Look up implosive in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Implosive consonants are plosives (rarely affricates) with a glottalic ingressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward, rather than by expelling air from the lungs as in normal pulmonic consonants. Contrastive implosives are found in approximately 10%-15% of the world's languages. In linguistics, manner of articulation describes how the tongue, lips, and other speech organs involved in making a sound make contact. ... In phonetics, an obstruent is a consonant sound formed by obstructing the airway. ... Clicks are stops produced with two articulatory closures in the oral cavity. ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... Ejective consonants are a class of consonants which may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants in a language. ... Affricate consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or ) but release as a fricative (such as or or, in a couple of languages, into a fricative trill) rather than directly into the following vowel. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... A sibilant is a type of fricative or affricate, made by directing a jet of air through a narrow channel towards the sharp edge of the teeth. ... In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator (such as the tongue) is thrown against another. ... In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. ... Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ... Liquid consonants, or liquids, are approximant consonants that are not classified as semivowels (glides) because they do not correspond phonetically to specific vowels (in the way that, for example, the initial in English yes corresponds to ). The class of liquids can be divided into lateral liquids and rhotics. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Semivowels (also glides, more rarely: semiconsonants) are non-syllabic vowels that form diphthongs with syllabic vowels. ... Laterals are L-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue. ... Phonetic (pho-NET-ic) is a nationwide voicemail-to-text messaging service available for most digital mobile phones in which a subscriber is provided a custom voice mailbox for the purpose of receiving all incoming voice messages as actual transcribed text for reading via short messaging (also known as SMS... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wiktionary (from wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 150 languages. ... A stop or plosive or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... An affricate is a consonant that begins like a stop (most often an alveovelar, such as [t] or [d]) and that doesnt have a release of its own, but opens directly into a fricative (or, in one language, into a trill). ... A glottalic consonant is a consonant produced with some important contribution (a movement, a closure) of the glottis (the opening that leads from the nose and mouth cavities into the larynx and the lungs). ... In phonetics, initiation is the action by which an air-flow is created through the vocal tract. ... The space between the vocal cords is called the glottis. ... This page is a candidate to be moved to Wiktionary. ...

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, implosives are indicated by writing a plosive consonant with a hook top. Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... A stop or plosive or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ...

During the occlusion of the stop, pulling the glottis downward rarefies the air in the vocal tract. The stop is then released. In languages where implosives are particularly salient, this may result in air rushing into the mouth, before flowing out again with the next vowel. (Thus the name "implosive".) However, in others there is no movement of air at all, contrasting with the burst of the pulmonary plosives. This is the case with many of the Kru languages, for example. The Kru languages belong to the Niger-Congo language family and are spoken in the area ranging from the south-east of Liberia to the east of Côte dIvoire. ...

The vast majority of implosive consonants are voiced, meaning that the glottis is only partially closed. Because the airflow required for voicing reduces the vacuum being created in the mouth, implosives are easiest to make with a large oral cavity. Thus bilabial [ɓ] is the easiest implosive to pronounce, and also most common around the world. Velar [ɠ], on the other hand, is quite rare (and uvular [ʛ] even rarer). This is the opposite pattern to the ejective consonants, where it is the velar articulation that is most common, and the bilabial that is rare. A voiced consonant is a sound made as the vocal cords vibrate, as opposed to a voiceless consonant, where the vocal cords are relaxed. ... Ejective consonants are a class of consonants which may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants in a language. ...

Fully voiced plosives are often slightly implosive, although this is not always described explicitly, as there is no contrast with modal-voiced plosives in such languages. This is found around the world, from Maidu to Thai to many Bantu languages, including Swahili and Zulu. Maidu (also Northeastern Maidu, Mountain Maidu) is a severely endangered Maiduan language spoken by Maidu peoples traditionally in the mountains east and south of Lassen Peak in the American and Feather river drainages. ... Map showing the approximate distribution of Bantu vs. ... Swahili (also called Kiswahili; see below for derivation) is a Bantu language. ... Zulu (isiZulu in Zulu), is a language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority (over 95%) of whom live in South Africa. ...

Sindhi has an unusually large number of implosives, with [ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ]. Although Sindhi has a dental-retroflex distinction in its plosives, this is neutralized in the alveolar implosive. Indeed, retroflex implosives are exceedingly rare (one has been claimed for Ngad'a, spoken in Flores, Indonesia: Djawanai 1997). SindhÄ« (سنڌي, सिन्धी) is the language of the Sindh region of South Asia, which is now a province of Pakistan. ...

Implosive affricates and fricatives are extremely unusual. Imploded affricates occur in Kung-Ekoka and Hendo (a Bantu language). Several Central Sudanic languages, such as Mangbetu, have implosive labiodental fricatives, which are "strongly imploded, the lower lip briefly pulled back into the mouth". Kung-ekoka or !Xũ or !Kung as it is often spelled in English, is a Northern Khoisan language of Namibia, Angola, and Botswana. ... Central Sudanic is a grouping of about thirty languages of the Nilo-Saharan language family. ...

Voiceless implosives are found in languages as varied as the Owere dialect of Igbo in Nigeria, Krongo in Sudan, and some dialects of the Quiche language in Guatemala, but they are quite rare. The IPA has removed its earlier dedicated symbols for them, so now the bilabial voiceless implosive is transcribed as [ɓ̥]. Igbo is a language spoken in Nigeria by around 18 million people (1999 WA), the Igbo, especially in the southeastern region once identified as Biafra. ... This page is about the Native American people; for the dish, see quiche. ...

(Owere Igbo has a seven-way contrast among bilabial stops: [p pʰ ɓ̥ b b̤ ɓ m].)

Implosives are commonplace among the Sub-Saharan African languages, are widespread in Southeast Asia, and are found in a few languages of the Amazon Basin. They are rare elsewhere, but do occur in scattered languages such as Maidu and the Mayan languages in North America, and Sindhi in the Indian subcontinent. They appear to be entirely absent from Europe and Australia, even from the exotic Damin, which uses every other possible airstream mechanism. Map showing the distribution of African language families and some major African languages. ... // “Amazonian” redirects here. ... Maidu (also Northeastern Maidu, Mountain Maidu) is a severely endangered Maiduan language spoken by Maidu peoples traditionally in the mountains east and south of Lassen Peak in the American and Feather river drainages. ... Page 9 of the Dresden Codex showing the classic Maya language written in Mayan hieroglyphs(from the 1880 Förstermann edition) Mayan languages (alternatively: Maya languages[1]) constitute a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. ... Sindhī (سنڌي, सिन्धी) is the language of the Sindh region of South Asia, which is now a province of Pakistan. ... Map of South Asia (see note) This article deals with the geophysical region in Asia. ... European languages are the object of Eurolinguistics. ... A secret language spoken in the Gulf of Carpentaria used in mens initiation rites. ...

The attested implosive stops are:

• voiced bilabial implosive [ɓ]
• voiced dental implosive [ɗ̪]
• voiced alveolar implosive [ɗ]
• voiced palatal implosive [ʄ]
• voiced velar implosive [ɠ]
• voiced uvular implosive [ʛ]

Reported but not confirmed is: The voiced bilabial implosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiced dental implosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiced alveolar implosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiced palatal implosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiced velar implosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiced uvular implosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ...

• voiced retroflex implosive

Retroflex implosives have not been confirmed to exist in any language, though one has been claimed for Ngada, an Austronesian language spoken in Flores. ...

Bibliography

• Demolin, Didier; Ngonga-Ke-Mbembe, Hubert; & Soquet, Alain. (2002). Phonetic characteristics of an unexploded palatal implosive in Hendo. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 32, 1-15.
• Djawanai, Stephanus. (1977). A description of the basic phonology of Nga'da and the treatment of borrowings. NUSA linguistic studies in Indonesian and languages in Indonesia, 5, 10-18.
• Maddieson, Ian. (1984). Patterns of sounds. Cambridge studies in speech science and communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.