

Glottal Replacement

Another instance of glottalization is a complete glottal replacement. This is when a consonant is replaced with a glottal stop. Perhaps the most common and easily identified use of /ʔ/ in English is as a replacement for /t/.

Many dialects of English use a glottal stop as a variation of the /t/ sound, but most notably, the Cockney accent is notorious for replacing /t/ with /ʔ/.

Fig. 2 - The International Phonetic Alphabet is a standardized representation of various speech sounds.

Here are some specific instances where a consonant sound may be replaced with a glottal stop.

• Between vowels and the end of a word: This may be subtle or highly pronounced, depending on the individual.
  • Example: Mountain might sound like /maʊnʔn/.

• With n't contractions: This may be subtle or highly pronounced, depending on the individual.

  • Example: Couldn't might sound like /kʊdnʔ/.