Re: More wierd phonemes

Yes, that's the uvular stop.  It's represented in IPA
by "q"; the voiced version is a small capital G.

q/k is a phonemic distinction in many languages,
including Arabic.

We got our letter q via Latin from the older Greek
alphabets (where it was called Qoppa), which inherited
it from Semitic alphabets where q/k was a phonemic
distinction.  It wasn't a phonemic distinction in
Greek, but Greek k's before back vowels were close
enough to q that they were spelled with qoppa at
first.  However, eventually it was dropped and just k
was used.  But q was still used as a number, and so
it, like digamma (w), was preserved.

[q] does have a whole different quality from [k],
doesn't it?

Ed



--- Barry Garcia <Barry_Garcia@...> wrote:
> I was wondering, Is there a name for a 'k' like
> sound made a little more
> down in the throat than your normal k ? I had been
> making various sounds,
> and one I thought sounded nice was made with the
> very back of the soft
> palate . It's a bit hard to explain it clearly, so
> sorry if this isnt very
> clear.
>
> ________________________________________________
>
> It's worth the risk of burning, to have a second
> chance...
>
=====
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Ed Heil               uncorrected@yahoo.com
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Don't believe the cats.  They've been fed.
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