Tenuis lateral click

Main article: Lateral click

Tenuis lateral click
ǁ   ʖ
IPA number	180, 203
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ǁ​ʖ
Unicode (hex)	U+01C1 U+0296
Braille

Tenuis lateral velar click
kǁ   kʖ
ᵏǁ   ᵏʖ

Tenuis lateral uvular click
qǁ   qʖ
𐞥ǁ   𐞥ʖ

A voiceless or more precisely tenuis lateral click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for a tenuis lateral click with a velar rear articulation is ⟨k͡ǁ⟩ or ⟨k͜ǁ⟩, commonly abbreviated to ⟨kǁ⟩, ⟨ᵏǁ⟩ or just ⟨ǁ⟩; a symbol abandoned by the IPA but still preferred by some linguists is ⟨k͡ʖ⟩ or ⟨k͜ʖ⟩, abbreviated ⟨kʖ⟩, ⟨ᵏʖ⟩ or just ⟨ʖ⟩. For a click with a uvular rear articulation, the equivalents are ⟨q͡ǁ, q͜ǁ, qǁ, 𐞥ǁ⟩ and ⟨q͡ʖ, q͜ʖ, qʖ, 𐞥ʖ⟩. Sometimes the accompanying letter comes after the click letter, e.g. ⟨ǁk⟩ or ⟨ǁᵏ⟩; this may be a simple orthographic choice, or it may imply a difference in the relative timing of the releases.

Features

Features of a tenuis lateral 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 that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.

* It is a lateral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream over the sides of the tongue, rather than down the middle.

Occurrence

Tenuis lateral clicks are found primarily in the various Khoisan language families of southern Africa and in some neighboring Bantu languages.

Language	Word	IPA	Meaning
Hadza	exekeke	[ʔek͜ǁekeke] = [ʔeᵏʖekeke]	'to listen'
Khoekhoe	ǂamǁgû	[ŋ͜ǂ͡ʔàm̀k͜ǁṹṹ] = [ᵑǂˀàm̀ᵏʖṹṹ]	'to inadvertently bite a hard object'
Zulu	xoxa	[q͜ǁɔːq͜ǁa] = [𐞥ʖɔː𐞥ʖa]	'to converse'