The voiceless or more precisely tenuis palatal 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 tenuis palatal click with a velar rear articulation is or , commonly abbreviated to , or simply . Linguists who prefer the old IPA letters use the analogous Beach convention of or , abbreviated , or just . 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 may imply a difference in the relative timing of the releases.

Features

Features of the tenuis palatal click:

Occurrence

Tenuis palatal clicks are only found 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 the neighboring Yeyi language.

References

{{IPA navigation Click consonants Palatal consonants Oral consonants Central consonants Tenuis consonants