science

Reversed glottal stop

Reversed glottal stop is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Reversed glottal stop rather than just read about it. In short: The reversed glottal stop, ⟨ʕ⟩ (majuscule: ꟎, minuscule: ꟏, superscript: ˤ), is a letter of the Latin script. It is used to denote a voiced pharyngeal fricative and similar sounds, either as a caseless letter as in the International Phonetic Alphabet, or as a cased pair in the Pilagá alphabet.

Key takeaways

Reversed glottal stop belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Reversed glottal stop to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Reversed glottal stop from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The reversed glottal stop, ⟨ʕ⟩ (majuscule: ꟎, minuscule: ꟏, superscript: ˤ), is a letter of the Latin script. It is used to denote a voiced pharyngeal fricative and similar sounds, either as a caseless letter as in the International Phonetic Alphabet, or as a cased pair in the Pilagá alphabet. Like the glottal stop ⟨ʔ⟩, which is derived historically from an apostrophe, it derives from the reversed comma ⟨ʽ⟩, as does the half ring ⟨ʿ⟩.

Graphic variants In Unicode, five graphic variants of the reversed glottal stop are available.

Caseless U+0295 ʕ LATIN LETTER PHARYNGEAL VOICED FRICATIVE, used in phonetic transcriptions and some orthographies. Casing pair U+A7CE ꟎ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER PHARYNGEAL VOICED FRICATIVE and U+A7CF ꟏ LATIN SMALL LETTER PHARYNGEAL VOICED FRICATIVE, used in Pilagá orthography. Superscript U+02C1 ˁ MODIFIER LETTER REVERSED GLOTTAL STOP, graphical alternative of ⟨ʿ⟩. Superscript U+02E4 ˤ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL REVERSED GLOTTAL STOP, technical superscript of caseless ⟨ʕ⟩. Additionally, there are two graphic variants with a stroke, both used in phonetic transcriptions.

Caseless U+02A2 ʢ LATIN LETTER REVERSED GLOTTAL STOP WITH STROKE Superscript U+107B4 𐞴 MODIFIER LETTER REVERSED GLOTTAL STOP WITH STROKE

Usage The phonetic symbol ʕ became part of the International Phonetic Alphabet in 1928, replacing the small capital Q ⟨ꞯ⟩ used in the 1912 Principles, to transcribe the voiced pharyngeal fricative. Like the glottal stop letter, it has since been borrowed into Americanist phonetic notation and the transliteration of languages such as Arabic (see Romanization of Arabic). The reversed glottal stop is used as a caseless letter in several orthographies: Okanagan and Columbia-Moses in the United States, Ditinaht, Nuuchahnulth, St'at'imcets and Thompson in Canada. In Ethiopia, it is used by some authors in Tsamai while others use ⟨/⟩, and was used in Ale but has been replaced by ⟨q⟩. The bicameral form of the letter (majuscule: ꟎, minuscule: ꟏) is used in the Pilagá language to represent the voiced pharyngeal fricative [ʕ]. It was created in 1996 after much deliberation throughout the Pilagá community, along with the rest of the Pilagá alphabet. In Pilagá, it is rendered similarly to the gelded reversed question mark .

Appearance in computer fonts The caseless U+0295 ʕ LATIN LETTER PHARYNGEAL VOICED FRICATIVE has been in Unicode since version 1.1 and has been available in previous phonetic encodings as well. The casing pair ꟎ and ꟏ were added to Unicode in Latin Extended-D on September 9th, 2025, with the release of Unicode 17.0.0. Due to its infrequent usage and recent introduction into Unicode, few fonts have created a glyph for it (such as GNU Unifont), and the character may appear rendered as a box to many users. ꟎ and ꟏ occupy codepoints U+A7CE ꟎ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER PHARYNGEAL VOICED FRICATIVE and U+A7CF ꟏ LATIN SMALL LETTER PHARYNGEAL VOICED FRICATIVE respectively.

Computing codes

See also Glottal stop (letter) Pharyngealization Voiced pharyngeal fricative

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Reversed glottal stop

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Reversed glottal stop claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Reversed glottal stop before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Reversed glottal stop ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Reversed glottal stop

In research: Reversed glottal stop appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Reversed glottal stop in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Reversed glottal stop is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Indigenous languages of South America, Latin-script letters, Pharyngeal consonants, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Reversed glottal stop outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Reversed glottal stop in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Reversed glottal stop means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Reversed glottal stop out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Reversed glottal stop in simple terms?

Why does Reversed glottal stop matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Reversed glottal stop?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Reversed glottal stop.