The voiceless or more precisely tenuis lateral click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for a tenuis lateral click with a velar rear articulation is ⟨k͡ǁ⟩ or ⟨k͜ǁ⟩, commonly abbreviated to ⟨⟩, ⟨ᵏǁ⟩ or just ⟨ǁ⟩; a symbol abandoned by the IPA but still preferred by some linguists is ⟨k͡ʖ⟩ or ⟨k͜ʖ⟩, abbreviated ⟨⟩, ⟨ᵏʖ⟩ or just ⟨ʖ⟩. For a click with a uvular rear articulation, the equivalents are ⟨q͡ǁ, q͜ǁ, qǁ, 𐞥ǁ⟩ and ⟨q͡ʖ, q͜ʖ, qʖ, 𐞥ʖ⟩. Sometimes the accompanying letter comes after the click letter, e.g. ⟨ǁk⟩ or ⟨ǁᵏ⟩; this may be a simple orthographic choice, or it may imply a difference in the relative timing of the releases.[2]

Tenuis lateral velar click
k͡ǁ   k͡ʖ
ᵏǁ   ᵏʖ
ǁ   ʖ
IPA Number180, 203
Encoding
Entity (decimal)ǁ​ʖ
Unicode (hex)U+01C1 U+0296
Braille⠯ (braille pattern dots-12346)⠇ (braille pattern dots-123)
Tenuis lateral uvular click
q͡ǁ   q͡ʖ
𐞥ǁ   𐞥ʖ

Features

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Features of the tenuis lateral 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 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 lateral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream over the sides of the tongue, rather than down the middle.

Occurrence

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Tenuis lateral clicks are found primarily in the various Khoisan language families of southern Africa and in some neighboring Bantu languages.

Language Word IPA Meaning
Hadza exekeke [ʔek͜ǁekeke] = [ʔeᵏʖekeke] 'to listen'
Khoekhoe ǂamǁgû [ŋ͜ǂ͡ʔàm̀k͜ǁṹṹ] = [ᵑǂˀàm̀ᵏʖṹṹ] 'to inadvertently bite a hard object'
Xhosa inxeba [íŋk͜ǁeːɓa] = [íŋᵏʖeːɓa] 'wound' (noun)
Zulu xoxa [k͜ǁɔːk͜ǁa] = [ᵏʖɔːᵏʖa] 'to converse'

References

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  1. ^ Kirshenbaum, Evan. "FAQ: Representing IPA Phonetics in ASCII (Appendix D)".
  2. ^ Afrika und Übersee. D. Reimer. 2005. pp. 93–94.