Glottal consonants are those produced using the vocal folds in the larynx. Because the vocal folds are the source of phonation and below the oro-nasal vocal tract, a number of glottal consonants are impossible such as a voiced glottal stop. Three glottal consonants are possible, a voiceless glottal stop and two glottal fricatives, and all are attested in natural languages. Glottal stops, produced by closing the vocal folds, are notably common in the world's languages. While many languages use them to demarcate phrase boundaries, some languages like Arabic and Huatla Mazatec have them as contrastive phonemes. Additionally, glottal stops can be realized as laryngealization of the following vowel in this language. Glottal stops, especially between vowels, do usually not form a complete closure. True glottal stops normally occur only when they are geminated.
Glottal consonants are those produced using the vocal folds in the larynx Because the vocal folds are the source of phonation and below the oro-nasal vocal tract a number of glottal consonants are impossible such as a voiced glottal stop Three glottal consonants are possible a voiceless glottal stop and two glottal fricatives and all are attested in natural languages Glottal stops produced by closing the vocal folds are notably common in the world's languages While many languages use them to demarcate phrase boundaries some languages like Arabic and Huatla Mazatec have them as contrastive phonemes Additionally glottal stops can be realized as laryngealization of the following vowel in this language Glottal stops especially between vowels do usually not form a complete closure True glottal stops normally occur only when they are geminated