Lateral Clicks - Features

Features

Most lateral clicks are alveolar. However, the specific articulation may vary from language to language, from dental to alveolar, though no contrast between such articulations has been confirmed apart from the retroflex clicks, which may have lateral release.

Features of alveolar lateral clicks:

• The basic articulation may be voiced, nasal, aspirated, glottalized, etc.
• The forward place of articulation is apical alveolar, which means it is articulated with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge. The release is a noisy, affricate-like sound in southern Africa, but abrupt in Hadza and Sandawe in East Africa.
• Clicks may be oral or nasal, which means that the airflow is either restricted to the mouth, or passes through the nose as well.
• They are lateral consonants, which means they are produced by releasing the airstream at the side of the tongue, rather than in the middle. Some speakers pronounce them on one side of the mouth, some on both.
• The airstream mechanism is lingual ingressive (aka 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.

Regarding Khoekhoe, Tindall notes that European learners almost invariably pronounce these sounds as simple laterals, by placing the tongue against the side teeth, and that this articulation is "harsh and foreign to the native ear". The Namaqua instead cover the whole of the palate with the tongue, and produce the sound "as far back in the palate as possible".