Tenuis alveolar click
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(Tenuis) alveolar click | |
---|---|
ǃ | |
ʗ | |
IPA number | 178 |
Encoding | |
Entity (decimal) | ǃʗ |
Unicode (hex) | U+01C3 U+0297 |
Kirshenbaum | c![1] |
Braille | |
Unicode character name for ǃ is LATIN LETTER RETROFLEX CLICK | |
Listen | |
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⟩.
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' |
Notes[edit]
- ^ Kirshembaum assigns ⟨c!⟩ indifferently to both alveolar and palatal clicks.