Talk:T-glottalization

American spelling
As this is a mostly British phonomenon, why are we using the American spelling? I propose changing all "glottalize" and "glottalization" to "glottalise" and "glottalisation".

Wikipedia standards say that either spelling is acceptable as long as the article is consistent. As most people who edit this article are bound to be British, it makes it easier to use the British spelling. Epa101 (talk) 11:03, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't know about it being a mostly British phenomenon... it's pretty rare to find Americans who don't glottalize the double-Ts in "mitten" (for example), though admittedly it's probably more extensive in the British dialects. In any case, I wouldn't oppose renaming the page, though I don't really think it matters that much (are British people really going to be so annoyed by the z?).--Yalens (talk) 15:46, 11 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not proposing this on the basis that I hate American spellings. I realised that I am responsible for the two spellings with s rather than z in the article.  I (like most Brits) write the s without thinking.  I'm sure that Americans do the same with z, but I thought it likely that most people who edit this article are British and that the best way to ensure consistency in the article is to use the British spelling that most editors would be used to.  Perhaps I'm wrong.  There might be more Americans who are interested in this subject than I thought.  I thought that it was very rare in the USA.  Epa101 (talk) 20:57, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Well the policy is to use the dialect that the article was originally in. Also in western New England you hear t gloattalization. Pug6666☼☯, 18:30, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Fine. Claim ownership of that too. New where? — — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.30.54.197 (talk • contribs) 04:47, February 22, 2015

What's American about the -ize ending? Try looking it up in the OED some time. You're in for a shock. --2.216.81.183 (talk) 08:34, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

So it ain't categorical, eh?
This article's lead includes a recently added comment to the effect that T-glottalization "is almost never categorical." Since
 * (a) leads are supposed to introduce articles in a way that's fairly straightforward and comprehensible by a wide readership, and
 * (b) at least one person who minored in linguistics (yours truly) is unfamiliar with this notion of the categorical,

I suggest that we ought to make it clearer what the comment means. And it'd likely also be a good idea to move the discussion out of the lead to somewhere deeper into the article, where the technically oriented content is more at home.

I'd make the fix myself, but as I say, I don't understand the point intended. Can someone (perhaps User:Peter238, who added the comment) help out.—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 17:27, 25 June 2015 (UTC)


 * It means that e.g. cat is never categorically pronounced . In Cockney for example,  varies between,  (also, rather rarely, ) and (when the next word starts with a vowel and is pronounced without a pause) . Peter238 (talk) 18:26, 25 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm not being intentionally dense (it just comes naturally). What do you mean by "is never categorically pronounced"? Given that the article is about phonology, the participle pronounced in your definiens helps me not at all to distinguish it from the definiendum. Best hypothesis I've been able to conjure up is that you're asserting an allophony, something roughly akin to "there are very few pairs of words that differ only by whether a /t/ is glottalized." Have I correctly guessed your meaning? If so, then I am now equipped to render the lead a bit more gentle for the innnocent, unsuspecting non-linguists among our readership.—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 19:07, 25 June 2015 (UTC)


 * No, that's not it. Let's rephrase: as far as I know, there are no accents that pronounce cat always and only as, with a glottal stop. There are always other possibilities. In Cockney for example, the  in  varies between fully glottalized , pre-glottalized  (also, rather rarely, non-glottalized ) and (when the next word starts with a vowel and is pronounced without a pause) flapped.


 * Well, I don't know. To me, the sentence is clear, but I'm a non-native speaker. I can't think of an alternative right now. Peter238 (talk) 23:20, 25 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I get it now. The word I should have used is mandatory, not categorical. Peter238 (talk) 02:19, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Need to revise examples
I would like to do some improving here, if there is no objection. In particular, the examples don’t seem very good. In the case of the following I can’t see why ‘what, but, get, foot’ have “(t)ʔ” finally – what does that transcription mean? And why is the glottal stop given as following /t/ in ‘pick it up’?. In the case of
 * pick it up [pʰɪk ɪtʔ ʌp] (though, in GA, this is more commonly [pʰɪkɪɾʌp])
 * let's start [lɛts stɑː(ɹ)ʔ], [lɛs stɑː(ɹ)ʔ] or [lɛʔs stɑː(ɹ)ʔ]
 * what [wɒ(t)ʔ]
 * but [bʌ(t)ʔ]
 * get [ɡɛ(t)ʔ]
 * foot [fʊ(t)ʔ]
 * batter [ˈbæʔə]
 * beater [ˈbiʔə]
 * biter [ˈbaɪʔə]
 * bitter [ˈbɪʔə]
 * butter ˈ[bʌʔə]
 * betting [ˈbɛʔɪŋ]
 * pity [ˈpʰɪʔi]

it seems unnecessary to have a whole list of almost identical words. Better to have a list of phonologically different words showing various contexts in which glottalization is found. It seems a pity that this article doesn’t cover glottalization of /p/, /k/ and /tʃ/ as well. The glottalization of /tʃ/ differs in interesting ways from that of /t/. But the title of the article precludes this. RoachPeter (talk) 15:08, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 6 February 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: consensus not to move the page to the proposed title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 01:32, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

T-glottalization → T-glottalisation – Article is about a largely British English phenomenon, with historical British origins, so it should be titled and written as such per MOS:TIES. See 2015 talk discussion above. Note MOS:ENGVAR Common British English uses -ise endings "without thinking", as opposed to OED, hence Template:Use British English and Template:Use British English Oxford spelling differing.  Lazz _R  00:37, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose. All other spellings are in "-ize", such as the links to glottalization and debuccalization (not glottalisation nor debuccalisation). (It used "stigmatised" once, but I .) As noted, -ize is a perfectly acceptable British English spelling, preferred by Fowler and the OED. 94.21.238.64 (talk) 04:24, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Usage of the current spelling is slightly more common in Google Scholar results and per above, it would make this inconsistent with other spellings. -- Netoholic @ 04:27, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose The Oxford spelling is preferred by many scholarly publications, including those of the International Phonetic Association. Nardog (talk) 08:08, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose, for WP:CONSISTENCY with related articles, weakly per WP:COMMONNAME (see Netholic's comment, though the case may not be overwhelming), and especially because the "-ize is American and -ise is British" thing is just a folk-etymological myth, so the move rationale is faulty. The major British style guides prefer -ize; it's British in particular that prefers -ise, but WP is not written in news style, as a matter of policy.  We  -ise spellings, but they are not actually the MOS:ENGVAR matter that some people wish they were (in contradistinction to things that actually are universal in British English and Commonwealth English more broadly, like colour and theatre versus color and theater).  I sound more gung-ho about this than I really am; I regularly normalize -ize to -ise in British or other Commonwealth English articles in which -ise spellings are already established.  In the long run, I think we and the readership  be better served by moving everything to -ize, other than words for which -ise is standard in all dialects, e.g. advertise.  It'll just be simpler and more consistent, and consonant with MOS:COMMONALITY.  But we're not there yet on that point.  For this particular discussion, it's enough that -ise isn't mandatory in British English, and using it for this article title would cause a WP:CONSISTENCY problem while doing nothing useful under any other WP:CRITERIA (it will not be more concise, precise, recognizable, or even natural, except to a narrow subset of people, who do not constitute the majority of people looking for an article on a linguistics term).  See also WP:TITLECHANGES; for any stable article title there must be a "good reason to change it", and no such good reason has been presented in this case.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:30, 7 February 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Cleanup reorganize, more citations needed
I would like to suggest that it is no longer necessary to have this article headed by the "cleanup reorganize" and "more citations needed" messages. I will remove them unless anyone wishes to oppose. RoachPeter (talk) 10:25, 31 January 2021 (UTC)