| Tenuis labial click (velar) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| kʘ kɋ | |||
| ᵏʘ ᵏɋ | |||
| ʘ ɋ | |||
| IPA number | 176 | ||
| Audio sample | |||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity(decimal) | ʘ | ||
| Unicode(hex) | U+0298 | ||
| X-SAMPA | O\ | ||
| Braille |   | ||
| |||
| Voiced labial click (velar) | |
|---|---|
| ɡʘ ɡɋ | |
| ᶢʘ ᶢɋ | |
| ᵇʘ | |
| Encoding | |
| X-SAMPA | O\_t |
| Nasal labial click (velar) | |
|---|---|
| ŋʘ ŋɋ | |
| ᵑʘ ᵑɋ | |
| ᵐʘ | |
| Audio sample | |
| Encoding | |
| X-SAMPA | O\_~ |
| Tenuis labial click (uvular) | |
|---|---|
| qʘ qɋ | |
| 𐞥ʘ 𐞥ɋ |
| Voiced labial click (uvular) | |
|---|---|
| ɢʘ ɢɋ | |
| 𐞒ʘ 𐞒ɋ |
| Nasal labial click (uvular) | |
|---|---|
| ɴʘ ɴɋ | |
| ᶰʘ ᶰɋ |
Thebilabial clicks are a family ofclick consonants that sound like a smack of the lips. They are found asphonemes only in the smallTuu language family (currently two languages, one down to its last speaker), in theǂ’Amkoe language ofBotswana (also moribund), and in the extinctDamin ritual jargon ofAustralia. However, bilabial clicks are found paralinguistically for a kiss in various languages, including integrated into a greeting in theHadza language ofTanzania, and as allophones oflabial–velar stops in some West African languages (Ladefoged 1968), as of /mw/ in some of the languages neighboring Shona, such asNdau andTonga.
The symbol in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet that represents theplace of articulation of these sounds is ⟨ʘ⟩. This may be combined with a second letter to indicate themanner of articulation, though this is commonly omitted fortenuis clicks. An uncommon para-IPA letter for bilabial clicks is a turnedb with hook, ⟨ɋ ⟩.[1]
In official IPA transcription, the click letter is combined with a ⟨kɡŋqɢɴ⟩ via a tie bar, though ⟨k⟩ is frequently omitted. Many authors instead use a superscript ⟨kɡŋqɢɴ⟩ without the tie bar, again often neglecting the ⟨k⟩. Either letter, whether baseline or superscript, is usually placed before the click letter, but may come after when the release of the velar or uvular occlusion is audible. A third convention is the click letter with diacritics for voicelessness, voicing and nasalization; this does not distinguish velar from uvular labial clicks. Common labial clicks in these three transcriptions are:
| Trans. I | Trans. II | Trans. III | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| (velar) | |||
| ⟨k͜ʘ⟩ | ⟨ᵏʘ⟩ | ⟨ʘ⟩ | tenuis bilabial click |
| ⟨k͜ʘʰ⟩ | ⟨ᵏʘʰ⟩ | ⟨ʘʰ⟩ | aspirated bilabial click |
| ⟨ɡ͜ʘ⟩ | ⟨ᶢʘ⟩ | ⟨ʘ̬⟩ | voiced bilabial click |
| ⟨ŋ͜ʘ⟩ | ⟨ᵑʘ⟩ | ⟨ʘ̬̃⟩ | bilabial nasal click |
| ⟨ŋ͜ʘ̥ʰʰ⟩ | ⟨ᵑʘ̥ʰʰ⟩ | ⟨ʘ̥̃ʰʰ⟩ | aspirated bilabial nasal click |
| ⟨ŋ͜ʘˀ⟩ | ⟨ᵑʘˀ⟩ | ⟨ʘ̃ˀ⟩ | glottalized bilabial nasal click |
| (uvular) | |||
| ⟨q͜ʘ⟩ | ⟨𐞥ʘ⟩ | tenuis bilabial click | |
| ⟨q͜ʘʰ⟩ | ⟨𐞥ʘʰ⟩ | aspirated bilabial click | |
| ⟨ɢ͜ʘ⟩ | ⟨𐞒ʘ⟩ | voiced bilabial click | |
| ⟨ɴ͜ʘ⟩ | ⟨ᶰʘ⟩ | bilabial nasal click | |
| ⟨ɴ͜ʘ̥ʰʰ⟩ | ⟨ᶰʘ̥ʰʰ⟩ | aspirated bilabial nasal click | |
| ⟨ɴ͜ʘˀ⟩ | ⟨ᶰʘˀ⟩ | glottalized bilabial nasal click | |
The last is what is heard in the sound sample at right, as non-native speakers tend to glottalize clicks to avoid nasalizing them.
Damin also had an egressive bilabial[ʘ↑], which may be an egressive click (if it is notbuccal) and which is always followed by another consonant ([ɲ],[ŋ] or[pj]).[2]
Features of ingressive labial clicks:
The labial clicks are sometimes erroneously described as sounding like a kiss. However, they do not have the pursed lips of a kiss. Instead, the lips arecompressed, more like a[p] than a[w], and they sound more like a noisy smack of the lips than a kiss.
Thebullseye orbull's eye (ʘ) symbol used inphonetic transcription of the phoneme was made an official part of the International Phonetic Alphabet in 1979, but had existed for at least 50 years earlier. It is encoded inUnicode asU+0298 ʘLATIN LETTER BILABIAL CLICK.Thesuperscript IPA version isU+107B5 𐞵MODIFIER LETTER BILABIAL CLICK.[5]
Similar graphemes consisting of a circled dot encoded by Unicode are:
The para-IPA letter ⟨ɋ⟩ is covered byU+024B ɋLATIN SMALL LETTER Q WITH HOOK TAIL.
English does not have a labial click (or any click consonant, for that matter) as a phoneme, but a plain bilabial click does occur inmimesis, as a lip-smacking sound children use to imitate a fish.
Labial clicks only occur in theTuu andKx'a families of southern Africa, and in the Australian ritual languageDamin.
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| ǂʼAmkoe (ǂHoan) | ʘoa | 'two' | |
| Damin | mǃi | [ᵑʘi] =[ʘ̃i] | 'vegetable' |
| Taa (ǃXóõ) | ʘàa | 'child' | |
| Nǁng (Nǀuu) | ʘũu | 'son' | |
Labial clicks may have arisen historically fromlabialization of other places of articulation. Starostin (2003)[6] notes that the ǂ’Amkoe words for 'one' and 'two',/ʘ̃ũ/ and/ʘoa/, have labial clicks whereas no other Khoisan language has a labial consonant of any kind in its words for these numerals, and Starostin (2007)[7] and Sands reconstruct a series of labialized clicks inProto-Kxʼa, which became labial clicks in ǂ’Amkoe. In Hadza, the word for 'kiss',/ǀ̃ua/, becomes a mimetic/ǀ̃ʷa/ or/ʘ̃ʷa/ in greetings.[8]
