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The dental clicks are a family of click consonants found only in Africa and in the Damin ritual jargon of Australia. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the forward articulation of these sounds is . This must be combined with a symbol for the rear articulation to represent an actual speech sound. Attested dental clicks include:
Features Features of dental clicks: In English English does not have the dental click (or any click consonant, for that matter) as a phoneme, but there is an interjection, usually written tsk or tut (and often reduplicated tsk-tsk or tut-tut), used to express commiseration, disapproval, or irritation. Note, however, that while these words often represent a dental click and may be pronounced as such, they are also frequently pronounced as tisk or tut, and in such cases cannot be said to be dental clicks. In other languages The dental clicks are common in Khoisan languages and the neighboring Nguni languages (e.g. Zulu, Xhosa). Xhosa language|Xhosa and Zulu language|Zulu In the Nguni languages, the tenuis click is denoted by the letter c, the murmured click by gc, the aspirated click by ch, and the nasal click by nc. The prenasalized clicks are written ngc and nkc. Dahalo language|Dahalo The Cushitic language Dahalo has four clicks, all of them nasalized: See also | |||||||||||||||||||
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