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Glottalized Dental Nasal Click
The dental nasal click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for a nasal dental click with a velar rear articulation is or , commonly abbreviated to , or ; a symbol abandoned by the IPA but still preferred by some linguists is or , abbreviated , or . For a click with a uvular rear articulation, the equivalents are and . Sometimes the accompanying letter comes after the click letter, e.g. or ; this may be a simple orthographic choice, or it may imply a difference in the relative timing of the releases. Features Features of the dental nasal click: Occurrence Dental nasal clicks are found primarily in the various Khoisan language families of southern Africa and in some neighboring Bantu languages, such as Yeyi and Fwe. Glottalized dental nasal click All Khoisan languages, and a few Bantu languages, have glottalized nasal clicks. These are formed by closing the glottis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Click Consonant
Click consonants, or clicks, are speech sounds that occur as consonants in many languages of Southern Africa and in three languages of East Africa. Examples familiar to English-speakers are the '' tut-tut'' (British spelling) or '' tsk! tsk!'' (American spelling) used to express disapproval or pity (IPA ), the '' tchick!'' used to spur on a horse (IPA ), and the '' clip-clop!'' sound children make with their tongue to imitate a horse trotting (IPA ). However, these paralinguistic sounds in English are not full click consonants, as they only involve the front of the tongue, without the release of the back of the tongue that is required for clicks to combine with vowels and form syllables. Anatomically, clicks are obstruents articulated with two closures (points of contact) in the mouth, one forward and one at the back. The enclosed pocket of air is rarefied by a sucking action of the tongue (in technical terminology, clicks have a lingual ingressive airstream mechanism). Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khoekhoe Language
Khoekhoe or Khoikhoi ( ; , ), also known by the ethnic terms Nama ( ; ''Namagowab''), Damara (''ǂNūkhoegowab''), or Nama/Damara and formerly as Hottentot, is the most widespread of the non- Bantu languages of Southern Africa that make heavy use of click consonants and therefore were formerly classified as Khoisan, a grouping now recognized as obsolete. It belongs to the Khoe language family, and is spoken in Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa primarily by three ethnic groups: Namakhoen, ǂNūkhoen, and Haiǁomkhoen. History The Haiǁom, who had spoken a Juu language, later shifted to Khoekhoe. The name for the speakers, '' Khoekhoen'', is from the word ''khoe'' "person", with reduplication and the suffix ''-n'' to indicate the general plural. Georg Friedrich Wreede was the first European to study the language, after arriving in ǁHui!gaeb (later Cape Town) in 1659. Status Khoekhoe is a national language in Namibia. In Namibia and South Africa, state-owned broadcas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Click Consonants
Click consonants, or clicks, are speech sounds that occur as consonants in many languages of Southern Africa and in three languages of East Africa. Examples familiar to English-speakers are the '' tut-tut'' (British spelling) or '' tsk! tsk!'' (American spelling) used to express disapproval or pity (IPA ), the '' tchick!'' used to spur on a horse (IPA ), and the '' clip-clop!'' sound children make with their tongue to imitate a horse trotting (IPA ). However, these paralinguistic sounds in English are not full click consonants, as they only involve the front of the tongue, without the release of the back of the tongue that is required for clicks to combine with vowels and form syllables. Anatomically, clicks are obstruents articulated with two closures (points of contact) in the mouth, one forward and one at the back. The enclosed pocket of air is rarefied by a sucking action of the tongue (in technical terminology, clicks have a lingual ingressive airstream mechanism). The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nasal Consonants
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majority of consonants are oral consonants. Examples of nasals in English are , and , in words such as ''nose'', ''bring'' and ''mouth''. Nasal occlusives are nearly universal in human languages. There are also other kinds of nasal consonants in some languages. Definition Nearly all nasal consonants are nasal occlusives, in which air escapes through the nose but not through the mouth, as it is blocked (occluded) by the lips or tongue. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound. Rarely, non-occlusive consonants may be nasalized. Most nasals are voiced, and in fact, the nasal sounds and are among the most common sounds cross-linguistically. Voiceless nasals occur in a few languages such as Burmese, Welsh, Icelandi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xhosa Language
Xhosa ( , ), formerly spelled ''Xosa'' and also known by its local name ''isiXhosa'', is a Bantu language, indigenous to Southern Africa and one of the official languages of South Africa and Zimbabwe. Xhosa is spoken as a first language by approximately 8 million people and as a second language in South Africa, particularly in Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Northern Cape and Gauteng, and also in parts of Zimbabwe and Lesotho. It has perhaps the heaviest functional load of click consonants in a Bantu language (approximately tied with Yeyi), with one count finding that 10% of basic vocabulary items contained a click. Classification Xhosa is part of the branch of Nguni languages, which also include Zulu, Southern Ndebele and Northern Ndebele, called the Zunda languages. Zunda languages effectively form a dialect continuum of variously mutually intelligible varieties. Xhosa is, to a large extent, mutually intelligible with Zulu and with other Nguni languages to a lesser e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naro Language
Naro , also Nharo, is a Khoe language spoken in Ghanzi District of Botswana and in eastern Namibia. It is one of the most-spoken of the Tshu–Khwe languages. Naro is a trade language among speakers of different Khoe languages in Ghanzi District. There exists a dictionary. Phonology Naro has the following consonant inventory (in the IPA) as described by Miller (2011), whereas the orthographic symbols were proposed by Visser (2001):Visser originally wrote the palatal clicks with a base of , but switched to to make the language more accessible from English-language typewriters and keyboards. The phonemes and (spelt ⟨kg⟩ and ⟨kgʼ⟩) only contrast for some speakers: ''kgʼám'' ‘mouth’ vs. ''kgʼáù'' ‘male’. The flap /ɾ/ only occurs word-medially except in loan words. The lateral /l/ is only found in loans, and is generally substituted by medially, and by initially. Medial and may be and ; they occur initially only in ''wèé'' ‘all, both’ and i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glottis
The glottis (: glottises or glottides) is the opening between the vocal folds (the rima glottidis). The glottis is crucial in producing sound from the vocal folds. Etymology From Ancient Greek ''γλωττίς'' (glōttís), derived from ''γλῶττα'' (glôtta), variant of ''γλῶσσα'' (glôssa, "tongue"). Function Phonation As the vocal folds vibrate, the resulting vibration produces a "buzzing" quality to the speech, called voice or voicing or pronunciation. Sound production that involves moving the vocal folds close together is called ''glottal''. English has a voiceless glottal transition spelled "h". This sound is produced by keeping the vocal folds spread somewhat, resulting in non-turbulent airflow through the glottis. In many accents of English the glottal stop (made by pressing the folds together) is used as a variant allophone of the phoneme (and in some dialects, occasionally of and ); in some languages, this sound is a phoneme of its own. Skilled p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zulu Language
Zulu ( ), or isiZulu as an endonym, is a Southern Bantu languages, Southern Bantu language of the Nguni languages, Nguni branch spoken in, and indigenous to, Southern Africa. Nguni dialects are regional or social varieties of the Nguni language, distinguished by vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, and other linguistic features. So, Zulu is one of the Nguni dialects which is spoken by the Zulu people, with about 13.56 million native speakers, who primarily inhabit the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. The word "KwaZulu-Natal" translates into English as "Home of the Zulu Nation is Natal". Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa (24% of the population), and it is understood by over 50% of its population. It became one of languages of South Africa, South Africa's 12 official languages in 1994. According to Ethnologue, it is the second-most widely spoken of the Bantu languages, after Swahili language, Swahili. Like many other Bantu languages, it is written ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hadza Language
Hadza is a language isolate spoken along the shores of Lake Eyasi in Tanzania by around 1,000 Hadza people, who include in their number the last full-time hunter-gatherers in Africa. It is one of only three languages in East Africa with click consonants. Despite the small number of speakers, language use is vigorous, with most children learning it, but UNESCO categorizes the language as vulnerable. Name The Hadza go by several names in the literature. ''Hadza'' itself means "human being." ''Hazabee'' is the plural, and ''Hazaphii'' means "they are men." ''Hatza'' and ''Hatsa'' are older German spellings. The language is sometimes distinguished as ''Hazane,'' "of the Hadza". ''Tindiga'' is from Swahili ''watindiga'' "people of the marsh grass" (from the large spring in Mangola) and ''kitindiga'' (their language). ''Kindiga'' is apparently a form of the same from one of the local Bantu languages, presumably Isanzu. ''Kangeju'' (pronounced ''Kangeyu'') is an obsolete German name ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation for the sounds of speech. The IPA is used by linguists, lexicography, lexicographers, foreign language students and teachers, speech–language pathology, speech–language pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators, and translators. The IPA is designed to represent those qualities of speech that are part of lexical item, lexical (and, to a limited extent, prosodic) sounds in oral language: phone (phonetics), phones, Intonation (linguistics), intonation and the separation of syllables. To represent additional qualities of speechsuch as tooth wikt:gnash, gnashing, lisping, and sounds made with a cleft lip and cleft palate, cleft palatean extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet, extended set of symbols may be used ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fwe Language
FV:final vowel The Fwe language, also known as Chifwe, is a Bantu language spoken by the Fwe people ( Mafwe or Bafwe) in Namibia and Zambia. It is closely related to the Subia language, Chisubia, and is one of several Bantu languages that feature click consonants. Classification Fwe is part of the Bantu language family, a sub-branch of the Niger-Congo family. Maho (2009) classifies it as K.402, sharing the K.40 category with Ikuhane and Totela. Bohoe (2009) classifies it as Bantu Botatwe, along with Toka, Leya, Ila, Tonga, Sala, Lenje, Lundwe, and Soli.Bostoen, Koen. 2009. "Shanjo and Fwe as part of Bantu Botatwe: a diachronic phonological approach". ''Selected proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of African Linguistics'' ed. by Akinloye Ojo & Lioba Moshi, 110-130. Somerville: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. Regional variation Main phonological differences between Zambian and Namibian Fwe, as noted by both the speakers and seen in the data: Morphologic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yeyi Language
Yeyi (autoethnonym ''Shiyɛyi'') is a Bantu language spoken by approximately 50,000 Yeyi people along the Okavango River in Namibia and Botswana. Yeyi, influenced by Juu languages, is one of several Bantu languages along the Okavango with clicks. It has the largest known inventory of clicks of any Bantu language, with dental, alveolar, palatal, and lateral articulations. Though most of its older speakers prefer Yeyi in normal conversation, it is being gradually phased out in Botswana by a popular move towards Tswana, with Yeyi only being learned by children in a few villages. Yeyi speakers in the Caprivi Strip of north-eastern Namibia, however, retain Yeyi in villages (including Linyanti), but may also speak the regional lingua franca, Lozi. The main dialect is called Shirwanga. A slight majority of Botswana Yeyi are monolingual in the national language, Tswana, and the majority of the rest are bilingual. Classification Yeyi appears to be a divergent lineage of Bantu. It is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
