Postalveolar click

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Sound sample (help·info)
IPA – number	178
IPA – text	ǃ
IPA – image
Entity	ǃ
X-SAMPA	`!\`
Kirshenbaum	`S!`

The alveolar and postalveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found only in Africa and in the Damin ritual jargon of Australia.

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the forward articulation of these sounds is ǃ. This must be combined with a symbol for the rear articulation to represent an actual speech sound. Attested (post)alveolar clicks include:

[k͡ǃ] or [ǃ͡k] voiceless velar (post)alveolar click (may also be aspirated, ejective, affricated, etc.)
[ɡ͡ǃ] or [ǃ͡ɡ] voiced velar (post)alveolar click (may also be breathy voiced, affricated, etc.)
[ŋ͡ǃ] or [ǃ͡ŋ] nasal velar (post)alveolar click (may also be voiceless, aspirated, etc.)
[q͡ǃ] or [ǃ͡q] voiceless uvular (post)alveolar click
[ɢ͡ǃ] or [ǃ͡ɢ] voiceless uvular (post)alveolar click (commonly prenasalized)
[ɴ͡ǃ] or [ǃ͡ɴ] nasal uvular (post)alveolar click

The symbol is not an exclamation mark in origin, but rather a pipe with a subscript dot, the old diacritic for retroflex consonants.

1 Features
2 In other languages
3 See also

[edit] Features

Features of postalveolar clicks:

Their manner of articulation is click, which means they are produced with two articulatory closures in the oral cavity. The pocket of air trapped between the two closures is rarefied by a "sucking" action of the tongue. The release of the forward closure produces the 'click' sound. In the case of the postalveolar click, the release is sharp, like a plosive, rather than noisy like an affricate. The rear closure may be a plosive, nasal, ejective, or affricate, and have any of several phonations.
The forward place of articulation is alveolar or postalveolar, depending on the language, and apical, which means it is articulated with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge or the roof of the mouth behind the alveolar ridge. (Damin had both articulations as separate phonemes.) The rear place of articulation may be either velar or uvular.
(Post)alveolar clicks may be either oral or nasal, which means air is allowed to escape either through the mouth or the nose.
They are central consonants, which means they are produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
The airstream mechanism is velaric ingressive, which means it is produced by movement of air into the mouth by action of the tongue, rather than by the glottis or the lungs.

[edit] In other languages

The alveolar clicks are common in Khoisan languages, the neighboring Nguni languages (e.g. Zulu, Xhosa, as well as in Sesotho).

[edit] Xhosa and Zulu

In the Nguni languages, the tenuis click is denoted by the letter q, the murmured click by gq, the aspirated click by qh, and the nasal click by nq. The prenasalized clicks are written ngq and nkq.

The other Nguni languages (e.g. SiSwati and isiNdebele) have dental clicks instead.

The alveolar clicks are strongly articulated in the Nguni languages, with a sharp jerk downward of the lower jaw. The effect is rather like the sound of a cork pulled from a wine bottle.

[edit] Sesotho

In the Sesotho language, the tenuis click is denoted by the letter q, the aspirated click by qh, and the nasal click by nq.

[edit] Hadza

In Hadza, there are three postalveolar clicks: Tenuis ([kǃ]), nasalized ([ŋǃ]), and voiceless nasalized with glottal closure ([ŋ̊ǃʔ]). In the latter click, the glottal stop begins during the occlusion of the click, and is released after the click release, resulting in a delay before the start of the following vowel.

The Hadza postalveolar clicks are unusual in their allophonic variation. They may have a single burst, as in the Khoisan and Bantu languages, but more frequently they are flapped, with the underside of the tip of the tongue striking the floor of the mouth after the release of the click, all in a single "ballistic" motion. In some cases, the click release itself is rather faint, and it is this sub-apical percussive sound that dominates. This allophone has been transcribed as [‼] in one publication, but that symbol has also been used for the sub-apical retroflex release in Angolan !Kung.