Re: Relative frequency of ejectives

Alex Fink wrote at 2006-05-26 01:46:30 (-0400)
 > David says on the Kalusa comment forum that
 > | [k'] is rare, as far as ejectives go. Certainly more common than
 > | [q'], but not as common as [p'], [t'], [ts'] or [tS'], as far as
 > | I know.
 >
 > This runs counter to what I thought I knew about the frequencies.
 > To my knowledge, [p'] was the really marked one (witness the
 > glottalic theory of PIE), [q'] was not all that rare (standard
 > Georgian, for instance, has [q'] as its only uvular stop), and [k']
 > was quite common.
 >
 > Can anyone corroborate either of these sets of assertions?
 >

What you say agrees with my recollection, which is that ejectives are
more common towards the back of the mouth, while implosives are the
reverse, with [b_<] being the most common.  Cf. Mayan languages, where
the gottalised stops were ejective apart from [b_<] (although [p_>]
developed later).