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]
Features
Features of the tenuis palatal click:
The airstream mechanism is lingual ingressive (also known as velaric ingressive), which means a pocket of air trapped between two closures is rarefied by a "sucking" action of the tongue, rather than being moved by the glottis or the lungs/diaphragm. The release of the forward closure produces the "click" sound. Voiced and nasal clicks have a simultaneous pulmonic egressive airstream.
Its phonation is voiceless, unaspirated, and unglottalized, which means it is produced without vibration or constriction of the vocal cords, and any following vowel starts without significant delay.
It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
Occurrence
Tenuis palatal clicks are only found in the various Khoisan language families of southern Africa and in the neighboring Yeyi language.
