Apical and Laminal Consonants

If you've ever looked at the IPA chart, you might think that the coronal consonants (the consonants made with the flexible part of the tongue) can't be divided further than dental, alveolar, post-alveolar and retroflex, but that's not exactly true.

Coronal consonants are special, since they are articulated using the flexible part of the tongue, they can be articulated in a number of different ways, but today I wanted to focus on one interesting distinction: apical and laminal.

An apical consonant is made by obstructing air passage using the tip of the tongue, along with the upper lip, the teeth, or the alveolar ridge.
While a laminal consonant is made with the blade of the tongue (the portion just behind the tip).

To illustrate this distinction to you, I want you to first pronounce a regular [n] sound.
Now, you most likely pronounced it using the tip of the tongue, meaning it's an apical consonant.
Now I want you to pronounce another alveolar sound, this time an [s] sound.
You most likely produced it using the blade of the tongue, meaning it's laminal.
Now, I want you to switch back and forth between the [n] and [s] sounds, and notice how despite both of them being alveolar consonants, your tongue moves slightly each time you switch between the [n] and the [s], this is the distinction between apical and laminal.

Now you might be wondering, are all n sounds necessarily apical, and are all s sounds necessarily laminal?
No.
Most common coronal sounds like n and s can be realised as both apical and laminal.
Try pronouncing an n sound using the blade of your tongue instead of the tip, it can feel strange, but it's entirely possible.
You can also try pronouncing an s sound using the tip of the tongue instead of the blade.
These sounds, the laminal n and the apical s, do exist in human language, however they are of course less common than their regular counterparts.

Now comes the big question... is there any language that has a phonemic (meaning-distinguishing) distinction between the apical and laminal versions of a sound?
Yes... technically. That language is Basque, an example of this is the pair of words su (fire) and zu (you)
In Basque, the letter z actually represents a lamino-dental sibilant, and the letter s represents an apico-alveolar sibilant, meaning there is a distinction between apical and laminal... but there is also a distinction between where the tongue is (dental and alveolar), not just which part of it makes the sound... so we have an almost perfect example.