27. Lingue con consonanti che cliccano

In questa puntata esploriamo le ganzissime lingue conosciute come “lingue clic”, un gruppo di idiomi parlati prevalentemente nell’Africa meridionale, noti per l’uso di suoni consonantici articolati tramite veri e propri schiocchi di lingua. Analizziamo i meccanismi fonetici di questi suoni così rari e ci interroghiamo su una suggestiva ipotesi evolutiva: è possibile che questi suoni risalgano alle origini stesse del linguaggio umano? (Spoiler: probabilmente no).

Grafiche: Gianluca La Bruna

La sigla è stata prodotta da White Hot e fornita da https://freebeats.io

Fonti:

• Bennett, W. (2020). Click Phonology. In B. Sands (Ed.) Click Consonants (pp. 115–116) Leiden; Boston: Brill.
• Catford, J. C. (1997). The myth of the primordial click. In I. Hegedüs, V.V. Shevoroshkin, P. Michalove, &. A. Manaster–Ramer (Eds.), Indo-European, Nostratic and beyond (pp. 51-71) Washington DC: Institute for the Study of Man.
• Chen Y.S., Olckers A., Schurr T.G., Kogelnik A.M., Huoponen K., & Wallace D.C. (2000). mtDNA variation in the South African Kung and Khwe and their genetic relationships to other African populations. American Journal of Human Genetics, 66(4):1362–1383.
• Güldemann T. (2007). Clicks, genetics, and ‘‘proto-world’’ from a linguistic perspective. University of Leipzig Papers on Africa, Languages and Literatures Series No. 29 (pp. 1-35). Leipzig: Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität Leipzig.
• Güldemann T. & Stoneking M. (2008). A historical appraisal of clicks: a linguistic and genetic population perspective. Annual Review of Anthropology, 37:93–109.
• Gxilishe, S. (2004). The Acquisition of Clicks by Xhosa-Speaking Children. Per Linguam, 20(2):1-12.
• Hale K. & Nash D. (1997). Damin and Lardil phonotactics. In D. Tryon & M. Walsh (Eds.), Boundary rider: essays in honour of Geoffrey O'Grady (pp. 247-259). Pacific Linguistics.
• Miller-Ockhuizen A. (2004). Evolutionary advantages and disadvantages of click consonants. Paper presented at the Sixteenth Annual Beckman Frontiers of Science Symposium, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 4–6 November. Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center, Irvine, California.
• Sands B., & Güldemann T. (2009). What click languages can and can’t tell us about language origins. In R. Botha, & C.E. Knight (Eds), The Cradle of Language (pp. 204–218). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Tabain M. (2019). The phonetic properties of consonants. In W.F. Katz, & P.F. Assman The Routledge Handbook of phonetics (pp. 264-289). London/New York: Routledge. Taylor & Francis group.
• Tishkoff S.A., Gonder M.K., Henn B.M., Mortensen H., Knight A., Gignoux C., Fernandopulle N., Lema G., Nyambo T.B., Ramakrishnan U., & Reed F.A. (2007). History of click-speaking populations of Africa inferred from mtDNA and Y chromosome genetic variation. Molecular biology and evolution, 24(10):2180-2195.
• van Ginneken J. (1939). Les clics, les consonnes et les voyelles dans l’histoire de l’humanité. In E. Blancquaert & W. Pée (Eds.), Proceedings of the Third International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 321-326). Ghent: Phonetic Laboratory of the University of Ghent.