Glottal Stop

A glottal stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages.

It is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract by tightly closing the glottis, which is the space between the vocal cords.

In English, the glottal stop is often heard in the interruption of sound, as in the middle of the exclamation “uh-oh!” or in some dialects as a replacement for the “t” sound in words like “butter” and “water.”

It is not typically written with a separate letter in English, but in languages where it is phonemically significant, such as Hawaiian and Arabic, it is represented by specific letters or diacritics, like the ‘okina in Hawaiian.