Alveolar click

Last updated
Tenuis alveolar click
(velar)
 
ᵏǃ ᵏʗ
ǃ ʗ
IPA number 178, 202
Audio sample
source  · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)ǃʗ
Unicode (hex)U+01C3U+0297
X-SAMPA !\
Braille Braille AND.svg Braille T.svg
Voiced alveolar click
(velar)
ɡǃ ɡʗ
ᶢǃ ᶢʗ
Alveolar nasal click
(velar)
ŋǃ ŋʗ
ᵑǃ ᵑʗ
Tenuis alveolar click
(uvular)
 
𐞥ǃ 𐞥ʗ
Voiced alveolar click
(uvular)
ɢǃ ɢʗ
𐞒ǃ 𐞒ʗ
Alveolar nasal click
(uvular)
ɴǃ ɴʗ
ᶰǃ ᶰʗ

The alveolar or postalveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found only in Africa and in the Damin ritual jargon of Australia. The tongue is more or less concave (depending on the language), and is pulled down rather than back as in the palatal clicks, making a hollower sound than those consonants.

Contents

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the place of articulation of these sounds is ǃ. The symbol is not an exclamation mark in origin, but rather a vertical bar with a subscript dot, the dot being the old diacritic for retroflex consonants. Prior to 1989, ʗ (stretched c) was the IPA letter for the alveolar clicks, and this is still preferred by some phoneticians. The tail of ʗ may be the tail of retroflex consonants in the IPA, and thus analogous to the underdot of ǃ. [1] Either letter may be combined with a second letter to indicate the manner of articulation, though this is commonly omitted for tenuis clicks.

Alveolar click consonants and their transcription

In official IPA transcription, the click letter is combined with a kɡŋqɢɴ via a tie bar, though k is frequently omitted. Many authors instead use a superscript kɡŋqɢɴ without the tie bar, again often neglecting the k. Either letter, whether baseline or superscript, is usually placed before the click letter, but may come after when the release of the velar or uvular occlusion is audible. A third convention is the click letter with diacritics for voicelessness, voicing and nasalization; it does not distinguish velar from uvular alveolar clicks. Common alveolar clicks in these three transcriptions are:

Trans. ITrans. IITrans. IIIDescription
(velar)
k͜ǃᵏǃǃ tenuis alveolar click
k͜ǃʰᵏǃʰǃʰ aspirated alveolar click
ɡ͜ǃᶢǃǃ̬ voiced alveolar click
ŋ͜ǃᵑǃǃ̬̃ alveolar nasal click
ŋ͜ǃ̥̥ʰʰᵑǃ̥ʰʰǃ̥̃ʰʰ aspirated alveolar nasal click
ŋ͜ǃˀᵑǃˀǃ̃ˀ glottalized alveolar nasal click
(uvular)
q͜ǃ𐞥ǃ tenuis alveolar click
q͜ǃʰ𐞥ǃʰ aspirated alveolar click
ɢ͜ǃ𐞒ǃ voiced alveolar click
ɴ͜ǃᶰǃ alveolar nasal click
ɴ͜ǃ̥ʰʰᶰǃ̥ʰʰ aspirated alveolar nasal click
ɴ͜ǃˀᶰǃˀ glottalized alveolar nasal click

The last can be heard in the sound sample at right; non-native speakers tend to glottalize clicks to avoid nasalizing them. The nasal click may also be heard at the right.

In the orthographies of individual languages, the letters and digraphs for alveolar clicks may be based on either the vertical bar symbol of the IPA, ǃ, or on the Latin q of Bantu convention. Khoekhoe and most Bushman languages use the former; Naro, Sandawe, and Zulu use the latter.

Features

Features of postalveolar clicks:

Occurrence

English does not have an alveolar click (or any other click consonant) as a phoneme, but a plain alveolar click does occur in mimesis, as a sound children use to imitate a horse trotting. [2]

LanguageWord IPA MeaningNotes
!Kung an[ᵑǃáŋ]=[ʗ̃áŋ]'inside'
Hadza laqo[laᵏǃo]=[laʗ̊o]'to trip'
keqhena[keᵏǃʰena]=[keʗ̊ʰena]'to be slow'
henqee[ɦeᵑǃeʔe]=[ɦeʗ̃eʔe]'dead leopard'
teqqe[teᵑǃˀe]=[teʗ̃ˀe]'to carry'
Sandawe gqokomi[ᶢǃokomi]=[ʗ̬okomi]'greater kudu'may have a slapped release: [ǃ̬͡¡okomi]=[ʗ̬͡¡okomi]
Sotho ho qoqa[hoᵏǃɔᵏǃɑ]=[hoʗ̊ɔʗ̊ɑ]'to chat/converse'Contrasts with murmured, aspirated, and alveolar nasal clicks. See Sotho phonology
Xhosa iqanda[iᵏǃanda]=[iʗ̊anda]'egg'Contrasts with murmured, aspirated, and alveolar nasal clicks
ǃXóõ ǃqhàà[ǃ͡qʰɑ̀ː]=[ʗ͡qʰɑ̀ː]'water'An aspirated linguo-pulmonic stop
Zulu iqaqa[iːᵏǃáːᵏǃa]=[iːʗ̊áːʗ̊a]'polecat'Contrasts with murmured, aspirated, and alveolar nasal clicks.

Percussive release

Percussive alveolar click
(tenuis velar)
ᵏǃ¡ ᵏʗ¡
kǃꜞ kʗꜞ
ǃ¡
Percussive palatal click
(nasal velar)
ᵑǂ¡ᵑ𝼋¡
ŋǂꜞŋ𝼋ꜞ

In Sandawe, alveolar clicks commonly have a ballistic release, with the underside of the tip of the tongue subsequently striking the floor of the mouth. [3] This allophone has been called "flapped" and "slapped". Sometimes the percussive slap is louder than the release, resulting in a sound that has been characterized as a "cluck". The symbol for the sublingual percussive component is ¡ in the extensions to the IPA; a slapped click is therefore transcribed ǃ͡¡ or ǃꜞ (or ʗ͡¡,ʗꜞ). The percussive allophones of the five Sandawe alveolar clicks are [ᵏǃ͡¡,ᵏǃ͡¡ʰ,ᶢǃ͡¡,ᵑǃ͡¡,ᵑǃ͡¡ˀ] (or [ᵏʗꜞᵏʗꜞʰᶢʗꜞᵑʗꜞᵑʗꜞˀ] etc.).

Clement Doke also noted a palatal click with slapped release, [ᵑǂ¡]. [4]

Nasal clicks that fit this description are used by speakers of Gan Chinese (from Ningdu county) and of Mandarin (from Beijing and Jilin), and presumably people from other parts of the country, with varying degrees of competence in nursery rhymes for the words for 'goose' and 'duck', both of which begin with /ŋ/ in Gan and until recently began with /ŋ/ in Mandarin as well. In Gan, the nursery rhyme is (disregarding tone),

[tʰienitsʰakᵑǃ͡¡o] 天一隻鵝 'a goose in the sky'
[tihaitsʰakᵑǃ͡¡a] 地下一隻鴨 'a duck on the ground'
[ᵑǃ͡¡osaŋᵑǃ͡¡otʰan,ᵑǃ͡¡opʰauᵑǃ͡¡o] 鵝生鵝蛋鵝孵鵝 'a goose lays a goose egg, a goose hatches a goose'
[ᵑǃ͡¡asaŋᵑǃ͡¡atʰan,ᵑǃ͡¡apʰauᵑǃ͡¡a] 鴨生鴨蛋鴨孵鴨 'a duck lays a duck egg, a duck hatches a duck'

where the /ŋ/ onsets are all pronounced [ᵑǃ͡¡]. [5]

"Fricated" alveolar clicks

A series of clicks in Ekoka !Kung have been variously described as retroflex or fricated palatal clicks.

See also

References

  1. Pullum & Ladusaw, Phonetic Symbol Guide, p. 34
  2. Tucker et al. (1977), The East-African Click Languages: A Phonetic Comparison
  3. Wright, Richard, Ian Maddieson, Peter Ladefoged, Bonny Sands (1995). "A phonetic study of Sandawe clicks", UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics, No. 91: Fieldwork Studies in Targeted Languages III.
  4. Clement Doke (1925) An outline of the phonetics of the language of the ʗhũ̬꞉ Bushman of the North-West Kalahari. Bantu Studies 2: 129–166.
  5. Geoffrey Nathan, 'Clicks in a Chinese Nursery Rhyme', JIPA (2001) 31/2.