Here's an interesting working paper on
Warlpiri phonology from the University of Queensland:
You can see (cf. the "Warlpiri Consonants"
link) that the language is typologically close to Dravidian (a long row of
oral and nasal stops: bilabial, alveolar, retroflex, palatal [palatoalveolar],
velar), no fricatives at all, and a large collection of liquids,
including no fewer than three phonemes classifiable as rhotics. This
of course doesn't mean that Warlpiri is genetically related to Dravidian --
a typological affinity may result from a combination of pure chance and various
implicational universals.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2001 11:02 PM
Subject: [phoNet] Re: Retroflex Stops
Thanks so much Piotr. I hate to have put you out
looking for
other examples. There was a question on the
IndianCivilization
list as to whether the Indic languages were unique in
this aspect.
Off hand it didn't seem likely to me but I wasn't sure and so I
wanted to see what my "guru-ji" had to say :-)