What does "glottalization" mean?

The act or process of constricting or closing the glottis during the production of a speech sound that normally does not involve such constriction.

What is a synonym for "glottalization"?

Common synonyms include: articulation, aspiration, assimilation, bilabial, check, consonant.

noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Noun

1
The act or process of constricting or closing the glottis during the production of a speech sound that normally does not involve such constriction. countable, uncountable
"Examples of glottalization include creaky voice, and the interrupted tones of Vietnamese."
2
Transformation of a consonant into a glottal stop or fricative. countable, uncountable

"Examples of glottalization include creaky voice, and the interrupted tones of Vietnamese."

From glottal + -ization.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.