Saltillo (linguistics)

In Mexican linguistics, saltillo (Spanish, meaning "little skip") refers to a glottal stop consonant, [ʔ]. It was given that name by the early grammarians of Classical Nahuatl. In a number of other Nahuan languages, the sound cognate to Classical Nahuatl's glottal stop is [h], and the term saltillo is applied to either pronunciation. The saltillo is often spelled with an apostrophe, though it is sometimes spelled (with either pronunciation) ⟨h⟩, or, when pronounced [h], ⟨j⟩. The spelling of the glottal stop with an apostrophe-like character most likely originates from transliterations of the Arabic hamza. It has also been spelled with a grave accent over the preceding vowel in some Nahuatl works, following Horacio Carochi (1645).

The saltillo represents a phoneme in many other indigenous languages of the Americas and so its presence or absence can change the meaning of a word. However, there is no saltillo in Standard Spanish, so the sound is often imperceptible to Spanish-speakers, and Spanish writers usually did not write it when transcribing Mexican languages: Nahuatl [ˈtɬeko] "in a fire" and [ˈtɬeʔko] "he ascends" were both written tleco.

The saltillo symbol is also being used in at least one Southeast Asian language, Central Sinama of the Philippines and Malaysia. It represents both the glottal stop and the centralized vowel [ə].

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