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D.1 Introduction
APPENDIX D
CROSS-LINGUISTIC INSIGHTS ON THE LABIAL FLAP
The labial flap is a speech sound most commonly associated with the North
Central Savanna region of Africa. The sound is attested in over sixty languages in Africa
and one in Indonesia. The present paper is a detailed cross-linguistic study of the labial
flap. We discuss both the areal and genetic distributions of the sound, and in addition, we
draw generalizations regarding the articulation of the sound and its phonological status.
These generalizations have implications for understanding the historical development of
the sound. Our data derive from an extensive survey of the linguistics literature, but a
significant amount of previously unpublished data are presented here as well, both from
our own field work and from the input of other researchers.
The only previous cross-linguistic study of the labial flap is Greenberg (1983),
who drew tentative conclusions based on a sample of 18 languages. He found the largest
concentration of examples in Central Sudanic, and he remained agnostic as to whether the
ultimate source of the sound was Adamawa-Ubangi or Central Sudanic. Our findings
directly contradict the first of these claims, and we offer firmer evidence concerning the
ultimate source of the sound in Africa. The discrepencies between his and our findings
are likely attributable to his admittedly restricted sample. Indeed, Croft (1990: 19) points
out that a complete sample is advisable for studying linguistic phenomena which are
exhibited in a limited number of languages. In the present paper, we have attempted to
obtain a nearly complete sample of the languages in which the labial flap is attested.
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