The alveolar nasal click is a
click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the
International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is or ; a symbol abandoned by the IPA but still preferred by some linguists is or .
Features
Features of the alveolar nasal click:
Occurrence
Alveolar nasal clicks are found primarily in the various
Khoisan
Khoisan , or (), according to the contemporary Khoekhoegowab orthography, is a catch-all term for those indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who do not speak one of the Bantu languages, combining the (formerly "Khoikhoi") and the or ( in ...
language families of southern Africa and in some neighboring
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages.
T ...
such as
Yeyi.
Glottalized alveolar nasal click
All
Khoisan languages
The Khoisan languages (; also Khoesan or Khoesaan) are a group of African languages originally classified together by Joseph Greenberg. Khoisan languages share click consonants and do not belong to other African language families. For much o ...
, and a few Bantu languages, have glottalized nasal clicks. These are formed by closing the
glottis
The glottis is the opening between the vocal folds (the rima glottidis). The glottis is crucial in producing vowels and voiced consonants.
Etymology
From Ancient Greek ''γλωττίς'' (glōttís), derived from ''γλῶττα'' (glôtta), ...
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