Percussive consonant

Percussive consonants

Consonants may be pronounced without any airstream mechanism. These are a subset of percussive consonants, where sound is generated by one speech organ striking another. Purely percussive consonants – that is, those without any airstream mechanism – are not phonemic in any known language, though the extensions to the IPA for disordered speech provide symbols for a bilabial percussive[ʬ] (a smack of the lips), a bidental percussive[ʭ] (a gnashing or clashing of the teeth), and a sublaminal (sublingual) lower-alveolar percussive[¡] (a tongue slap). The only percussive confirmed to be used in normal speech is a tongue slap that appears allophonically in the release of alveolar clicks in the Sandawe language of Tanzania. (See Alveolar click § Percussive release and Palatal click § Percussive release.) There is also a speech register in Pirahã in which the tongue is released from a lateral flap [ɺ] to make a sublaminal strike of the lower lip [¡᫥]. (See labiolingual consonant.)