A voiceless stop made by raising the back of the tongue to the roof of the mouth behind the region used for an English /k/, sealing the oral cavity completely, then releasing it. English has no close comparison.
Written by Bodour Imseeh, BSc (Hons), MSc, bilingual Speech and Language Therapist specialising in Arabic–English speech. · Last reviewed 2 November 2026
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This is a broad Arabic guide; realisations vary across dialects and speakers.
There is no close English comparison. The closure is made behind the region used for an English /k/, and the seal is complete before it is released.
The front of the mouth is not involved. The tongue tip and blade stay at rest. Nothing a client does with the tip is the target here.
The closure is drawn as a region, not a point. The figure labels it a posterior dorsal closure. The sources place it behind the velar region without fixing a location, so the animation marks a span rather than a spot.
ق is conventionally called a uvular stop. That is a phonetic label, and it is worth being precise about what it does and does not tell you.
No source consulted for this resource reports the uvula itself contacting the tongue, and no such contact is drawn. The ring in the animation marks the contact region as drawn in that one illustrative configuration. It is not a universal anatomical location and it is not a placement target.
Its exact closure location is not established. The evidence places the closure behind the velar region and stops there.
This sound varies more between varieties and speakers than any other in this resource, and that changes what counts as an error.
In Jordan, sociolinguistic studies describe four main realisations of /q/: [q] in standard or educated speech, the glottal stop [ʔ] in urban speech, [g] among rural Jordanian and Bedouin speakers, and [k] among rural Palestinian speakers (Al-Tamimi, 2001; Sider, 2024). Jordanian speech-acquisition research credits dialectal realisations as acceptable rather than counting them as errors (Amayreh & Dyson, 1998; Amayreh, 2003).
The standard [q] is associated with educated and formal speech (Al-Tamimi, 2001). In a study of 60 children aged 6;6–8;4 in Amman, five of the ten late-developing consonants studied had still not reached their standard form even in the oldest group, although all ten were produced in acceptable colloquial forms by 8;4 (Amayreh, 2003).
A distinction worth carrying into assessment. A realisation that is established in the child's own community, such as [ʔ] or [g], is not an error, and a child may simply not yet have learned the standard [q]. A production that is not a recognised realisation in the child's variety, such as [t] for /q/, is a different matter.
Do not record a production as disordered only because it differs from the canonical teaching target. These observations come from Jordanian studies and should not be generalised to other varieties or populations.
Scope: broad Arabic This guide shows broad Arabic reference descriptions, not one speaker's or region's pronunciation. Realisations vary across Arabic varieties. Use a client's own dialect and speech community as the comparison when deciding whether a production is expected, variable or needs support.
For this sound, the scope note is the whole clinical question. Establish which variety and which register you are assessing against before deciding whether a production is an error. The animation shows one reference configuration; it is not the target for every speaker.
There is no intervention section on this page, and that is deliberate.
No ق-specific intervention protocol, prompt set or therapy approach is presented. No intervention study for this sound was located or reviewed in this project's searches. That is a limitation of this review, not a finding that no such research exists.
What follows is about listening and assessing:
Approaches described for other sounds should not be assumed to transfer to ق.
These pages are drawn from Arabic Speech Sounds, a clinical reference covering nine Arabic speech sounds.
For how diglossia changes what counts as an error when assessing Arabic-speaking children, see Arabic diglossia and its impact on speech and language assessment.
All Arabic speech sounds — the index, including the five sounds covered without an animation
What the figure represents
What it does not represent
The difference the figures show is manner, not place. On the evidence available to this resource both sounds are made in the same broad posterior region. خ holds a narrow but open channel; ق closes it completely.
The figures were drawn so that no positional difference is asserted beyond what closing requires. This resource does not claim that ق is made further back than خ. Some studies of individual speakers report such a difference, but it rests on single speakers and is not encoded in these drawings.
Soft palate. Drawn raised with the port closed. That is the oral-stop schematic convention used throughout this resource.
My client says [g] instead of a dorsal stop. Is that an error?
Not on that basis. [g] is an established realisation of /q/ in Jordan, used by rural Jordanian and Bedouin speakers and common in Amman, alongside [ʔ] and the standard [q] (Al-Tamimi, 2001; Sider, 2024). Establish which variety you are assessing against first.
Does the uvula touch the tongue?
No source consulted for this resource reports that, and it is not drawn. "Uvular" here is a conventional phonetic label, not a description of contact.
Is ق made further back than خ?
This resource does not claim so. On the evidence available both are made in the same broad posterior region, and the figures differ by manner — open channel versus complete closure — not by place.
Is ق an emphatic consonant?
It shares some properties with the emphatics. It lowers F2 in neighbouring vowels, and X-ray studies of single speakers, known here through later summaries, describe a similar upper-pharyngeal constriction. Ultrasound suggests the tongue movement differs, though. No secondary constriction is drawn for it.
Are there therapy steps on this page?
No. No ق-specific intervention protocol is presented, because no intervention study for this sound was located or reviewed in this project's searches.
© 2026 Bilingual SLT. Original animation and text. You may use this page with your own clients, and when teaching colleagues within your own organisation. Do not republish it, upload it elsewhere, adapt it into another resource, or present it as your own.
