Letter K'
Letter k' is a glottalized or ejective sound. It it pronounced like k except with the vocal folds tightly closed so that air is released with a sudden burst or popping sound. Tanacross k' occurs only at the beginning of a syllable. Tanacross k' does not have any of the raspy quality that is characteristic of Tanacross k at the beginning of a syllable.Click on a video below to see and hear Mrs. Irene Arnold pronouncing words with K'.
k'á' gun
k'ę́y' willow
k'oth clouds
Click below to hear Mrs. Irene Arnold illustrating the difference between k and k’ at the start of syllables.
Sentences contrasting velar sounds -- sounds produced in the back of the mouth.
Gah gha xuu'éł naxghogdek. I am telling them a story about a rabbit.
Naagêddh ké' k'ée shgáal' aaxá' nék-'ęh. I see fox tracks near my rabbit snare.
Wuk'îig yaashěg' ts'enh xetl gaay xaaxeeł. They are packing the small sled down from the distant ridge.
Tanacross contains six consonants which are written with an apostrophe in the practical orthography: tth', t', ts', tl', ch', k'. These are the so-called glottalized or ejective sounds. They are produced using a glottalic airstream, made by keeping the vocal folds tightly together until after the stop is released. These sounds only occur syllable initially.
Note that the apostrophe by itself represents a glottal stop, a distinct consonant which is not an ejective. When it is necessary to differentiate in the practical orthography between an ejective and a sequence of consonant plus glottal stop, a hyphen is employed. Thus, neek'eh 'our tracks', with an ejective k', versus nek-'ęh 'I see it' , with a sequence k plus glottal stop '.
similar sounds