The are a family of Click Consonant s found as Phoneme s only in the Tuu Family , the language of Botswana , and the Damin ritual jargon of Australia , although they do occur as Allophone s of Labial-velar Consonant s in parts of West Africa .
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 but are not limited to:
- or ''voiceless velar bilabial click'' (may also be aspirated, ejective, affricated, ''etc.'')
- or ''voiced velar bilabial click'' (may also be breathy voiced, affricated, ''etc.'')
- or ''nasal velar bilabial click'' (may also be voiceless, aspirated, ''etc.'')
- or ''voiceless uvular bilabial click''
- or ''voiced uvular bilabial click'' (commonly prenasalized)
- or ''nasal uvular bilabial click''
Damin also had an egressive bilabial , the world's only attested egressive click.
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. In the case of the bilabial clicks, the release is slightly noisy, like an Affricate , rather than sharp like a Plosive . The rear closure may be a plosive, nasal, ejective, or affricate, and have any of several Phonation s.
- The forward Place Of Articulation is Bilabial , which means it is articulated with both Lip s. (The labial ariculation is like that of a {Link without Title} , not of a kiss, which is ''labialized.'') 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 Consonant s, 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 Lung s. (One of the two labial clicks in Damin is ''egressive,'' which means the air spurts out between the lips under the pressure of the tongue.)
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.
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