Lateral click

Tenuis lateral click
(velar)
k͜ǁ
ᵏǁ
ǁ
k͜ʖ ᵏʖ
IPA Number180
Audio sample
Encoding
Entity (decimal)ǁ​ʖ
Unicode (hex)U+01C1 U+0296
X-SAMPA|\|\
Braille⠯ (braille pattern dots-12346)⠇ (braille pattern dots-123)
Voiced lateral click
(velar)
ɡ͡ǁ
ᶢǁ
ɡ͡ʖ ᶢʖ
Nasal lateral click
(velar)
ŋ͡ǁ
ᵑǁ
ŋ͡ʖ ᵑʖ
Tenuis lateral click
(uvular)
q͡ǁ
𐞥ǁ
q͡ʖ 𐞥ʖ
Voiced lateral click
(uvular)
ɢ͡ǁ
𐞒ǁ
ɢ͡ʖ 𐞒ʖ
Nasal lateral click
(uvular)
ɴ͡ǁ
ᶰǁ
ɴ͡ʖ ᶰʖ

The lateral clicks are a family of click consonants found only in African languages. The clicking sound used by equestrians to urge on their horses is a lateral click, although it is not a speech sound in that context. Lateral clicks are found throughout southern Africa, for example in Zulu, and in some languages in Tanzania and Namibia. The place of articulation is not known to be contrastive in any language, and typically varies from alveolar to palatal.

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents a generic lateral click is ⟨ǁ⟩, a double vertical bar. Prior to 1989, ⟨ʖ[1] was the IPA letter for the lateral clicks, and this is still preferred by some phoneticians, as the vertical bar may be confounded with prosody marks and, in some fonts, with a double lowercase L. Either letter may be combined with a second letter to indicate the manner of articulation, though this is commonly omitted for tenuis clicks with a velar rear articulation.

In official IPA transcription, the click letter is combined with a ⟨k ɡ ŋ q ɢ ɴ⟩ via a tie bar, though ⟨k⟩ is frequently omitted. Many authors instead use a superscript ⟨k ɡ ŋ q ɢ ɴ⟩ without the tie bar, again often neglecting the ⟨k⟩. Either letter, whether baseline or superscript, is usually placed before the click letter, but may come after when the release of the velar or uvular occlusion is audible. A third convention is the click letter with diacritics for voicelessness, voicing and nasalization; it does not distinguish velar from uvular lateral clicks. Common lateral clicks are:

Trans. I Trans. II Trans. III Description
(velar)
k͜ǁ ᵏǁ ǁ tenuis lateral click
k͜ǁʰ ᵏǁʰ ǁʰ aspirated lateral click
ɡ͜ǁ ᶢǁ ǁ̬ voiced lateral click
ŋ͜ǁ ᵑǁ ǁ̬̃ lateral nasal click
ŋ͜ǁ̥ʰʰ ᵑǁ̥ʰʰ ǁ̥̃ʰʰ aspirated lateral nasal click
ŋ͜ǁˀ ᵑǁˀ ǁ̃ˀ glottalized lateral nasal click
(uvular)
q͜ǁ 𐞥ǁ tenuis lateral click
q͜ǁʰ 𐞥ǁʰ aspirated lateral click
ɢ͜ǁ 𐞒ǁ voiced lateral click
ɴ͜ǁ ᶰǁ lateral nasal click
ɴ͜ǁ̥ʰʰ ᶰǁ̥ʰʰ aspirated lateral nasal click
ɴ͜ǁˀ ᶰǁˀ glottalized lateral nasal click

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

In the orthographies of individual languages, the letters and digraphs for lateral clicks may be based on either the vertical bar symbol of the IPA, ⟨ǁ⟩, or on the Latin ⟨x⟩ of Bantu convention. Nama and most Saan languages use the former; Naro, Sandawe, and Zulu use the latter.

  1. ^ Styled as either a digit ⟨5⟩ with the top removed, or an inverted glottal stop ⟨ʔ⟩. It perhaps derives from a cedilla written the size of a full letter.