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Ejective consonant
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==Occurrence== Ejectives occur in about 20% of the world's languages.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Ejectives that phonemically contrast with pulmonic consonants occur in about 15% of languages around the world. The occurrence of ejectives often correlates to languages in mountainous regions such as the [[Caucasus]] which forms an island of ejective languages. They are also found frequently in the [[East African Rift]] and the South African Plateau (see [[Geography of Africa]]). In the Americas, they are extremely common in the [[North American Cordillera]]. They also frequently occur throughout the [[Andes]] and [[Maya Mountains]]. Elsewhere, they are rare. Language families that distinguish ejective consonants include: * [[Afroasiatic languages]], especially in the [[Cushitic]] and [[Omotic]] branches, and in some languages of the [[Semitic languages|Semitic]] ([[Ethiopian Semitic languages|Ethio-Semitic]] and [[Modern South Arabian languages|Modern South Arabian]]) and [[Chadic]] branches (e.g. [[Hausa language|Hausa]]) * All three families of the Caucasus: the [[Northwest Caucasian languages]] ([[Circassian languages|Circassian]], [[Abkhaz language|Abkhaz]] and [[Ubykh language|Ubykh]]); the [[Northeast Caucasian languages]] such as [[Chechen language|Chechen]] and [[Avar language|Avar]]; and the [[Kartvelian languages]] such as [[Georgian language|Georgian]] * the [[Athabaskan languages|Athabaskan]], [[Siouan languages|Siouan]] and [[Salishan languages|Salishan]] families of North America along with the many diverse families of the Pacific Northwest from central [[California]] to [[British Columbia]] *[[Mayan languages|Mayan family]], as well as neighboring [[Lencan languages]] and [[Xincan languages]] *[[Aymaran languages|Aymaran family]] * the southern varieties of [[Quechua languages|Quechua]] ([[Qusqu-Qullaw]]) * [[Puelche language|Puelche]] and [[Tehuelche language|Tehuelche]] of the [[Chonan languages]] *[[Alacalufan languages|Alacalufan family]] * [[Gumuz language|Gumuz]], [[Me始en language|Me始en]], [[T始wampa language|T始wampa]] and possibly other [[Nilo-Saharan languages]] * [[Sandawe language|Sandawe]], [[Hadza language|Hadza]], and the [[Khoisan languages|Khoisan]] families of southern Africa * [[Itelmen language|Itelmen]] of the [[Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages]] * [[Yapese language|Yapese]] and [[Waima'a language|Waima'a]] of the [[Austronesian languages|Austronesian family]] * [[Kunigami language|Kunigami]] and several [[Northern Ryukyuan languages|Northern Ryukyuan]] and [[Yaeyama language|Yaeyama]] varieties of the [[Japonic languages|Japonic-Ryukyuan family]] According to the [[glottalic theory]], the [[Proto-Indo-European language]] had a series of ejectives (or, in some versions, [[Implosive consonant|implosives]]), but no extant Indo-European language has retained them.{{efn|The [[Western Indic languages|western]] and [[Northwestern Indic languages]] like [[Sindhi language|Sindhi]] have [[implosive consonant|implosives]].}} Ejectives are found today in [[Ossetian language|Ossetian]] and some [[Armenian language|Armenian]] dialects only because of influence of the nearby [[Northeast Caucasian languages|Northeast Caucasian]] and/or [[Kartvelian languages|Kartvelian language]] families. It had once been predicted that ejectives and implosives would not be found in the same language{{citation needed|date=August 2012}} but both have been found phonemically at several points of articulation in [[Nilo-Saharan languages]] ([[Gumuz language|Gumuz]], [[Me'en language|Me'en]], and [[T'wampa language|T'wampa]]), [[Mayan language]] ([[Yucatec language|Yucatec]]), [[Salishan]] ([[Lushootseed language|Lushootseed]]), and the [[Oto-Manguean]] [[Mazahua language|Mazahua]]. [[Nguni languages]], such as [[Zulu language|Zulu]] have an implosive ''b'' alongside a series of allophonically ejective stops. [[Dahalo language|Dahalo]] of [[Kenya]], has ejectives, implosives, and [[click consonants]]. Non-contrastively, ejectives are found in many varieties of [[British English]], usually replacing word-final fortis plosives in utterance-final or emphatic contexts.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wells |first1=J.C. |last2=Colson |first2=G. |title=Practical Phonetics |date=1971 |publisher=Pitman |isbn=9780273016816 |page=3}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Wells |first1=John Christopher |title=Accents of English (vol. 1) |date=1982 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0521297192 |page=261}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Cruttenden |first1=Alan |title=Gimson's Pronunciation of English |date=2008 |publisher=Hodder Education |isbn=978-0340958773 |page=167 |edition=7th}}</ref>
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