bilabial click

In official IPA transcription, the click letter is combined with a {{angbr IPA|k ɡ ŋ q ɢ ɴ}} via a tie bar, though {{angbr IPA|k}} is frequently omitted. Many authors instead use a superscript {{angbr IPA|k ɡ ŋ q ɢ ɴ}} without the tie bar, again often neglecting the {{angbr IPA|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:

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 {{IPA|[ʘ↑]}}, which may be an egressive click (if it is not buccal) and which is always followed by another consonant ({{IPA|[ɲ]}}, {{IPA|[ŋ]}} or {{IPA|[pj]}}).Hale, Ken and Nash, David. Damin and Lardil Phonotactics. Australian National University Open Research Repository. https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/253893/1/PL-C136.247.pdf

Features of ingressive labial clicks:

{{click manner}}

• The forward place of articulation is labial, which means it is articulated with the lips. The release is a noisy, affricate-like sound. Bilabial articulation, using both lips, is typical. Sometimes this may pass through a labio-dental stage as the click is released, making it noisier.Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996:251) In other cases, the lower lip may start out in contact with both the upper teeth and the upper lip.Miller, 2007, The Sounds of Nǀuu, pp 121ff

{{oral-nasal}}

{{central-lateral}}

{{lingual airstream}} (One of the two labial clicks in Damin is lingual egressive, which means that the trapped air pocket is compressed by the tongue until it is allowed to spurt out through the lips.)

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 are compressed, more like a {{IPA|[p]}} than a {{IPA|[w]}}, and they sound more like a noisy smack of the lips than a kiss.

The bullseye or bull's eye ({{IPA|ʘ}}) symbol used in phonetic 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 in Unicode as {{unichar|0298|LATIN LETTER BILABIAL CLICK}}.

The superscript IPA version is {{unichar|107B5|MODIFIER LETTER BILABIAL CLICK}}.{{Cite web|title=L2/20-252R: Unicode request for IPA modifier-letters (a), pulmonic|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20252r-mod-ipa-a.pdf|date=2020-11-08|first1=Kirk|last1=Miller|first2=Michael|last2=Ashby}}

Similar graphemes consisting of a circled dot encoded by Unicode are:

• Gothic 𐍈, hwair
• astronomical symbol ☉ "Sun"
• mathematical operators {{unichar|2299|circled dot operator|nlink=}} and {{unichar|2A00|N-ary circled dot operator}}
• geometrical symbol {{unichar|25c9|fisheye}}
• Cyrillic Ꙩ, ꙩ (monocular O)

The para-IPA letter {{angbr IPA|ɋ}} is covered by {{unichar|024B|LATIN SMALL LETTER Q WITH HOOK TAIL|html=}}.

English does not have a labial click (or any click consonant, for that matter) as a phoneme, but a plain bilabial click does occur in mimesis, as a lip-smacking sound children use to imitate a fish.

Labial clicks only occur in the Tuu and Kx'a families of southern Africa, and in the Australian ritual language Damin.

Labial clicks may have arisen historically from labialization of other places of articulation. Starostin (2003)George Starostin (2003) [http://starling.rinet.ru/Texts/khoilex.pdf A lexicostatistical approach towards reconstructing Proto-Khoisan], page 22. Mother Tongue, vol. VIII. notes that the ǂ’Amkoe words for 'one' and 'two', {{IPA|/ʘ̃ũ/}} and {{IPA|/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)George Starostin (2007) 'Лабиальные кликсы в койсанских языках' ('On labial clicks') and Sands reconstruct a series of labialized clicks in Proto-Kxʼa, which became labial clicks in ǂ’Amkoe. In Hadza, the word for 'kiss', {{IPA|/ǀ̃ua/}}, becomes a mimetic {{IPA|/ǀ̃ʷa/}} or {{IPA|/ʘ̃ʷa/}} in greetings.Anywire, Bala, Miller & Sands (2013) A Hadza Lexicon, ms.

• Alveolar click
• Dental click
• Lateral click
• Palatal click
• Retroflex click
• List of phonetics topics

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book |last=Pullum |first=Geoffrey K. |authorlink=Geoffrey K. Pullum |author2=Ladusaw, William A. |date=1996 |title=Phonetic Symbol Guide |publisher=University of Chicago Press |pages=132–133}}
• {{cite book |last=Ladefoged |first=Peter |authorlink=Peter Ladefoged |author2=Maddieson, Ian |date=1996 |title=The Sounds of the World's Languages |publisher=Blackwell Publishers |pages=246–280}}

{{wiktionary|ʘ}}

• {{phoible|ʘ}}

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Category:Bilabial consonants

Category:Phonetic transcription symbols

Category:Click consonants