The Arabic letter Hamza. I hear it often at work but I don’t understand what a glottal stop is
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It’s the thing in-between the syllables of “uh-oh.” Rather than the u sound flowing into the o sound, there’s a hard break (hence “stop”), and then the o commences. If you focus on your mouth while you say the word, you’ll notice your tongue moving back and some weird air flows around throat, which are difficult to describe but you’ll definitely know them.
Technically there’s a second glottal stop at the beginning of “uh-oh” as well, although it’s harder to hear. Other languages, like Arabic and Hawaiian, treat this sound as a full-blown letter, but in English it’s just kind of a vocal artifact that happens sometimes.
Some English accents also replace the letter T with glottal stops. I think Cockney does it. Imagine an extremely exaggerated London street thug saying the word “important”: it will sound like “impor’ant,” as the T gets replaced with a glottal stop.
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