Tenuis alveolar click
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (October 2021) |
| Tenuis alveolar velar click | |
|---|---|
| k͡ǃ | |
| ᵏʗ | |
| IPA Number | 178 |
| Audio sample | |
| Encoding | |
| Entity (decimal) | ǃʗ |
| Unicode (hex) | U+01C3 U+0297 |
| Braille |   |
| Unicode character name for ǃ is LATIN LETTER RETROFLEX CLICK | |
| Tenuis alveolar uvular click | |
|---|---|
| q͡ǃ | |
| q͡ʗ |
The voiceless or more precisely tenuis (post)alveolar click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ǃ⟩. The Doke/Beach convention, adopted for a time by the IPA and still preferred by some linguists, is ⟨ʗ⟩.[2][3][4]
Features[edit]
Features of the tenuis (post)alveolar click:
- The airstream mechanism is lingual ingressive (also known as velaric ingressive), which means a pocket of air trapped between two closures is rarefied by a "sucking" action of the tongue, rather than being moved by the glottis or the lungs/diaphragm. The release of the forward closure produces the "click" sound. Voiced and nasal clicks have a simultaneous pulmonic egressive airstream.
- Its place of articulation is alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
- Its phonation is voiceless, unaspirated, and unglottalized, which means it is produced without vibration or constriction of the vocal cords, and any following vowel starts without significant delay.
- It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
- It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
Occurrence[edit]
Tenuis alveolar clicks are found primarily in the various Khoisan language families of southern Africa and in some neighboring Bantu languages.
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hadza | laqo | [laǃo] = [laʗo] | 'to trip' |
| Khoekhoe | ǃgabe | [ǃȁwé] = [ʗȁwé] | 'to speak a Khoisan language' |
| Sesotho | ho qoqa | [hʊǃɔǃɑ] = [hʊʗɔʗɑ] | 'to chat' |
| Xhosa | iqanda | [iǃanda] = [iʗanda] | 'egg' |
| Zulu | iqaqa | [íːǃaːǃá] = [íːʗaːʗá] | 'polecat' |
References[edit]
- ^ Kirshenbaum assigns ⟨c!⟩ indifferently to both alveolar and palatal clicks.
- ^ Doke, Clement M. (1925). "An outline of the phonetics of the language of the ʗhũ: Bushman of the North-West Kalahari". Bantu Studies. 2: 129–166. doi:10.1080/02561751.1923.9676181.
- ^ Doke, Clement M. (1969) [1926]. The phonetics of the Zulu language. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand Press.
- ^ Beach, Douglas Martyn (1938). The phonetics of the Hottentot language. London: W. Heffer & Sons.
