Voiced uvular stop

The voiced uvular stop or voiced uvular plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is $\langle\rangle$, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is G\.

is a rare sound, even compared to other uvulars. Vaux (1999) proposes a phonological explanation: uvular consonants normally involve a neutral or a retracted tongue root, whereas voiced stops often involve advanced tongue root: two articulations that cannot physically co-occur. This leads many languages of the world to have a voiced uvular fricative instead as the voiced counterpart of the voiceless uvular stop. Examples are Inuit; several Turkic languages such as Uyghur and Yakut; several Northwest Caucasian languages such as Abkhaz; and several Northeast Caucasian languages such as Ingush.

For a voiced pre-uvular stop (also called post-velar), see voiced velar stop.