Re: CHAT: Glottalized consonants

>===== Original Message From Constructed Languages List
<CONLANG@...> =====
>Hey, since we're on the subject -- and thanks to Ed Heil for posting that
>info on language universals -- I found a sort of "universal" of sorts in how
>many languages have a three-way stop distinction of voiceless, voiced and
>glottalized/ejective (or something similar, like plain, aspirated and
>ejective, all voiceless).  From my personal studies, I came up with a list
>of languages that have glottalized consonants:
>
>Indo-European: of modern languages, only Armenian (Eastern) and Ossetic
>(note that these languages are spoken in the Caucasus region); Sindhi
>somehow came up with voiced implosives (in addition to the voiceless,
>voiceless aspirate, voiced and voiced aspirate of most Indo-Aryan
>languages).  However, I have a hunch that Proto-Indo-European (or maybe
>Pre-Indo-European), could've had ejectives -- I've read an alternative
>rendering of t-t'-d instead of the traditional t-d-dh.  (This could explain
>Grimm's Law.)  I'm doing this with my conlang Callistic.  Of course this
>would raise some controversy...
Yes, this is called "glottaltheorie," I believe, and a huge book has been
written about it by Gamkredlice and Ivanov, revising everything about PIE by
adding those ejectives and re-visioning it in terms of active/stative
languages.

>Na-Dene: most certainly; Tlingit, Haida, Eyak and the Athabaskan languages
>including Najavo and Apache have ejectives as well as voiceless and voiced
>stops; these can be found in the form of dental stops, lateral affricates
><tl dl>, postalveolar affricates <ch j>, and velar stops -- at least.
Navajo voiced and voiceless stops are actually unaspirated and aspirated
voiceless stops, respectively.  The unaspirated ones are written with b, d,
and g, both for convenience and because that's what they sound like to
anglophone ears.

Ed

--
Ed Heil * edheil@mailandnews.com
      "When you get your Ph. D.
      How happy you will be
      When you get a job at Wendy's
      And are honored with 'Employee of the Month.'"
       -- Bare Naked Ladies, "Never Is Enough"