Ejective consonant
Ejective consonants are a class of
consonants which may contrast with
aspirated or
tenuis consonants in a
language.
In the
International Phonetic Alphabet, ejectives are indicated by writing a
plosive consonant with an apostrophe.
(Note that a reversed apostrophe represents aspiration, as in
Armenian ; this usage is obsolete in the IPA.)
Ejectives are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the
glottis. The glottis is raised while the forward articulation (a [k] in the case of ) is held, raising air pressure in the mouth, so when the [k] is released, there is a noticeable burst of air. The
Adam's apple may be seen moving when the sound is pronounced. In the languages where they are more obvious, ejectives are often described as sounding like "spat" consonants; but ejectives are often quite weak and, in some contexts, and in some languages, are easy to mistake for unaspirated plosives.
In strict, technical terms, ejectives are glottalic egressive consonants. The most common ejective is , as it is easy to raise the necessary pressure within the small oral cavity used to pronounce a [k]. , on the other hand, is quite rare. This is the opposite pattern to what is found in the
implosive consonants, in which the bilabial is common and the velar is rare. Ejective fricatives are rare for presumably the same reason: with the air escaping from the mouth while the pressure is being raised, like inflating a leaky bicycle tire, it's harder to make the resulting sound as salient as a .
Ejectives that contrast with pulmonic consonants occur in about 15% of languages around the world. They are extremely common in northwest North America, and frequently occur throughout the western parts of both North and South America. They are also common in eastern and southern Africa. In Eurasia, the
Caucasus form an island of ejective languages. Elsewhere they are rare.
Language families which distinguish ejective consonants include all three Caucasian families (
Circassian,
Dagestanian and
Kartvelian (
Georgian)); the
Athabaskan and
Salishan families of North America, along with the many diverse families of the Pacific Northwest from central
California to
British Columbia; the
Mayan family and
Aymara; the
Afro-Asiatic family (notably
Hausa and
South Semitic languages like
Amharic) and
Nilo-Saharan languages; and the
Khoisan family of southern Africa. Among the scattered languages with ejectives elsewhere are
Itelmen of the
Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages and
Yapese of the
Austronesian family.
The vast majority of ejective consonants noted in the world's languages consists of
plosives or
affricates, and all ejective consonants are
obstruents. Among affricates, are all quite common, and is not unusual (at least among the
Khoisan languages). A few languages utilise ejective fricatives: in some dialects of
Hausa, the standard affricate is a fricative ;
Ubykh (Northwest Caucasian) has an ejective lateral fricative; the Upper Necaxa dialect of the
Totonac language has an ejective labiodental fricative; and
Kabardian uses both of these in addition to ejective alveolopalatal and postalveolar fricatives.
Tlingit is another extreme case, with ejective alveolar, lateral, velar, and uvular fricatives; it may be the only language with the latter.
Strangely, although an ejective retroflex stop is easy to make and quite distinctive in its sound, it is quite rare. Retroflex ejective plosives and affricates, , are reported from
Yawelmani and other
Yokuts languages, however.
Ejective
sonorants do not occur. When sonorants are written as if they were ejective, they actually involve a different airstream mechanism: they are
glottalized consonants and vowels, where glottalization interrupts an otherwise normal pulmonic airstream, somewhat like English
uh-uh (either vocalic or nasal) pronounced as a single sound.
Sample list of ejective consonants:
*
*
*
*
Glottalic consonant*
List of phonetics topics*
Tlingit language*
Bilabial ejective*
Alveolar ejective*
Velar ejective*
Uvular ejective*
Alveolar ejective fricative*
Alveolar lateral ejective affricate*
Postalveolar ejective affricate
