Tenuis lateral click
# Tenuis lateral click

The 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 the 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 air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
* 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' |
| Xhosa | inxeba | [íŋk͜ǁeːɓa] = [íŋᵏʖeːɓa] | 'wound' (noun) |
| Zulu | xoxa | [k͜ǁɔːk͜ǁa] = [ᵏʖɔːᵏʖa] | 'to converse' |
