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Re: phonemic ex-/inhalation

From:Isaac A. Penzev <isaacp@...>
Date:Wednesday, March 5, 2003, 11:51
Katav Wesley Parish:

> My copy of Teach Yourself Hausa says so. > > "The b and d (special letter forms used. hooked letters) , in addition,
are
> often produced implosively, i.e. with the air stream pulled into the mouth > rather than expelled from the mouth ..."
Yes, that's a well known fact that |b`| and |d`| in Hausa are implosive in most dialects in contrast to plain |b| and |d|. But they are *consonants*. And the question was about *vowels*, as you can see:
> > > Does anyone use phonemic ex- / in-halation for vowels in their
conlangs? ^^^^^^^ And I heard that the Igbo language has a phonemic opposition between plain and inhaled vowels, and even the name of the lang itself is literally ["i_<gb)U] where _< denotes inhalation and gb) means double articulation.
> It would make an interesting contrast.
Indeed, it would... Yitzik ~~~~~~~~~~~~~