The voiceless or more precisely tenuis palatal click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for a tenuis palatal click with a velar rear articulation is ⟨k͡ǂ⟩ or ⟨k͜ǂ⟩, commonly abbreviated to ⟨kǂ⟩, ⟨ᵏǂ⟩ or simply ⟨ǂ⟩. Linguists who prefer the old IPA letters use the analogous Beach convention[2] of ⟨k͡𝼋⟩ or ⟨k͜𝼋⟩, abbreviated ⟨k𝼋⟩, ⟨ᵏ𝼋⟩ or just ⟨𝼋⟩. For a click with a uvular rear articulation, the equivalents are ⟨q͡ǂ, q͜ǂ, qǂ, 𐞥ǂ⟩ and ⟨q͡𝼋, q͜𝼋, q𝼋, 𐞥𝼋⟩. Sometimes the accompanying letter comes after the click letter, e.g. ⟨ǂk⟩ or ⟨ǂᵏ⟩; this may be a simple orthographic choice, or may imply a difference in the relative timing of the releases.[3]
Tenuis palatal velar click | |
---|---|
k͡ǂ k͡𝼋 | |
ᵏǂ ᵏ𝼋 | |
ǂ 𝼋 | |
IPA Number | 179 |
Encoding | |
Entity (decimal) | ǂ |
Unicode (hex) | U+01C2 |
Braille |
Tenuis palatal uvular click | |
---|---|
q͡ǂ q͡𝼋 | |
𐞥ǂ 𐞥𝼋 |
Features of the tenuis palatal click:
Tenuis palatal clicks are only found in the various Khoisan language families of southern Africa and in the neighboring Yeyi language.
Language | Word | IPA | Meaning |
---|---|---|---|
ǂHaba | ǂHaba | [k͜ǂʰabá] = [ᵏ𝼋ʰabá] | 'ǂHaba' |
Khoekhoe | ǂgā-amǃnâ | [k͜ǂààʔám̀ŋ͜ǃã̀ã̀] = [ᵏ𝼋ààʔám̀ᵑʗã̀ã̀] | 'to put in the mouth' |
Naro | Qhomatcã (Qhomaçã) |
[k͜ǃʰomak͜ǂã] = [ᵏʗʰomaᵏ𝼋ã] | 'Qhomatca' |
Yeyi | shiǂa | [ʃik͜ǂa] = [ʃiᵏ𝼋a] | 'scarification' |