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dragonsys.com>In LINGUIST 7-785 I asked: Is any language, past or present, known to have a uvular affricate? I already know that Klingon does, but I'm asking about past and present, not future }}};-)\ ! Twenty-one readers responded; to all of them I extend my thanks. Their names and email addresses appear at the end of this posting. Klingon (tlhIngan Hol), the language created by Marc Okrand for the warlike humanoid Klingon species of the Star Trek television series (plural) and movies, was the inspiration of my question. While its phonology is so bizarrely asymmetrical that it would raise serious doubts if reported for an actual human language (which is part of its alienness), I recognized all of its phonemes and allophones as attested in human languages, except for the voiceless uvular affricate <Q>. LANGUAGES These are the languages and language groups cited in response to my question, with the names of the contributors who cited them. Many mentioned the Caucasian languages as a group, and many cited specific Caucasian languages; I have excluded the group from this listing. !Xoo [= !Kung ?] : Roser /Gwi: (Traill; see Roser) Adyghe: Roser Arabic: Lonnet Aramaic, Old: Hoberman Archi: Kingston Roser Avar: Kingston Roser Chechen: Derzhanski Chukchi: Roser Georgian: Eccles Widmann German: Becker German, Swiss: Miller Gasser Lee Hopi: Smith Ingush: Derzhanski Inuktitut: Miller Kabardian: Fallon Howard Kingston Smith Ket: Roser Khoi-San languages: Miller Kutenai: Smith Lahu: Roser Nakh languages: Derzhanski Nez Perce: Fallon Howard Kingston Ngoni languages: Mc Callister Papuan New Guinea languages: Roser Schwyzertu"u"tsch [see German, Swiss] Sotho-Tswana: Miller Tungusic languages: Smith Wolof: Fallon Howard Kingston Roser Xhosa: Miller RESPONSES Here is what the respondents said. I have edited these quotations to minimize duplication without eliminating any substantive comment. :::::: BECKER :::::: the Alemannic dialect of German (Old High German to present time) has a velar affricate which sounds rather uvular to me. :::::: DERZHANSKI :::::: Look at the Nakh (North Cantral Caucasian) languages (Chechen and Ingush). If memory serves and my source (_Jazyki narodov SSSR_ Vol. 4) was correct, they have unvoiced uvular affricates, one aspirated and one glottalised. :::::: ECCLES :::::: The Georgian phoneme usually transcribed q' may come close. It's usually described as an ejective, but I believe the actual pronunciation varies. :::::: FALLON :::::: Maddieson (1984:225) lists three languages with uvular affricates: Wolof, Nez Perce, and Kabardian. Kabardian also has a labialized uvular affricate. Note also that many languages of the Caucasus with uvular stops are phonetically affricated as well. :::::: HOBERMAN :::::: A uvular affricate could be a good solution to a problem in the historical development of Old Aramaic, but I wouldn't even think of that solution if there were no uvular affricates in living languages. :::::: HOWARD :::::: In "Patterns of Sounds" (Ian Maddieson, 1984, Cambridge Univ. Press), several languages are listed: Voiceless uvular affricate: Wolof, Nez Perce, Kabardian Labialized voiceless uvular affricate: Kabardian :::::: KINGSTON :::::: A search of the expanded version of UPSID (451 languages) yielded 5 languages with uvular affricates: Caucasian: Kabardian: qX, qXw; Archi: qXw, qXw9 (9 = pharyngealized), qxw', qXw9', qX9, qX', qX9', qX':, qX': and Avar: qX:, qX': Also Wolof with qX but no q and Nez Perce with qX but no q; Nez Perce has q' however. :::::: LEE :::::: I believe the southern Swiss German dialects have uvular affricates. :::::: LONNET :::::: Arabic is not known to have such a sound, but actually some dialects do have it. For instance in Southern Arabia. It is the "qaaf" phoneme that sounds as an affricate instead of the (usual) uvular plosive. (The original proto-sound being an ejective velar plosive "k'aaf"). In the same region, one may hear another unusual sound : an ejective uvular fricative, instead of the usual uvular/velar voiced fricative sound for the "ghayn" phoneme. The contrast of these two phonemes is a general problem in Arabic dialectology, and it knows many local solutions. The special point in Southern Arabia is that there is also some laryngeal ejection with the affricate, as it is widely the case in the Arabic dialects with the regular plosive "qaaf". :::::: MC CALLISTER :::::: I'm not a linguist, so excuse my ignorance. There is a sound in Ngoni languages typically represented by DL that sounds like the closest candidate I can think of, although it's probably really a fricative. I had a friend in grad school named Lupenga Mphande, a linguist and African studies person now at Ohio State, who's from Malawi and described this sound as both uvular and palatal or alveolar. He said that Zulus use it in the name Dlamini--their equivalent of "Smith or Jones." :::::: MILLER :::::: You can find uvular affricates in Xhosa (spelled <kr>), in Sotho- Tswana (unless it is a velar affricate -- spelled <kg>)*, possibly in Schwyzertu"u"tsch** (same qualification as for Sotho-Tswana - spelled <kch>) and in some Khoi-San languages (again, similar qualifications), and, I believe, in Inuktitut as a phonetic variant of /q/. * As for the Sotho-Tswana question, I meant that I'm not sure whether <kg> is uvular or velar. ** [u"u" = geminate u-umlaut, if I read correctly the hash that email made of it. -- MAM] :::::: ROSER :::::: Uvular affricates are not terribly common, but do occur in a few languages, notably languages of the Caucasus, in particular Avar and Archi (North East Cauc.), Karbardian and some dialects of Adyghe (North West Cauc.), and possibly others as well. I believe they also occur as allophones of plain uvular stops in a number of languages including Chukchi, Lahu and (I think) Ket. Ejective uvular affricates also occur in the Caucasian languages and Tony Traill informed me that the San language /Gwi has a uvular affricate with an 'epenthetic' uvular stop after the fricative, so: [qX'q] and !Xoo has what is described as a velar affricate /kx'/ that apparently has some uvular scrape but may or may not be truly uvular, but, in the Eastern dialects, also has this 'epenthetic' uvular stop, realized as [kx'q] or simply [k'q] without affrication. I believe that plain uvular (or postvelar- descriptions vary) affricates also occur allophonically in some Papuan New Guinea languages, but cannot put my hands on specific examples. One last example is Wolof in Senegal which has a uvular fricative that has an affricate allophone (word initial I believe). Hope this is of help. :::::: SIEBENHAAR :::::: Some Swiss german dialects do have uvular frikatives. The Language Atlas (Schweizerdeutscher Sprachatlas) does not refer to the uvular affricate but only to the velar one. But as I hear it (and I'm not the only one) these velar affricates are in some Idiolects realized as uvular. So the uvular affricate would be an allophone of the velar affricate as is in other dialect the palatal one. :::::: SMITH :::::: Kabardian /q/ is africated prevocalically. Hopi /q/ is slightly affricated intervocalically. Kutenai /q/ is [q] ~ [qx] (slightly afficated). I know of no language with a distinctive /qX/. I suspect that it will be fairly common as an allophone. Especially in intervocalic environments, where the occurrence of a voiced fricative allophone of /q/, i.e. [R] (upside-down), also occurs - in Tungusic languages, e.g. :::::: WIDMANN :::::: The Georgian phoneme /q'/ is uvular and ejective, and the pronounciation varies between [q'], [qX'], and [X']. This is at least what the textbooks say, but I have found that my single informant hardly ever uses the first alternative. RESPONDENTS Thomas Becker <Thomas.BeckerMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue