Uvular Ejective - Occurrence

Occurrence

One ejective
A single plain uvular ejective is found in almost all Northeast Caucasian languages, all South Caucasian languages, and some Athabaskan languages, as well as Itelmen, Quechua and Aymara.

• Itelmen, where it is written ӄ': ӄ'ил'хч to depart.
• Georgian, where it is written ყ: ტყავი skin, pelt. Unlike its velar counterpart, it does not contrast with voiced or voiceless uvular stops; the voiceless uvular stop of Old Georgian has merged with the voiceless velar fricative in modern Georgian. Some scholars view this Georgian phoneme as being rather an uvular ejective fricative /χʼ/.
• Tahltan: door.

Two ejectives
Most Salishan languages, the Tlingit language, and Adyghe and Kabardian (Northwest Caucasian) demonstrate a two-way contrast between labialised and plain uvular ejectives.

• Klallam: wəq̕ə́q̕ frog, sq̕ʷúŋi(ʔ) head.
• Lezgian, where the two are written кь and кьв: кьакьан tall, high, кьвех groin.
• North Straits Salish, where the two are written K and K̴ in the Saanich orthography: Saanich KEYOṮEN slug, snail, SK̴EḰĆES red huckleberry.

The Akhvakh language appears to have a contrast between lax and tense uvular ejectives: soup, broth (lax) vs. cock's comb (tense).

Three ejectives

• Abkhaz contrasts plain, palatalised and labialised uvular ejectives, written ҟ ҟь ҟə: аҟаҧшь red, -ҵəҟьа really, indeed (a verbal suffix), Аҟәа Sukhum. As with Georgian, Abkhaz has no non-ejective uvular stops; the historically present uvular aspirates have merged with their corresponding fricatives, although the aspirates are preserved in Abaza.

Five ejectives

• The plain uvular ejective is one of the most common consonants in Ubykh, due to its presence in the past tense suffix /-qʼa/. But in addition to palatalised, labialised and plain uvular ejectives, Ubykh also possesses a pharyngealised version and a concurrently labialised and pharyngealised version, making a total of five: he said it, small and round, to seize, to chew, cavern.