Dental and alveolar ejective stops

{{Short description|Consonantal sounds represented by ⟨tʼ⟩ in IPA}}

{{Refimprove|date=September 2014}}

{{infobox IPA

|ipa symbol=tʼ

|imagefile=IPA Unicode 0x0074+0x02BC.svg

|imagesize=150px

|decimal1=116|decimal2=357

|x-sampa=t_>

|kirshenbaum=t`

}}

{{infobox IPA

|ipa symbol=t̪ʼ

|decimal1=116|decimal2=810|decimal3=357

|x-sampa=t_d_>

}}

The alveolar and dental ejective stops are types of consonantal sounds, usually described as voiceless, that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, ejectives are indicated with a "modifier letter apostrophe" ⟨ʼ⟩,{{Cite web|url=http://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/content/ipa-chart|title=The International Phonetic Alphabet and the IPA Chart {{!}} International Phonetic Association|website=www.internationalphoneticassociation.org|language=en|access-date=2018-04-01}} as in this article. A reversed apostrophe is sometimes used to represent light aspiration, as in Armenian linguistics ⟨p‘ t‘ k‘⟩; this usage is obsolete in the IPA. In other transcription traditions, the apostrophe represents palatalization: ⟨pʼ⟩ = IPA ⟨pʲ⟩. In some Americanist traditions, an apostrophe indicates weak ejection and an exclamation mark strong ejection: ⟨k̓ , k!⟩. In the IPA, the distinction might be written ⟨kʼ, kʼʼ⟩, but it seems that no language distinguishes degrees of ejection.

In alphabets using the Latin script, an IPA-like apostrophe for ejective consonants is common. However, there are other conventions. In Hausa, the hooked letter ƙ is used for /kʼ/. In Zulu and Xhosa, whose ejection is variable between speakers, plain consonant letters are used: p t k ts tsh kr for /pʼ tʼ kʼ tsʼ tʃʼ kxʼ/. In some conventions for Haida and Hadza, double letters are used: tt kk qq ttl tts for /tʼ kʼ qʼ tɬʼ tsʼ/ (Haida) and zz jj dl gg for /tsʼ tʃʼ cʎ̥˔ʼ kxʼ/ (Hadza).

In Oromo /tʼ/ is written as ⟨x⟩.