The alveolar nasal click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa.
The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for a nasal alveolar click with a velar rear articulation is ⟨ŋ͡ǃ⟩ or ⟨ŋ͜ǃ⟩, commonly abbreviated to ⟨ŋǃ⟩, ⟨ᵑǃ⟩ or ⟨ǃ̃⟩; a symbol abandoned by the IPA but still preferred by some linguists is ⟨ŋ͡ʗ⟩ or ⟨ŋ͜ʗ⟩, abbreviated ⟨ŋʗ⟩, ⟨ᵑʗ⟩ or ⟨ʗ̃⟩. For a click with a uvular rear articulation, the equivalents are ⟨ɴ͡ǃ, ɴ͜ǃ, ɴǃ, ᶰǃ⟩ and ⟨ɴ͡ʗ, ɴ͜ʗ, ɴʗ, ᶰʗ⟩. Sometimes the accompanying letter comes after the click letter, e.g. ⟨ǃŋ⟩ or ⟨ǃᵑ⟩; this may be a simple orthographic choice, or it may imply a difference in the relative timing of the releases.
Nasal alveolar velar click | |
---|---|
ŋ͡ǃ ŋ͡ʗ | |
ᵑǃ ᵑʗ | |
ǃ̃ ʗ̃ |
Nasal alveolar uvular click | |
---|---|
ɴ͡ǃ ɴ͡ʗ | |
ᶰǃ ᶰʗ |
Features of the alveolar nasal click:
Alveolar nasal clicks are found primarily in the various Khoisan language families of southern Africa and in some neighboring Bantu languages such as Yeyi.
Language | Word | IPA | Meaning |
---|---|---|---|
ǃKung | nǃan | [ᵑǃáŋ] = [ᵑʗáŋ] | 'inside' |
Damin | n!2u | [ᵑǃᵑǃu] = [ᵑʗᵑʗu] | 'water' |
Hadza | henqee | [ɦeŋᵑǃeʔe] = [ɦeŋᵑʗeʔe] | 'dead leopard' |
Khoekhoe | xuruǃomǃnâ | [xȕɾúᵑǃˀóm̀ᵑǃã̀ã̀] = [xȕɾúᵑʗˀóm̀ᵑʗã̀ã̀] | 'to yank at something' |
Zulu | inqola | [iᵑǃɔ́ːla] = [iᵑʗɔ́ːla] | 'cart' |
Glottalized alveolar nasal click | |
---|---|
ǃ̃ˀ | |
ᵑǃ͡ʔ ᵑ̊ǃˀ | |
ʗ̃͡ʔ | |
ᵑʗˀ |
All Khoisan languages, and a few Bantu languages, have glottalized nasal clicks. These are formed by closing the glottis so that the click is pronounced in silence; however, any preceding vowel will be nasalized.
Language | Word | IPA | Meaning |
---|---|---|---|
Hadza | teqqe | [teᵑǃˀe] = [teᵑʗˀe] | 'to carry' |
Khoekhoe | xuruǃomǃnâ | [xȕɾúᵑǃˀóm̀ᵑǃã̀ã̀] = [xȕɾúᵑʗˀóm̀ᵑʗã̀ã̀] | 'to yank at something' |
Xhosa | ukuqhankqalaza | [ukʼuᵏǃʰaᵑǃˀalaza] = [ukʼuᵏʗʰaᵑʗˀalaza] | 'to struggle' |
This article uses material from the Wikipedia English article Nasal alveolar click, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license ("CC BY-SA 3.0"); additional terms may apply (view authors). Content is available under CC BY-SA 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
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