Reflexes of the Proto-Ju retroflex click in Lucy Lloyd’s ǃXun notebooks

The retroflex click [!!] is an extremely rare sound, attested today only in the Central varieties of the Ju language family (formerly known as Northern Khoisan) in Northern Namibia. It is reconstructed in Proto-Ju. This click has merged with other clicks (lateral or alveolar) in all other Ju varieties. This paper looks at the reflexes of the retroflex click in Lucy Lloyd's !Xun notebooks (late 19th century), and draws three conclusions: (i) The !Xun varieties (Northwestern Ju) that Lloyd documented still had a distinct reflex of the retroflex click; (ii) this shows that the merger of the retroflex click with the lateral click in Northwestern Ju is relatively recent; and (iii) this change involved an intermediate lateralization stage which facilitated the merger.