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Ask-A-Linguist - Message details
Subject: Implosives b, d, g, j in Swahili
Question:
I just took up some Swahili for fun, and I had never encountered these sounds before.

I more or less can figure out the phonological information around, or at least as long as just taking in air as opposed to expel it. This is what I can do, only that I seem to choke. The books say something like, ''in fact, no air is ingressed, what happens is the glottis pulls down creating sort of a depression...'' Should I ''ingress'' air, if that is the word, or not? Could then be Swahili be viewed as a language where chunks of speech are ''out'' when others are ''in''-ward? Any practical tip you can give us students to come round this issue?

I see on the other hand that some methods simply equal them to the more usual /b,d,g/, such as ''Le swahili sans peine'', with some caveats to not ''affricate'' too much ''j'', and others say ''some speakers''...; Can we just do that and nothing serious happens, phonologically speaking?

Much obliged.

Reply:
If you want to produce an implosive (and not just pronounce funny [b, d, g]) you do
have to use what is called an ingressive airstream. This means that you pronounce
these sounds with air that you’re breathing in. Clicks, another type of consonant, are
ingressive too – the sound you make when you ‘tut-tut’, for example. Most speech
sounds are egressive, i.e. produced when breathing out.
To produce an ingressive, try this: say [b] as if you were unable to part your lips. (Or
say [d], or [g] without releasing the closure elsewhere in your mouth.) You will notice
that your larynx starts moving down immediately. Because the quantity of air inside
your mouth is the same but the mouth cavity is now bigger, this downward
movement creates the difference in pressure that will let air flow in when you finally
part your lips to produce an implosive.
I hope this helps
Madalena

Reply From: Madalena Cruz-Ferreira    click here to access email
Date: Sep-12-2009
Other Replies:
  1. Re: Implosives b, d, g, j in Swahili Herbert Frederic Stahlke    (Sep-12-2009)
  2. Re: Implosives b, d, g, j in Swahili John M. Lawler    (Sep-12-2009)
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