Preaspiration in the Nordic Languages: Synchronic and Diachronic ...

described is true preaspiration (as it has been defined in previous sections).
The following discussion begins by listing the 15 languages in
question, and then discusses each case in greater detail. The first mention
of a language in which preaspiration is reported to occur is underlined to
make it easier for the reader to keep track of the languages mentioned.
Four of the languages are from the Uto-Aztecan family: O’odham, a
Sonoran language spoken in south central Arizona and into Mexico;
Hopi, a Northern Uto-Aztecan language spoken in several villages in
northeast Arizona, and to a lesser extent in neighbouring areas in Utah
and New Mexico; Comanche, a Numic language spoken in western
Oklahoma; and Mono, also a Numic language, which is now virtually
extinct but used to be spoken in east-central California (around Lake
Mono). One additional language in North America is reported to have
preaspiration. This is Eastern Ojibwa, an Algonquian language spoken
around Lake Huron and in southeastern Ontario. In Central America, one
variety of Zapotec, an Oto-Manguean language, may have preaspirated
stops. In South America, the Arawakan language Goajiro (also known as
Guajiro and Wayuu), spoken on the Guajira Peninsula on the border
between Colombia and Venezuela, is the only one reported to have
preaspiration. Three languages with preaspiration are found in the westernmost
part of Asia. One, located in Siberia, is Forest Nenets, from the
(North) Samoyedic branch of Uralic, which is spoken south and southeast
of the Ob delta region. The other two are closely related North Caucasian
languages, Chechen and Ingush, spoken in the northeastern part of
the Caucasus. Further east in Asia, we shall consider the Turkic languages
Western Yugur, (also known as Yellow Uyghur) Tuvan and Tofa,
as well as the language isolate Ket 1 . And last, we shall consider recent
findings regarding preaspiration in Halh Mongolian, a Mongolian language
spoken in Mongolia.
Preaspiration in O’odham was described by Voegelin et al. (1962:22)
and Alvarez & Hale (1970:94; both are cited in Hansson, 1997:30). According
to these accounts, O’odham has two stop series, one of which is
1 Actually, Ethnologue (Grimes & Grimes, ed.) lists two languages, Ket and Yugh, as
the only members of a family called Yenisei Ostyak. However, by 1991 Yugh had
only “2–3 semi-speakers” remaining and can therefore be considered virtually extinct.
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