Mongolian Qa: The Velar of the Back Vowel Words

Qa is the transliteration used here for the velar stop as it is pronounced in words of the back vowel class, and it is the twelfth letter of the alphabet. The transliteration uses q rather than k in order to keep it apart from the corresponding front class form, and the distinction it marks is one of the clearest demonstrations of how far vowel harmony reaches into Mongolian. The velar consonant a word takes is governed by the vowels around it, so a back class word takes this letter and a front class word takes the other, and a speaker does not choose between them any more than the vowels are chosen.

Unicode encodes qa at U+182C. In writing, its shape is close to that of the voiced velar which follows it in the alphabet, and the two are separated by dots which ordinary writing does not always supply. That gives the letter two layers of context dependence at once: which velar is meant depends on marks that may be absent, and which pronunciation is meant depends on the class of the word. Neither is a difficulty for a reader who knows the word, and both are obstacles for a reader who does not, which is the characteristic profile of this script. The letter is common in native vocabulary and is one of the shapes a learner meets in the first lesson, usually taught together with the voiced velar rather than separately, because learning the pair as a pair is the only way the dots make sense.