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I've got Sounds of the World's Languages but I’m looking for more information on implosives, either descriptive or diachronic. Any recommendations?

I'm not sure how "accurate" this is, but it was once suggested to me to derive them from long/doubled stops.

Drydic Guy wrote:I'm not sure how "accurate" this is, but it was once suggested to me to derive them from long/doubled stops.

Elkaril has them originating that way, although it does not necessarily work like a human language. I recall reading that Sindhi developed an entire series of implosives from ordinary voiced stops, and then voiced fricatives fortified to replace voiced stops.

Sindhi's implosives developed from the inherited Indic voiced aspirates.

There is an African language-- can't remember the name-- that got its alveolar voiced implosive from a retroflex voiced stop.

Resurrecting this since why not.

Any examples you guys know of of languages with a single implosive stop?

Drydic Guy wrote:Resurrecting this since why not.

Any examples you guys know of of languages with a single implosive stop?

Swahili. Xhosa. Several Mayan languages.

Xephyr wrote:

Drydic Guy wrote:Resurrecting this since why not.

Any examples you guys know of of languages with a single implosive stop?

Swahili. Xhosa. Several Mayan languages.

Are you sure? I am quite sure Zulu has two implosives. The uncontroversial one is the bilabial one represented orthographically by a <b>. The other one is represented orthographically by a <k>. The <k> has two realizations, one is a velar ejective and only occurs at the beginning of a stem, the other occurs at other positions and is often described as a softer sound and I always pronounce it as an implosive, and most phonologists seem to think it is an implosive. It may be different in Xhosa but in that case it is a difference between Xhosa and Zulu I haven't heard of.

Xephyr wrote:

Drydic Guy wrote:Resurrecting this since why not.

Any examples you guys know of of languages with a single implosive stop?

Swahili. Xhosa. Several Mayan languages.

Really, Swahili? I'd heard and always assumed that that all voiced plosives there were implosive unless immediately preceeded by a nasal.

merijn wrote:

Xephyr wrote:

Drydic Guy wrote:Resurrecting this since why not.

Any examples you guys know of of languages with a single implosive stop?

Swahili. Xhosa. Several Mayan languages.

Are you sure? I am quite sure Zulu has two implosives. The uncontroversial one is the bilabial one represented orthographically by a <b>. The other one is represented orthographically by a <k>. The <k> has two realizations, one is a velar ejective and only occurs at the beginning of a stem, the other occurs at other positions and is often described as a softer sound and I always pronounce it as an implosive, and most phonologists seem to think it is an implosive. It may be different in Xhosa but in that case it is a difference between Xhosa and Zulu I haven't heard of.

I've never heard of Xhosa having the velar implosive. Whenever it's brought up, it's always in Zulu.

Drydic Guy wrote:Really, Swahili? I'd heard and always assumed that that all voiced plosives there were implosive unless immediately preceeded by a nasal.

Come to think of it you're right. Stupid me.

Xephyr wrote:

merijn wrote:

Xephyr wrote:

Drydic Guy wrote:Resurrecting this since why not.

Any examples you guys know of of languages with a single implosive stop?

Swahili. Xhosa. Several Mayan languages.

Are you sure? I am quite sure Zulu has two implosives. The uncontroversial one is the bilabial one represented orthographically by a <b>. The other one is represented orthographically by a <k>. The <k> has two realizations, one is a velar ejective and only occurs at the beginning of a stem, the other occurs at other positions and is often described as a softer sound and I always pronounce it as an implosive, and most phonologists seem to think it is an implosive. It may be different in Xhosa but in that case it is a difference between Xhosa and Zulu I haven't heard of.

I've never heard of Xhosa having the velar implosive. Whenever it's brought up, it's always in Zulu.

OK. It is weird for me to see that Zulu has a phoneme that Xhosa doesn't have, it is usually the other way round. Does Xhosa make any distinction between stem initial <k> and a <k> in another position at all?

No idea.

Drydic Guy wrote:Sindhi's implosives developed from the inherited Indic voiced aspirates.

The voiced unaspirates, actually.

Another simple origin would be glottal stop + voiced stop obviously. I would not be surprized if the fairly common /ɓ ɗ/ no /ɠ/ system originated from an evolutionary pathway something like this:
1. [ʔ] prefixes before word-initial vowels and semivowels
2. [w j] fortite to [b ɟ]
3. Resulting [ʔb ʔɟ] coalesce to [ɓ ɗ]
(Still perhaps that would predict a /ɓ ʄ/ system occurring somewhere too?)

I think I read somewhere that it's quite natural that voiced plosives turn into implosives, since this enhances the audible contrast with plain voiceless plosives. Prenasalisation can arise for the same reason.

Well I like implosives. Does anyone else?