Retroflex Clicks
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Retroflex Clicks
The retroflex clicks are a family of click consonants known only from the Central !Kung dialects of Namibia. They are sub-apical retroflex and should not be confused with the more widespread postalveolar clicks, which are sometimes mistakenly called "retroflex" (for example in Unicode) due to their concave tongue shape. There is no official symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the forward articulation of these sounds, and the expected symbol is rarely seen. In the literature they are typically written with the ''ad hoc'' digraph , the convention since Doke identified them as retroflex in 1926. (Doke's proposed symbol, , did not catch on, nor did Vedder's and Anders' . For a while Amanda Miller, who noted a lateral fricated release (as had Vedder), transcribed them .) The Damin ritual jargon of Australia may have had a voiced nasal click, transcribed by Hale & Nash as , though it's not known if it was phonemically distinct. However, Damin presumably ...
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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!'' (American spelling) used to express disapproval or pity, the '' tchick!'' used to spur on a horse, and the '' clip-clop!'' sound children make with their tongue to imitate a horse trotting. Anatomically, clicks are obstruents articulated with two closures (points of contact) in the mouth, one forward and one at the back. The enclosed pocket of air is rarefied by a sucking action of the tongue (in technical terminology, clicks have a lingual ingressive airstream mechanism). The forward closure is then released,This is the case for all clicks used as consonants in words. Paralinguistically, however, there are other methods of making clicks: ''under'' the tongue or as above but by releasing the rear occlusion first. See #Places of articul ...
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Retroflex Nasal Click
The retroflex nasal click is a rare click consonant. There is no symbol for it in the International Phonetic Alphabet. The Beach convention is , and this is used in practical orthography. Features Features of the retroflex nasal click: Occurrence Retroflex nasal clicks are only attested from two languages, Central !Kung and Damin. Glottalized alveolar nasal click All Khoisan 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), v ... so that the click is pronounced in silence; however, any preceding vowel will be nasalized. References {{IPA navigation Nasal consonants Palatal consonants Click consonants Central consonants Voiced consonants ...
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Fricated Palatal Click
The palatal or palato-alveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found, as components of words, only in southern Africa. The tongue is nearly flat, and is pulled back rather than down as in the postalveolar clicks, making a sharper sound than those consonants. ('Sharper' meaning that the energy is concentrated at higher frequencies.) The tongue makes an extremely broad contact across the roof of the mouth, making correlation with the places of articulation of non-clicks difficult, but Ladefoged & Traill (1984:18) find that the primary place of articulation is the palate, and say that "there is no doubt that should be described as a palatal sound". The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the place of articulation of these sounds is , a double-barred vertical bar. An older variant, the double-barred esh, (⨎), is sometimes seen. This base letter is combined with a second element to indicate the manner of articulation, though that is commonly omi ...
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Domed Palatal Click
The palatal or palato-alveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found, as components of words, only in southern Africa. The tongue is nearly flat, and is pulled back rather than down as in the postalveolar clicks, making a sharper sound than those consonants. ('Sharper' meaning that the energy is concentrated at higher frequencies.) The tongue makes an extremely broad contact across the roof of the mouth, making correlation with the places of articulation of non-clicks difficult, but Ladefoged & Traill (1984:18) find that the primary place of articulation is the palate, and say that "there is no doubt that should be described as a palatal sound". The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the place of articulation of these sounds is , a double-barred vertical bar. An older variant, the double-barred esh, (⨎), is sometimes seen. This base letter is combined with a second element to indicate the manner of articulation, though that is commonly omi ...
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Grootfontein !Kung
Central ǃKung (Central ǃXun), or Central Ju, is a language of the ǃKung dialect cluster, spoken in a small area of northern Namibia: Neitsas, in Grootfontein district, and Gaub, in Tsumeb district. It is frequently reported as Grootfontein ǃXuun, as most work has been done in Grootfontein. An identifying feature of Central ǃKung is a fifth series of clicks that are often retroflex. While Northern (Northwestern) and Southern (Southeastern) ǃKung are not mutually intelligible, it is not yet clear to what extent Central ǃKung is intermediate between them or intelligible with either. Dialects Two dialects are identified as being Central ǃKung based on grammatical features: :(C1) Gaub (Tsumeb district, N Namibia) :(C2) Neitsas (Grootfontein district, N Namibia) In addition, the ǃKung dialects of Tsintsabis, Leeunes and Mangetti (different from Mangetti Dune) have retroflex clicks and so may belong here, though no grammatical information is available to classify them. In G ...
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Manner Of Articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the manner of articulation is the configuration and interaction of the articulators ( speech organs such as the tongue, lips, and palate) when making a speech sound. One parameter of manner is ''stricture,'' that is, how closely the speech organs approach one another. Others include those involved in the r-like sounds ( taps and trills), and the sibilancy of fricatives. The concept of manner is mainly used in the discussion of consonants, although the movement of the articulators will also greatly alter the resonant properties of the vocal tract, thereby changing the formant structure of speech sounds that is crucial for the identification of vowels. For consonants, the place of articulation and the degree of phonation of voicing are considered separately from manner, as being independent parameters. Homorganic consonants, which have the same place of articulation, may have different manners of articulation. Often nasality and laterality are i ...
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Subapical
A subapical consonant is a consonant made by contact with the underside of the tip of the tongue. The only common subapical articulations are in the postalveolar to palatal region, which are called "retroflex". Most so-called retroflex consonants are more properly called apical. True subapical retroflexes are found in the Dravidian languages of Southern India. Occasionally, the term "sublaminal" is used for "subapical", which might be better used for sounds pronounced between the underside of the tongue and the floor of the mouth, such as sucking-teeth and the slapped click The alveolar or postalveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found only in Africa and in the Damin ritual jargon of Australia. The tongue is more or less concave (depending on the language), and is pulled down rather than back as in ...s of Sandawe. References * Peter Ladefoged; Ian Maddieson. ''The Sounds of the World's Languages.'' Oxford: Blackwell 1996. . * Sanford B. Steever (ed.). ''The D ...
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Tongue Shape
In linguistics, specifically articulatory phonetics, tongue shape describes the shape that the tongue assumes when it makes a sound. Because the sibilant sounds have such a high perceptual prominence, tongue shape is particularly important; small changes in tongue shape are easily audible and can be used to produce different speech sounds, even within a given language. For non-sibilant sounds, the relevant variations in tongue shape can be adequately described by the concept of secondary articulation, in particular palatalization (raising of the middle of the tongue), velarization (raising of the back of the tongue) and pharyngealization (retracting of the root of the tongue). Usually, only one secondary articulation can occur for a given sound. In addition, the acoustic quality of velarization and pharyngealization is very similar so no language contrasts the two. Shape distinctions The following varieties of tongue shapes are defined for sibilants, from sharpest and highest-p ...
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Post-alveolar
Postalveolar or post-alveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the ''back'' of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate, the place of articulation for palatal consonants. Examples of postalveolar consonants are the English palato-alveolar consonants , as in the words "ship", "'chill", "vision", and "jump", respectively. There are many types of postalveolar sounds—especially among the sibilants. The three primary types are '' palato-alveolar'' (such as , weakly palatalized), ''alveolo-palatal'' (such as , strongly palatalized), and '' retroflex'' (such as , unpalatalized). The palato-alveolar and alveolo-palatal subtypes are commonly counted as "palatals" in phonology since they rarely contrast with true palatal consonants. Postalveolar sibilants For most sounds involving the tongue, the place of articulation can be suffi ...
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Glottalized Retroflex Nasal Click
The retroflex nasal click is a rare click consonant. There is no symbol for it in the International Phonetic Alphabet. The Beach convention is , and this is used in practical orthography. Features Features of the retroflex nasal click: Occurrence Retroflex nasal clicks are only attested from two languages, Central !Kung and Damin. Glottalized alveolar nasal click All Khoisan 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), v ... so that the click is pronounced in silence; however, any preceding vowel will be nasalized. References {{IPA navigation Nasal consonants Palatal consonants Click consonants Central consonants Voiced consonants ...
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Voiced Retroflex Click
The voiced retroflex click is a rare click consonant. There is no symbol for it in the International Phonetic Alphabet. The Beach A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc s ... convention is , and this symbol is used in practical orthography. Features Features of the voiced retroflex click: Occurrence The voiced retroflex click is only confirmed from a single language, Central !Kung. Notes {{IPA navigation Click consonants Retroflex consonants Central consonants Voiced oral consonants ...
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