Voiceless velar stop

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

The sound is a very common sound cross-linguistically. Most languages have at least a plain, and some distinguish more than one variety. Most Indo-Aryan languages, such as Hindi and Bengali, have a two-way contrast between aspirated and plain. Only a few languages lack a voiceless velar stop, e.g. Tahitian.

There is also a voiceless post-velar stop (also called pre-uvular) in some languages. For voiceless pre-velar stop (also called post-palatal), see voiceless palatal stop.

Features
Features of the voiceless velar stop: