Editing Implosive consonant (section)

==Occurrence==
In the world's languages, the occurrence of implosives shows a strong cline from [[Front and back|front to back]] points of articulation. Bilabial {{IPA|[ɓ]}} is the most common implosive. It is very rarely lacking in the inventory of languages which have implosive stops. On the other hand, implosives with a back articulation (such as velar {{IPA|[ɠ]}}) occur much less frequently; apart from a few exceptions, the presence of the velar implosive {{IPA|[ɠ]}} goes along with the presence of implosives further forward.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Greenberg |first=Joseph H. |year=1970 |title=Some Generalizations concerning Glottalic Consonants, Especially Implosives |journal=International Journal of American Linguistics |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=123–145 |doi=10.1086/465105 |jstor=1264671|s2cid=143225017 }}</ref> One of the few languages with a farther back implosive (specifically the alveolar one {{IPA|[ɗ]}}), and without the bilabial implosive, is [[Yali language|Yali]], a [[Dani languages|Dani language]] spoken on the Indonesian side of [[New Guinea]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fahner |first=Christiaan |title=The Morphology of Yali and Dani: A Descriptive and Comparative Analysis |year=1979}}</ref>

Implosives are widespread among the languages of [[Sub-Saharan Africa]] and [[Southeast Asia]] and are found in a few languages of the [[Amazon Basin]]. They are rarely reported elsewhere but occur in scattered languages such as the [[Mayan languages]] in [[North America]], and [[Saraiki language|Saraiki]] and [[Sindhi language|Sindhi]] in the [[Indian subcontinent]]. They appear to be entirely absent as phonemes from [[Europe]] and northern [[Asia]] and from [[Australia]], even from the Australian ceremonial language [[Damin]], which uses every other possible airstream mechanism besides [[Percussive consonant|percussives]]. However, Alpher (1977) reports that the [[Nhangu language]] of Australia may actually contain implosives, though more research is needed to determine the true nature of these sounds. Implosives may occasionally occur phonetically in some European languages: For instance, in some northern dialects of [[Ingrian language|Ingrian]], intervocalic bilabial stops may be realised as the implosive {{IPA|[ɓ]}} or {{IPA|[ɓ̥]}}.<ref>{{cite book|title=Фонологические системы Ижорских диалектов|trans-title=The phonological systems of the Ingrian dialects|author=N. V. Kuznetsova|year=2009|publisher=[[Institute for Linguistic Studies]] (dissertation)|page=181}}</ref>

Fully voiced stops are slightly implosive in a number of other languages, but this is not often described explicitly if there is no contrast with modal-voiced plosives. This situation occurs from [[Maidu language|Maidu]] to [[Thai language|Thai]] to many [[Bantu languages]], including [[Swahili language|Swahili]].

[[Sindhi language|Sindhi]] and [[Saraiki language|Saraiki]] have an unusually large number of contrastive implosives, with {{IPA|/ɓ ᶑ&thinsp; ʄ ɠ/}}.<ref name="SOWL"/><ref>Swahili has a similar {{IPA|/ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ/}}, without contrasting with voiced pulmonic stops, unlike in Sindhi.</ref> Although Sindhi has a dental–retroflex distinction in its plosives, with {{IPA|/b d ɖ&thinsp; ɟ ɡ/}}, the contrast is neutralized in the implosives. A contrastive retroflex implosive {{IPA|/ᶑ/}} may also occur in [[Ngadha language|Ngad'a]], a language spoken in [[Flores]], [[Indonesia]],<ref>Djawanai, Stephanus. (1977). A description of the basic phonology of Nga'da and the treatment of borrowings. ''NUSA linguistic studies in Indonesian and languages in Indonesia'', ''5'', 10-18</ref> and occurs in [[Wadiyara Koli language|Wadiyara Koli]], a language spoken in [[India]] and [[Pakistan]] where it contrasts with the voiced alveolar implosive {{IPA|/ɗ/}}.<ref name="Zubair">{{cite thesis |last=ZUBAIR |first=SAEED |title=A Phonological Description of Wadiyara, a Language Spoken in Pakistan |type=MA |publisher=[[Payap University]] |url=https://www.ialtrust.org/resources/A-Phonological-Description-of-Wadiyari.pdf |access-date=9 October 2020 |date=April 2016 |page=2}}</ref>

More examples can be found in the articles on individual implosives.

Voiceless implosives are quite rare, but are found in languages as varied as the Owere dialect of [[Igbo language|Igbo]] in [[Nigeria]] ({{IPAslink|ƥ}} {{IPAslink|ƭ}}), [[Krongo language|Krongo]] in [[Sudan]], the Uzere dialect of [[Isoko language|Isoko]], the closely related [[Lendu language|Lendu]] and [[Ngiti language|Ngiti]] languages in the [[Democratic Republic of Congo]], [[Serer language|Serer]] in [[Senegal]] ({{IPA|/ƥ ƭ {{IPAplink|ƈ}}/}}), and some dialects of the [[Poqomchi' language|Poqomchi’]] and [[Quiche language]]s in [[Guatemala]] ({{IPA|/ƥ ƭ/}}). Owere Igbo has a seven-way contrast among bilabial stops, {{IPA|/pʰ p ƥ bʱ b ɓ m/}}, and its alveolar stops are similar. The [[voiceless velar implosive]] {{IPAblink|ƙ}} occurs marginally in [[Uspantek language|Uspantek]]<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Bennett |first1=Ryan |last2=Harvey |first2=Meg |last3=Henderson |first3=Robert |last4=Méndez López |first4=Tomás Alberto |date=September 2022 |title=The phonetics and phonology of Uspanteko (Mayan) |journal=Language and Linguistics Compass |language=en |volume=16 |issue=9 |doi=10.1111/lnc3.12467 |s2cid=252453913 |issn=1749-818X|doi-access=free }}</ref> and {{IPA|/ʠ/}} occurs in [[Mam language|Mam]], [[Kaqchikel language|Kaqchikel]], and [[Uspantek language|Uspantek]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=England |first=Nora C. |title=A grammar of Mam, a Mayan language |date=1983 |publisher=University of Texas Press |isbn=0292729278 |location=Austin |oclc=748935484}}</ref> [[Lendu language|Lendu]] has been claimed to have voiceless {{IPA|/ƥ ƭ ƈ/}}, but they may actually be [[Creaky voice|creaky-voiced]] implosives.<ref name="SOWL" /> The voiceless labial–velar implosive {{IPA|[ƙ͜ƥ]}} also may occur in Central Igbo.<ref name=":02">Bickford & Floyd (2006) ''Articulatory Phonetics''</ref><ref name=":1">{{cite book |last=Clark |first=Mary M. |title=The Tonal System of Igbo |year=1990 |isbn=9783110130416 |doi=10.1515/9783110869095}}</ref>

Some English speakers use a voiceless velar implosive {{IPA|[ƙ]}} to imitate the "glug-glug" sound of liquid being poured from a bottle, but others use a voiced implosive {{IPA|[ɠ]}}.<ref>Pike, ''Phonetics,'' 1943:40</ref>