The Ancestral Consonant

Introduction

At first glance, the Ancestral consonant system is breathtakingly complex, with an unheard of number of complex consonants. On closer inspection, however, I believe the Ancestral speaker understood it to consist of ten distinct places of articulation and ten distinct manners of articulation, the intersection of which was the unique sound (or, more properly, the absence of sound) we know as the glottal stop (or hiatus). Each of these individual places and manners was realized as a simple consonant, yielding a simple consonant inventory of twenty sounds (plus the glottal stop).

The Ancestral Places Of Articulation

My tentative reconstruction of the places of articulation, from left to right in Figure A below, is as follows:

• P Series = Labial
• B Series = Labial Rounded
• T Series = Dental
• D Series = Dental Rounded
• C Series = Palato-Alveolar
• ’ Series = Radical
• J Series = Palatal-Alveolar Rounded
• Y Series = Velar
• W Series = Velar Rounded
• K Series = Uvular
• G Series = Uvular Rounded

Note that the ’ Series corresponds to the places of articulation.

The Ancestral Manners of Articulation

My tentative reconstruction of the manners of articulation, from top to bottom in Figure A below, is as follows:

• R Series = Rhotic
• S Series = Whistled
• H Series = Whispered
• F Series = Falsetto
• X Series = Explosive
• ’ Series = Plosive
• Z Series = Implosive
• Q Series = Creaky
• V series = Murmured
• N Series = Nasal
• L Series = Lateral

Note that the ’ Series corresponds to the places of articulation.

Consonant Clusters

The Ancestral speaker combined the ten places of articulation with the ten manners of articulation (and vice versa) to create, in essence, an Ancestral Phonemic Alphabet composed of two hundred complex consonants. My tentative reconstruction of the Ancestral complex consonant inventory suggests that it can be thought of as consisting of twenty series, where C denotes any consonant stop, where the phonetic description before > expresses the series’ underlying phonetic features, and where the phonetic description after > expresses the series’ actual phonetic realization:

• CR = post-rhotacized stops > voiceless trilled affricates
• CS = post-spirantized stops > voiceless spirant affricates
• CH = post-aspirated stops > voiceless non-sibilant fricatives
• CF = post-high pitch stops > voiceless stops + high tone
• CX = post-exploxed stops > voiceless ejective stops
• CZ = post-imploded stops > voiced implosive stops
• CQ = post-creaky stops > voiced stops + low tone
• CV = post-murmured stops > voiced non-sibilant fricatives
• CN = post-nasalized stops > voiced nasals
• CL = post-lateralized stops > voiced clicks
• RC – pre-rhotacized stops > voiceless rhotacized stops
• SC = pre-spirantized stops > voiceless pre-spirantized stops
• HC = pre-aspirated stops > voiceless pre-aspirated stops
• FC = pre-falsetto stops > high tone + voiceless stops
• XC = pre-exploded stops
• ZC = pre-imploded stops
• QC = pre-creaky stops > low tone + voiced stops
• VC = pre-voiced stops > voiced stops
• NC = pre-nasalized stops > voiced pre-nasalized stops
• LC = pre-lateralized stops > voiced pre-lateralized stops

Figure A: Fundamental Consonant Chart (In Transcription)

Figure B: Place x Manner Complex Consonant Chart (In Transcription)

Figure C: Manner x Place Complex Consonant (In Transcription)