Voiced dental click

Main article: Dental click

A voiced dental click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for a voiced dental click with a velar rear articulation is ⟨ɡ͡ǀ⟩ or ⟨ɡ͜ǀ⟩, commonly abbreviated to ⟨ɡǀ⟩, ⟨ᶢǀ⟩ or ⟨ǀ̬⟩; a symbol abandoned by the IPA but still preferred by some linguists is ⟨ɡ͡ʇ⟩ or ⟨ɡ͜ʇ⟩, abbreviated ⟨ɡʇ⟩, ⟨ᶢʇ⟩ or ⟨ʇ̬⟩. For a click with a uvular rear articulation, the equivalents are ⟨ɢ͡ǀ, ɢ͜ǀ, ɢǀ, 𐞒ǀ⟩ and ⟨ɢ͡ʇ, ɢ͜ʇ, ɢʇ, 𐞒ʇ⟩. Sometimes the accompanying letter comes after the click letter, e.g. ⟨ǀɡ⟩ or ⟨ǀᶢ⟩; this may be a simple orthographic choice, or it may imply a difference in the relative timing of the releases.

Voiced dental click
ǀ̬   ʇ̬

Voiced dental velar click
ɡǀ   ɡʇ
ᶢǀ   ᶢʇ

Voiced dental uvular click
ɢǀ   ɢʇ
𐞒ǀ   𐞒ʇ

In languages which use the Bantu letters for clicks, this is most commonly written ⟨gc⟩, but it is written ⟨dc⟩ in those languages that use ⟨g⟩ for the uvular fricative.

Features

Features of a voiced dental 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 dental, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the upper teeth, termed respectively apical and laminal. Note that most stops and liquids described as dental are actually denti-alveolar.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• It is a median consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream down the midline of the tongue, rather than to the sides.

Occurrence

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

Language	Word	IPA	Meaning
Gciriku	Dciriku	[ɡ͜ǀiriku] = [ᶢʇiriku]	'Gciriku'
Sandawe	gcĩgcoo	[ɡ͜ǀĩ̌ːɡ͜ǀóː] = [ᶢʇĩ̌ːᶢʇóː]	(species of bird)
Yeyi	kugǀawa	[kuɡ͜ǀawa] = [kuᶢʇawa]	to 'cut grass'