The alveolar nasal click is a

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!' ...

found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the

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 a nasal alveolar click with a

velar Velar may refer to: * Velar consonant Velar consonants are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (also known as the "velum"). Since the velar region ...

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 Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be stops, fricatives, nasals, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not prov ...

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 alveolar nasal click:

Occurrence

Alveolar nasal clicks are found primarily in the various

Khoisan Khoisan ( ) or () is an Hypernymy and hyponymy, umbrella term for the various Indigenous peoples of Africa, indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who traditionally speak non-Bantu languages, combining the Khoekhoen and the San people, Sān peo ...

language families of southern Africa and in some neighboring

Bantu languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu language, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀), or Ntu languages are a language family of about 600 languages of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern, East Africa, Eastern and Southeast Africa, South ...

such as

Yeyi Yeyi may refer to: *Ye County, Henan, China, formerly known as Yeyi *Yeyi people *Yeyi language Yeyi (autoethnonym ''Shiyɛyi'') is a Bantu language spoken by approximately 50,000 Yeyi people along the Okavango River in Namibia and Botswana. Ye ...

Glottalized alveolar nasal click

All

Khoisan languages The Khoisan languages ( ; also Khoesan or Khoesaan) are a number of Languages of Africa, African languages once classified together, originally by Joseph Greenberg. Khoisan is defined as those languages that have click languages, click consonant ...

, and a few Bantu languages, have glottalized nasal clicks. These are formed by closing the

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 ''γ ...

so that the click is pronounced in silence; however, any preceding vowel will be nasalized.

References

{{IPA navigation Nasal consonants Click consonants Central consonants Voiced consonants