Pulmonic ingressive speech: a neglected universal?

This paper summarizes major review work on pulmonic ingressive speech (Eklund, under revision), e.g., words like ja (yes) and nej (no) that are commonly produced on inhalation airstream in Swedish. Contrary to what is generally believed, ingressive speech is not limited to Scandinavia or present-day Nordic languages. Instead, it is shown that ingressive speech is found on all continents, in languages that are genetically unrelated. Moreover, whenever ingressive speech occurs it serves more or less the same paralinguistic functions, e.g., being predominantly a feedback marker in dialog. Since pulmonic ingressive phonation is also common in the calls of monkeys and apes, thus exhibiting a biological basis, it is argued that ingressive speech might constitute a neglected universal phenomenon, rather than being highly marked, which is how it is commonly described in the literature.