The alveolar nasal click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa.[2]
The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for a nasal alveolar click with a velar rear articulation is ⟨ŋ͡ǃ⟩ or ⟨ŋ͜ǃ⟩, commonly abbreviated to ⟨ŋǃ⟩, ⟨ᵑǃ⟩ or ⟨ǃ̃⟩; a symbol abandoned by the IPA but still preferred by some linguists is ⟨ŋ͡ʗ⟩ or ⟨ŋ͜ʗ⟩, abbreviated ⟨ŋʗ⟩, ⟨ᵑʗ⟩ or ⟨ʗ̃⟩. For a click with a uvular rear articulation, the equivalents are ⟨ɴ͡ǃ, ɴ͜ǃ, ɴǃ, ᶰǃ⟩ and ⟨ɴ͡ʗ, ɴ͜ʗ, ɴʗ, ᶰʗ⟩.
Sometimes the accompanying letter comes after the click letter, e.g. ⟨ǃŋ⟩ or ⟨ǃᵑ⟩; this may be a simple orthographic choice, or it may imply a difference in the relative timing of the releases.[3]
The airstream mechanismislingual 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.
Alveolar nasal clicks are found primarily in the various Khoisan language families of southern Africa and in some neighboring Bantu languages such as Yeyi.[4]
All Khoisan languages, and a few Bantu languages, 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.
