Lateral clicks

Lateral click
(plain)
ǁ
ʖ
IPA number 180
Encoding
Entity (decimal) ǁʖ
Unicode (hex) U+01C1U+0296
X-SAMPA |\|\
Kirshenbaum tl!
Braille ⠯ (braille pattern dots-12346)⠇ (braille pattern dots-123)
Sound
source · help
Voiced lateral click
ǁ̬
ᶢǁ
ʖ̬
ᶢʖ
Encoding
Kirshenbaum dl!
Nasal lateral click
ǁ̃
ᵑǁ
ʖ̃
ᵑʖ
Encoding
Kirshenbaum nl!

The lateral clicks are a family of click consonants found only in African languages. The clicking sound used by equestrians to urge on their horses is a lateral click, although it is not a speech sound in that context. Lateral clicks are found throughout southern Africa and in two languages in Tanzania. The place of articulation is not known to be contrastive in any language, and typically varies from alveolar to palatal.

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents a generic lateral click is ǁ, a double pipe. Prior to 1989, ʖ was the IPA letter for the lateral clicks, and this is still preferred by some phoneticians, as the pipe may be confounded with prosody marks and, in some fonts, with a double el. Either letter may be combined with a second letter to indicate the manner of articulation, though this is commonly omitted for tenuis clicks, and increasingly a diacritic is used instead. Common lateral clicks are:

IPA I IPA II Description
ǁ or ʖ tenuis lateral click
ǁʰ or ʖʰ aspirated lateral click
ǁ̬ or ʖ̬ ᶢǁ or ᶢʖ voiced lateral click
ǁ̃ or ʖ̃ ᵑǁ or ᵑʖ lateral nasal click
ǁ̥̃ʰ or ʖ̥̃ʰ ᵑ̊ǁʰ or ᵑ̊ʖʰ aspirated lateral nasal click
ǁ̃ˀ or ʖ̃ˀ ᵑǁˀ or ᵑʖˀ glottalized lateral nasal click

The last is what is heard in the sound sample above, as non-native speakers tend to glottalize clicks to avoid nasalizing them.

In the orthographies of individual languages, the letters and digraphs for lateral clicks may be based on either the pipe symbol of the IPA, ǁ, or on the Latin x of Bantu convention. Nama and most Saan languages use the former; Naro, Sandawe, and Zulu use the latter.

Features

The specific articulation of lateral clicks may vary from language to language, from dental to palatal, apical or laminal, though no contrast between such articulations has been confirmed apart from the retroflex clicks, which may have lateral release.

Features of lateral clicks:

Regarding Khoekhoe, Tindall notes that European learners almost invariably pronounce these sounds as simple laterals, by placing the tongue against the side teeth, and that this articulation is "harsh and foreign to the native ear". The Namaqua instead cover the whole of the palate with the tongue, and produce the sound "as far back in the palate as possible".[1]

Occurrence

English does not have a lateral click (or any click consonant, for that matter) as a phoneme, but a plain lateral click does occur as an interjection, usually written tchick! or tchek! (and often reduplicated tchick-tchick!), used to urge a horse to move.

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
ǃKung an [ᵑǁàŋ] = [ʖ̃àŋ] 'marama bean'
Hadza exekeke [ʔeǁekeke] = [ʔeʖekeke]'to listen'
naxhi [naǁʰi] = [naʖʰi]'to crowd'
konxa [koᵑǁa] = [koʖ̃a]'to be a pair'
slaxxa [ɬaᵑǁˀa] = [ɬaʖ̃ˀa]'a split, fork'
Xhosa isiXhosa [isiǁʰosa] = [isiʖʰosa] 'Xhosa language' Contrasts tenuis, murmured, aspirated, and nasal lateral clicks.
!Xóõ ǁnáã [ᵑǁɑ́ɑ̃] = [ʖ̃ɑ́ɑ̃] 'grewia berry'
Zulu xoxa [ǁɔ́ːǁa] = [ʖɔ́ːʖa] 'to converse'

See also

References

  1. Tindal (1858) A grammar and vocabulary of the Namaqua-Hottentot language
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 4/18/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.