Bilabial nasal click
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Bilabial nasal click | |
---|---|
ʘ̃ | |
ᵑʘ | |
Encoding | |
Kirshenbaum | m! |
The bilabial nasal click is a click consonant found in some of the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʘ̃⟩ or ⟨ᵑʘ⟩.
Features[edit]
Features of the bilabial nasal 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 bilabial, which means it is articulated with both lips.
- Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
- It is a nasal consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the nose, either exclusively (nasal stops) or in addition to through the mouth.
- Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the central–lateral dichotomy does not apply.
Occurrence[edit]
Bilabial nasal clicks only occur in the Tuu and Kx'a families of southern Africa, in the Australian ritual language Damin, and for /mw/ in some of the languages neighboring Shona, such as at least for some speakers of Ndau and Tonga.
Language | Word | IPA | Meaning |
---|---|---|---|
Damin | m!ii | [ʘ̃iː] | 'vegetable' |
Tonga | kumwa | [kʼuʘ̃wa] | 'to drink' |
Ndau | mwana | [ʘ̃wana] | 'child' |
Glottalized bilabial nasal click[edit]
Glottalized bilabial nasal click | |
---|---|
ʘ̃ˀ ʘ̃͜ʔ | |
ᵑʘˀ ᵑ̊ʘˀ |
The Tuu and Kx'a languages also have glottalized nasal clicks. These are formed by closing the glottis so that the click is pronounced in silence; however, any preceding vowel will be nasalized.
Language | Word | IPA | Meaning |
---|