Dental click

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since August 2007 Reason: Occurrence section should conform to the agreed upon table format. See this link for the specific guidelines. .

IPA – number	177
IPA – text	ǀ
IPA – image
Entity	ǀ
X-SAMPA	|\
Kirshenbaum	t!
Sound sample (help·info)

The dental clicks are a family of click consonants found, as constituents of words, only in Africa and in the Damin ritual jargon of Australia.

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the forward articulation of these sounds is ǀ. This must be combined with a symbol for the rear articulation to represent an actual speech sound. Attested dental clicks include:

• [k͡ǀ] or [ǀ͡k] voiceless velar dental click (may also be aspirated, ejective, affricated, etc.)
• [ɡ͡ǀ] or [ǀ͡ɡ] voiced velar dental click (may also be breathy voiced, affricated, etc.)
• [ŋ͡ǀ] or [ǀ͡ŋ] nasal velar dental click (may also be voiceless, aspirated, etc.)
• [q͡ǀ] or [ǀ͡q] voiceless uvular dental click
• [ɢ͡ǀ] or [ǀ͡ɢ] voiceless uvular dental click (commonly prenasalized)
• [ɴ͡ǀ] or [ǀ͡ɴ] nasal uvular dental click
• [ǀ͡ʔ] glottalized dental click

The last is what is heard in the sound sample at right, as non-native speakers tend to glottalize clicks to avoid nasalizing them.

Prior to 1989, [ʇ] was the IPA representation of the voiceless velar dental click.

Contents 1 Features 2 In English 3 In other languages 4 References 5 See also

[edit] Features

Features of dental clicks:

• The manner of articulation is a noisy, affricate-like release.

The rear closure may be a voiced, nasal, ejective, or affricate, and have any of several phonations.

• The forward place of articulation is dental or alveolar and laminal, which means it is articulated with the blade of the tongue on the alveolar ridge or the upper teeth. The rear place of articulation may be either velar or uvular.
• Dental clicks may be either oral or nasal, which means air is allowed to escape either through the mouth or the nose.
• They are central consonants, which means they are produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is velaric ingressive (AKA lingual ingressive), which means the pocket of air trapped between the two closures is rarefied by a "sucking" action of the tongue, rather than by the glottis or the lungs. The release of the forward closure produces the 'click' sound.

[edit] In English

English does not have the dental click (or any click consonant, for that matter) as a phoneme, but it does occur as an interjection, usually written tsk or tut (and often reduplicated tsk-tsk or tut-tut), used to express commiseration, disapproval, or irritation. Note, however, that while these words often represent a dental click and may be pronounced as such, they are also frequently pronounced as /tɪsk/ or /tʌt/, and in such cases cannot be said to be dental clicks.

[edit] In other languages

Dental clicks are common in Khoisan languages and the neighboring Nguni languages, such as Zulu and Xhosa. In the Nguni languages, the tenuis click is denoted by the letter c, the murmured click by gc, the aspirated click by ch, and the nasal click by nc. The prenasalized clicks are written ngc and nkc.

The Cushitic language Dahalo has four clicks, all of them nasalized: [ŋ̊ǀ, ŋǀ, ŋ̊ǀʷ, ŋǀʷ].

Hungarian does not have any click consonant as a phoneme, but the dental click does occur as an interjection, usually written cöccögés [cœc:œge:ʃ], used to express commiseration, disapproval, or irritation. German uses the dental click in the exact same way as English, though it is usually rendered ts or tss in writing.

Among Persian-speakers, including speakers of Dari and Tajiki, the dental click is used to denote a negative response to a "yes or no"-type question. The dental click is usually accompanied by an upward motion of the head. This use of the dental click can be found in some neighboring regions of the Middle East and Central Asia as well.

[edit] References

• Pullum, Geoffrey K.; Ladusaw, William A. (1996). Phonetic Symbol Guide. University of Chicago Press, 178. 

[edit] See also

• List of phonetics topics

Consonants (List, table)	See also: IPA, Vowels
Pulmonics Bila​bial Labio​dental Den​tal Alve​olar Post-​alve​olar Retro​flex Pal​a​tal Ve​lar Uvu​lar Pha​ryn​geal Epi​glot​tal Glot​tal Non-pulmonics and other symbols Nasals m ɱ n̪ n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ Clicks  ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ Plosives p b p̪ b̪ t̪ d̪ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Implo­­sives  ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ ʛ Fricatives  ɸ β f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Ejec­­tives  pʼ tʼ kʼ qʼ sʼ Approximants  ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ Affricates  t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ t͡ɕ d͡ʑ t͡ʂ d͡ʐ t͡ɬ d͡ɮ p̪͡f Trills ʙ r • ʀ • Other laterals  ɺ • ɫ Flaps & Taps • ѵ ɾ ɽ • • Co-articulated fricatives  ɕ ʑ ɧ Lat. Fricatives ɬ ɮ • • • Co-articulated approximants  ʍ w ɥ Lat. Appr'mants l ɭ ʎ ʟ Co-articulated stops  k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m
This page contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help] Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged impossible.