Laminal consonantA laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as far back as the prepalatal arch, although in the last contact may involve parts behind the blade as well. It is distinct from an apical consonant, produced by creating an obstruction with the tongue apex (tongue tip) only.
Breathy voiceBreathy voice 'brɛθi (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like sound. A simple breathy phonation, [ɦ] (not actually a fricative consonant, as a literal reading of the IPA chart would suggest), can sometimes be heard as an allophone of English /h/ between vowels, such as in the word behind, for some speakers.
Zulu languageZulu ('zuːluː ), or isiZulu as an endonym, is a Southern Bantu language of the Nguni branch spoken in Southern Africa. It is the language of the Zulu people, with about 12 million native speakers, who primarily inhabit the province of KwaZulu-Natal of South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa (24% of the population), and it is understood by over 50% of its population. It became one of South Africa's 11 official languages in 1994.
Labiodental consonantIn phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth. The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are: The IPA chart shades out labiodental lateral consonants. This is sometimes read as indicating that such sounds are not possible. In fact, the fricatives [f] and [v] often have lateral airflow, but no language makes a distinction for centrality, and the allophony is not noticeable.
Apical consonantAn apical consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the tip of the tongue (apex) in conjunction with upper articulators from lips to postalveolar, and possibly prepalatal. It contrasts with laminal consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the blade of the tongue, just behind the tip. Sometimes apical is used exclusively for an articulation that involves only the tip of the tongue and apicolaminal for an articulation that involves both the tip and the blade of the tongue.
ContinuantIn phonetics, a continuant is a speech sound produced without a complete closure in the oral cavity, namely fricatives, approximants, vowels, and trills. While vowels are included in continuants, the term is often reserved for consonant sounds. Approximants were traditionally called "frictionless continuants." Continuants contrast with occlusives, such as plosives, affricates and nasals. Compare sonorants (resonants), a class of speech sounds which includes vowels, approximants and nasals (but not fricatives), and contrasts with obstruents.
Homorganic consonantIn phonetics, a homorganic consonant (from homo- "same" and organ "(speech) organ") is a consonant sound that is articulated in the same place of articulation as another. For example, p, b and m are homorganic consonants of one another since they share the bilabial place of articulation. Consonants that are not articulated in the same place are called heterorganic. Descriptive phonetic classification relies on the relationships between a number of technical terms that describe the way sounds are made; and one of the relevant elements involves that place at which a specific sound is formed and voiced.
Sound changeA sound change, in historical linguistics, is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic change) or a more general change to the speech sounds that exist (phonological change), such as the merger of two sounds or the creation of a new sound. A sound change can eliminate the affected sound, or a new sound can be added.
Implosive consonantImplosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward in addition to expelling air from the lungs. Therefore, unlike the purely glottalic ejective consonants, implosives can be modified by phonation. Contrastive implosives are found in approximately 13% of the world's languages.
Dahalo languageDahalo is an endangered Cushitic language spoken by around 500-600 Dahalo people on the coast of Kenya, near the mouth of the Tana River. Dahalo is unusual among the world's languages in using all four airstream mechanisms found in human language - clicks, implosives, ejectives, and regular consonants. While the language is known primarily as “Dahalo” to linguists, the term itself is an exonym supposedly used by Aweer-speakers that itself essentially means “stupid” or “worthless”.
