Re: 3 Phonetics-Related Q's

On Sunday, August 15, 2004, at 06:54 , Isaac A. Penzev wrote:

> I. K. Peylough scripsit:
>
>
>>> AFAIK, nobody knows where clicks came from in languages that have them.
>>> No language with clicks is known to descend from a language without.
>>
>> What about Xhosa? Isn't that a Bantu language?
>
> AFAIK, Xhosa, Zulu and other Southern Bantu languages borrowed clicks from
> their Koisan (Bushmen) neighbors.
Yep - Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi and Ndebele belong to the Nguni branch of the
Bantu languages. One of the distinguishing features of the Nguni group is
that they have click consonants. But AFAIK though the languages certainly
descend from earlier forms without clicks, the click consonants
(consonants produced by velaric ingressive airstream) have not developed
from consonants produced by pulmonary ingessive or egressive airstreams
(or from consonants produced by glottalic airstreams). They have arisen
from long association of the Nguni languages with the Koisan languages.

How and why clicks developed in the Khoisan languages we simply do not
know. Indeed, the development of human language over many millennia is
simply unknown. It may well be that if we could go back far enough into
the past, a far greater use was made of velaric & glottalic airstreams in
speech, besides the pulmonic egressive sounds that we are so familiar with
today.

It may well we should ask why only Khoisan _retained_ clicks? I.e. it may
well be that the question is not what did clicks develop from but rather
what did clicks change into. Who knows?

Ray
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