Nasal bilabial click

The bilabial nasal click is a click consonant found in some of the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for a nasal bilabial click with a velar rear articulation is ⟨ŋ͡ʘ⟩ or ⟨ŋ͜ʘ⟩, commonly abbreviated to ⟨ŋʘ⟩, ⟨ᵑʘ⟩ or ⟨ʘ̃⟩. For a click with a uvular rear articulation, the equivalents are ⟨ɴ͡ʘ, ɴ͜ʘ, ɴʘ, ᶰʘ⟩. Sometimes the accompanying letter comes after the click letter, e.g. ⟨ʘŋ⟩ or ⟨ʘᵑ⟩; this may be a simple orthographic choice, or it may imply a difference in the relative timing of the releases.[1]

Nasal bilabial velar click
ŋ͡ʘ
ᵑʘ
ʘ̃
Audio sample
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Nasal bilabial uvular click
ɴ͡ʘ
ᶰʘ
Main articles: Bilabial click and nasal click

Features

Features of the bilabial nasal 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 place of articulation is bilabial, which means it is articulated with both lips.
  • Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
  • It is a nasal consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the nose, either exclusively (nasal stops) or in addition to through the mouth.

Occurrence

Bilabial nasal clicks only occur in the Tuu and Kx'a families of southern Africa, in the Australian ritual language Damin, and for /mw/ in some of the languages neighboring Shona, such as at least for some speakers of Ndau and Tonga.

LanguageWordIPAMeaning
Daminm!ii[ᵑʘiː]'vegetable'
Tongakumwa[kʼuᵑʘwa]'to drink'
Ndaumwana[ᵑʘwana]'child'

Glottalized bilabial nasal click
Glottalized
bilabial nasal click
ʘ̃ˀ
ʘ̃͜ʔ
ᵑʘˀ
ᵑ̊ʘˀ
Main article: Glottalized click

The Tuu and Kx'a languages also have glottalized nasal clicks. These are formed by closing the glottis so that the click is pronounced in silence; however, any preceding vowel will be nasalized.

LanguageWordIPAMeaning

Notes
  1. Afrika und Übersee. D. Reimer. 2005. pp. 93–94.
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