Bilabial click
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The bilabial clicks are a family of click consonants found only in the Southern Khoisan family, the ‡Hõã language of Botswana, and the Damin ritual jargon of Australia.
The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the forward articulation of these sounds is . This must be combined with a symbol for the rear articulation to represent an actual speech sound. Attested bilabial clicks include . Damin also had an egressive , the only attested egressive click.
Features
Features of ingressive bilabial clicks:
- Their manner of articulation is click, which means they are produced with two articulatory closures in the oral cavity. The pocket of air trapped between the two closures is rarefied by a "sucking" action of the tongue. The release of the forward closure produces the 'click' sound.
- The forward place of articulation is bilabial, which means it is articulated with both lips. The rear place of articulation may be either velar or uvular.
- Bilabial 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, which means it is produced by movement of air into the mouth by action of the tongue, rather than by the glottis or the lungs.
The bilabial clicks are sometimes erroneously described as sounding like a kiss. However, they do not have the pursed lips of a kiss (that is, they're not labialized). Instead, they sound more like a smack of the lips.
The egressive click differs from the above in that the trapped air pocket is compressed by the tongue until it is allowed to escape through the forward articulation.
See also