click letter
{{Short description|Letter representing a click sound}}
file:Nama man giving us a lesson in the click language (3694165852).jpg giving a literacy lesson in Khoekhoegowab that includes click letters]]
{{IPA notice}}
Various letters have been used to write the click consonants of southern Africa. The precursors of the current IPA letters, ⟨ǀ⟩ ⟨ǁ⟩ ⟨ǃ⟩ ⟨ǂ⟩, were created by Karl Richard Lepsius{{cite book|first=C. R.|last=Lepsius|year=1855|title=Das allgemeine linguistische Alphabet: Grundsätze der Übertragung fremder Schriftsysteme und bisher noch ungeschriebener Sprachen in europäische Buchstaben|location=Berlin|publisher=Verlag von Wilhelm Hertz}}{{cite book|first=C. R.|last=Lepsius|year=1863|title=Standard Alphabet for Reducing Unwritten Languages and Foreign Graphic Systems to a Uniform Orthography in European Letters|edition=2nd|location=London/Berlin}} and used by Wilhelm Bleek{{cite book|last=Bleek|first=Wilhelm|title=A Comparative Grammar of South African Languages|location=London|publisher=Trübner & Co.|volume=(1862: Part I; 1869: Part II)}} and Lucy Lloyd, who added {{angbr IPA|ʘ}}.
Also influential were Daniel Jones, who created the letters ⟨ʇ⟩ ⟨ʖ⟩ ⟨ʗ⟩ ⟨ʞ⟩ that were promoted by the IPA from 1921 to 1989, and were used by Clement Doke{{cite journal|first=Clement M.|last=Doke|year=1925|title=An outline of the phonetics of the language of the ʗhũ̬꞉ Bushman of the North-West Kalahari|journal=Bantu Studies|volume=2|pages=129–166|doi=10.1080/02561751.1923.9676181|url=https://archive.org/details/african-studies_1923-1926_2/page/129/mode/1up}}{{cite book|first=Clement M.|last=Doke|orig-year=1926|year=1969|title=The phonetics of the Zulu language|location=Johannesburg|publisher=University of the Witwatersrand Press}} and Douglas Beach.{{cite book|first=Douglas Martyn|last=Beach|year=1938|title=The phonetics of the Hottentot language|publisher=W. Heffer & Sons|location=London}}
Individual languages have had various orthographies, usually based on either the Lepsius alphabet or on the Latin alphabet. They may change over time or between countries. Latin letters, such as ⟨c⟩ ⟨x⟩ ⟨q⟩ ⟨ç⟩, have case forms; the pipe letters ⟨ǀ⟩ ⟨ǁ⟩ ⟨ǃ⟩ ⟨ǂ⟩ do not.The original Lepsius pipe letters actually did have case forms. For example, {{harvtxt|Lepsius|1855|p=49}} wrote Amaxhosa and Xhosa as Amaııósa and 𝖨𝖨ósa.
Multiple systems
File:Lepsius_click_letters.png
File:Sundevall click letters (italic).png in 1855 (right column), along with the corresponding Lepsius letters (center).]]
By the early 19th century, the otherwise unneeded letters ⟨c⟩ ⟨x⟩ ⟨q⟩ were used as the basis for writing clicks in Zulu by British and German missions. However, for general linguistic transcription this was confusing, as each of these letters had other uses. There were various ad hoc attempts to create letters—often iconic symbols—for click consonants, with the most successful being those of the Standard Alphabet by Lepsius, which were based on a single symbol (pipe, double pipe, pipe-acute, pipe-sub-dot) and from which the modern Khoekhoe letters ⟨ǀ⟩ ⟨ǁ⟩ ⟨ǃ⟩ ⟨ǂ⟩ descend.
File:Doke_ʗhũ_clicks.png). Note that "alveolar" (2nd column) corresponds to modern palatal {{IPA|[ǂ]}}. The letters in the first, third and fifth columns had earlier been used for Zulu. The voiced dental click has the letter {{angbr IPA|ɣ}} that would later be used by the IPA for a voiced velar fricative.
Though not clear from this image, the descenders on the nasal clicks that bend to the right bear rings, while those that bend to the left are tails as in IPA {{IPA|ŋ}} and {{IPA|ɲ}}. That is, the nasal click letters are, respectively, n with a ring on the right leg, ŋ with a ring on the left leg, n with a ring on the left leg, ɲ with a ring on the right leg, and n with rings on both legs, or, in the order of the main table, 20px20px20px20px20px20px.]]
During the First World War, Daniel Jones created the equivalent letters ⟨ʇ⟩ ⟨ʖ⟩ ⟨ʗ⟩ ⟨ʞ⟩ in response to a 1914 request to fill this gap in the IPA, and these were published in 1921 (see history of the International Phonetic Alphabet).{{cite book|last=Breckwoldt|first=G. H.|year=1972|chapter=A Critical Investigation of Click Symbolism|editor1-last=Rigault|editor1-first=André|editor2-last=Charbonneau|editor2-first=René|title=Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Phonetic Sciences|location=The Hague and Paris|publisher=Mouton|pages=285|doi=10.1515/9783110814750-017|isbn=9783110814750|url=https://archive.org/details/proceedingsactes0000inte/page/281/mode/1up}}
In 1875, if not earlier, Wilhelm Bleek used the letter {{angbr IPA|ʘ}} for bilabial clicks.{{Cite book |last=Bleek |first=W. H. I |url=https://archive.org/details/briefaccountofbu00blee |title=A brief account of Bushman folk-lore and other texts |publisher=Trübner & Co. |year=1875 |location=London}} It was also used 1911 by Lucy Lloyd.{{Cite book |last=Bleek |first=Wilhelm H. I. |title=Specimens of Bushman Folklore |last2=Lloyd |first2=L. C. |publisher=George Allen & Company |year=1911 |location=London}}
Clement Doke expanded on Jones' letters in 1923. Based on an empirically informed conception of the nature of click consonants, he analyzed voiced and nasal clicks as separate consonants, much as voiced plosives and nasals are considered separate consonants from voiceless plosives among the pulmonic consonants, and so added letters for voiced and nasal clicks. (Jones' palatal click letter was not used, however. Jones had called it "velar", and Doke called palatal clicks "alveolar".) Doke was the first to report retroflex clicks.
File:Beach Khoekhoe click letters.png
Douglas Beach would publish a somewhat similar system in his phonetic description of Khoekhoe. Because Khoekhoe had no voiced clicks, he only created new letters for the four nasal clicks. Again, he didn't use Jones' "velar" click letter, but created one of his own, {{angbr IPA|𝼋}}, based on the Lepsius letter {{angbr IPA|ǂ}} but graphically modified to better fit the design of the IPA.
The African reference alphabet proposal has apparently never been used, while the Linguasphere and Lingvarium transcriptions are typewriter substitutions specific to those institutions.Linguasphere found the Khoisanist/IPA letters to be impractical for sorting and with their database, and so substituted them with p', c', q', l', t'. These occur with the usual accompaniments, for sequences such as L'xegwi, Nc'hu, C'qwi, and Q'xung. Lingvarium did something similar for Cyrillic.
Besides the difference in letter shape (variations on a pipe for Lepsius, modifications of Latin letters for Jones), there was a conceptual difference between them and Doke or Beach: Lepsius used one letter as the base for all click consonants of the same place of articulation (called the 'influx'), and added a second letter or diacritic for the manner of articulation (called the 'efflux'), treating them as two distinct sounds (the click proper and its accompaniment),Lepsius explained his system as follows: {{blockquote|Essential to the [clicks] is the peculiarity of stopping in part, and even drawing back the breath, which appears to be most easily expressed by a simple bar 𝗅. If we connect with this our common marks for the cerebral [i.e. retroflex: the sub-dot] or the palatal [i.e. the acute accent], a peculiar notation is wanted only for the lateral, which is the strongest sound. We propose to express it by two bars 𝗅𝗅. As the gutturals [i.e. posterior articulations] evidently do not unite with the clicks into one sound, but form a compound sound, we may make them simply to follow, as with the diphthongs.
File:Lepsius click letters.png |Lepsius (1863:80–81)}} whereas Doke used a separate letter for each tenuis, voiced, and nasal click, treating each as a distinct consonant, following the example of the Latin alphabet, where the voiced and nasal occlusives also treated as distinct consonants (p b m, t d n, c j ñ, k g ŋ).
Doke's nasal-click letters were based on the letter {{angbr IPA|n}}, continuing the pattern of the pulmonic nasal consonants {{angbr IPA|m ɱ n ɲ ɳ ŋ ɴ}}. For example, the letters for the palatal and retroflex clicks are ⟨ŋ⟩ ⟨ɲ⟩ with a curl on their free leg: ⟨20px⟩ ⟨20px⟩. The voiced-click letters are more individuated, a couple were simply inverted versions of the tenuis-click letters. The tenuis–voiced pairs were dental {{angbr IPA|ʇ ɣ}} (the letter {{angbr IPA|ɣ}} had not yet been added to the IPA for the voiced velar fricative), alveolar {{angbr IPA|ʗ 𝒬}}, retroflex {{angbr IPA|ψ ⫛}},In Doke's publications there is no ascender on the middle stroke, as was common in sans-serif ('grotesk') fonts of the day, and as seen in modern Arial font. palatal {{angbr IPA|ↆ ꙟ}} (or {{angbr IPA|🡣 🡡}}) and lateral {{angbr IPA|ʖ ➿︎}}. A proposal to add Doke's letters to Unicode was not approved.{{cite web |author=Michael Everson |author-link=Michael Everson |publisher=ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2, Document N2790 |title=Proposal to add phonetic click characters to the UCS|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2004/04232-bantu-click.pdf |date=2004-06-10 |access-date=2013-10-07}}
File:ʖhapopen ʇʔoas.png|The Nama name ǁhapopen ǀoas (ʖhapopen ʇʔoas), from Beach's phonology.
File:Khoekhoe words ǂae ǂʔui.png|The Khoekhoe word ǂgaeǂui (𝼋ae-𝼋ʔui), illustrating Beach's distinctive form of the letter ǂ.
File:Khoekhoe ǁnau.png|The Khoekhoe word ǁnau (𝼎au), illustrating the curled tail Beach used to indicate nasal clicks.
Beach wrote on Khoekhoe and so had no need for letters for the voiced clicks; he created letters for nasal clicks by adding a curl to the bottom of the tenuis-click letters: {{angbr IPA|𝼌 𝼏 𝼍 𝼎}}.
Doke and Beach both wrote aspirated clicks with an h, {{angbr IPA|ʇh ʗh ʖh 𝼋h}}, and the glottalized nasal clicks as an oral click with a glottal stop, {{angbr IPA|ʇʔ ʗʔ ʖʔ 𝼋ʔ}}. Beach also wrote the affricate contour clicks with an x, {{angbr IPA|ʇx ʗx ʖx 𝼋x}}.
The only other script to have letters for clicks is Nko, which uses them for paralinguistic use.
Transcribing voicing, nasalization and the velar–uvular distinction
Doke had run "admirable" experiments establishing the nature of click consonants as unitary sounds. Nonetheless, Bleek in his highly influential work on Bushman languages rejected Doke's orthography on theoretical grounds, arguing that each of Doke's letters stood for two sounds, "a combination of the implosive sound with the sound made by the expulsion of the breath" (that is, influx plus efflux), and that it was impossible to write the clicks themselves in Doke's orthography, as "we cannot call [the implosive sounds] either unvoiced, voiced, or nasal."{{cite journal|author=D. F. Bleek|year=1923|title=Note on Bushman Orthography|journal=Bantu Studies|volume=2|issue=1|pages=71–74|doi=10.1080/02561751.1923.9676174}} Bleek therefore used digraphs based on the Lepsius letters, as Lepsius himself had done for the same reason. However, linguists have since come down on the side of Doke and take the two places of articulation to be inherent in the nature of clicks, because both are required to create a click: the 'influx' cannot exist without the 'efflux', so a symbol for an influx has only theoretical meaning just as a symbol like {{angbr IPA|D}} for 'alveolar consonant' does not indicate any actual consonant. Regardless, separate letters like Doke's and Beach's were never provided by the IPA, and today linguists continue to resort to digraphs or diacritics in a way that is not used for non-click consonants. (For example, no-one transcribes a alveolar nasal stop {{IPA|[n]}} as either {{angbr IPA|ⁿt}} or {{angbr IPA|t̃}}, analogous to the way one writes a dental nasal click as {{angbr IPA|ⁿǀ}} or {{angbr IPA|ǀ̃}}.)
Summarized below are the common means of representing voicing, nasalization and dorsal place of articulation, from Bleek's digraphs reflecting an analysis as co-articulated consonants, to those same letters written as superscripts to function as diacritics, reflecting an analysis as unitary consonants, to the combining diacritics for voicing and nasalization. Because the last option cannot indicate the posterior place of articulation, it does not distinguish velar from uvular clicks. The letter {{angbr IPA|Ʞ}} is used here as a wildcard for any click letter.
| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
! rowspan="2" | !! colspan="3" | Velar !! colspan="3" | Uvular | |||||
| Tenuis | Voiced | Nasal | Tenuis | Voiced | Nasal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coarticulation analysis
| {{IPA|k͜Ʞ}} || {{IPA|ɡ͜Ʞ}} || {{IPA|ŋ͜Ʞ}} || {{IPA|q͜Ʞ}} || {{IPA|ɢ͜Ʞ}} || {{IPA|ɴ͜Ʞ}} | |||||
| Superscript diacritics, unitary analysis
| {{IPA|ᵏꞰ}} || {{IPA|ᶢꞰ}} || {{IPA|ᵑꞰ}} || {{IPA|𐞥Ʞ}} || {{IPA|𐞒Ʞ}} || {{IPA|ᶰꞰ}} | |||||
| Combining diacritics, unitary analysis
| {{IPA|Ʞ}} || {{IPA|Ʞ̬}} || {{IPA|Ʞ̬̃}} || colspan="3" | (NA) |
A distinction may be made between {{angbr IPA|ᵏꞰ}} for an inaudible rear articulation, {{angbr IPA|Ʞᵏ}} for an audible one, and {{angbr IPA|Ʞ͜k}} for a notably delayed release of the rear articulation; for aspirated clicks these are {{angbr IPA|ᵏꞰʰ}}, {{angbr IPA|Ʞᵏʰ}}, {{angbr IPA|Ʞ͜kʰ}}.
{{wiktionary|◌᪶}}
In the older literature, voicing is commonly marked by a wavy diacritic under the click letter, thus: {{IPA|ʘ᪶ ǀ᪶ ǃ᪶ ǁ᪶ ǂ᪶ }}.
Historical orthographies
Written languages with clicks generally use an alphabet either based on the Lepsius alphabet, with multigraphs based on the pipe letters for clicks, or on the Zulu alphabet, with multigraphs based on c q x for clicks. In the latter case, there have been several conventions for the palatal clicks. Some languages have had more than one orthography over the years. For example, Khoekhoe has had at least the following, using dental clicks as an example:
| class="wikitable"
|+Khoekhoe orthographies |
| Modern
|ǀguis ||ǀa ||ǀham ||ǀnu |
|---|
| Beach (1938)
|ʇuis ||ʇʔa ||ʇham ||𝼍u |
| Tindall (1858)
|cguis|| ca|| cham|| cnu |
Historical roman orthographies have been based on the following sets of letters:
| class=wikitable
|+ Latin letters for tenuis clicks ! !!dental!!alveolar!!lateral!!palatal | |||
| align=center
|c | q | x | qcreported from a few words, not used in modern publication |
| align=center
! Khoekhoe (1858) |c | q | x | v |
| align=center
! Juǀʼhoan (1987–1994) |c | q | x | ç |
| align=center
! Naro (2001–present) |c | q | x | tca typewriter-friendly variant of the Juǀʼhoan convention of ç, which had initially been used for Naro as well. |
There are two principal conventions for writing the manners of articulation (the 'effluxes'), which are used with both the Lepsius and Zulu orthographies. One uses g for voicing and x for affricate clicks; the other uses d for voicing and g for affricate clicks. Both use n for nasal clicks, but these letters may come either before or after the base letter. For simplicity, these will be illustrated across various orthographies using the lateral clicks only.
| class=wikitable
|+ Conventions for click manners (illustrated on lateral clicks) ! colspan=2| !!tenuis!!voiced!!nasal!!glottalized!!aspirated!!affricated!!affricated | |||||||||
| align=center
! Zulu | > ca. 1850
|x | xgslack voiced | xn | xh | colspan=5| | ||||
| align=center
! rowspan=2| Khoekhoe | modern
|ǁg | rowspan=2| | ǁn | ǁ | rowspan=2| | ǁkh | rowspan=2| | ǁh | rowspan=2 colspan=2| |
| align=center
!1858 |xgand possible {{angbr|xk}}, which is conflated with xg in the modern language | xn | x | xkh | xh | |||||
| align=center
! Naro | > 2001
|x | dx | nx | xʼ | xh | xg | xgʼ | colspan=3| | |
| align=center
! rowspan=3| Juǀʼhoan !! modern |rowspan=2| ǁ | rowspan=2| gǁ | rowspan=2| nǁ | rowspan=2| ǁʼ | rowspan=2| ǁh | rowspan=2| ǁx, gǁx | ǁk, gǁk | rowspan=2| ǁʼh | rowspan=2| gǁh | nǁh |
| align=center
! 1975 | ǁxʼ, gǁxʼ | nǁʼh | ||||||||
| align=center
! 1987 | x | dx | nx | xʼ | xh | xg, dxg | xgʼ, dxgʼ | xʼh | dxh | nxh |
| align=center
! colspan=2| Hadza |x | nx | xx | xh | colspan=5| | |||||
| align=center
! colspan=2| Sandawe |x | gx | nx | xʼ | xh | colspan=5| |
Gallery
The following systems are presented in the same order: bilabial, dental ('c'), lateral ('x'), alveolar ('q'), palatal ('v') and retroflex ('‼'), with gaps for missing letters.
The Zulu click letters of the Norwegian mission:
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Qoppa.svg|{{center|c}}
Double qoppa.svg|{{center|x}}
Dotted double qoppa.svg|{{center|q}}
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Lepsius's click letters (lower case; upper case are taller):
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Lepsius dental click.svg|{{center|c}}
Lepsius lateral click.svg|{{center|x}}
Lepsius cerebral click.svg|{{center|q}}
Lepsius palatal click.svg|{{center|v}}
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Sundevall's click letters (lower case):
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Sundevall dental click.svg|{{center|c}}
Sundevall lateral click.svg|{{center|x}}
Sundevall cerebral click.svg|{{center|q}}
Sundevall palatal click.svg|{{center|v}}
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Sundevall's click letters (upper case):
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Unicode 0x03A8.svg|{{center|c}}
Sundevall lateral capital.svg|{{center|x}}
Sundevall cerebral capital.svg|{{center|q}}
Sundevall palatal capital.svg|{{center|v}}
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Jones's IPA letters:
Unicode 0x0020.svg
IPA Unicode 0x0287.svg|{{center|c}}
IPA Unicode 0x0296.svg|{{center|x}}
IPA Unicode 0x0297.svg|{{center|q}}
IPA Unicode 0x029E.svg|{{center|v}}
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Doke's letters for voiceless clicks:
Unicode 0x0020.svg
IPA Unicode 0x0287.svg|{{center|c}}
IPA Unicode 0x0296.svg|{{center|x}}
IPA Unicode 0x0297.svg|{{center|q}}
Doke palatal click.svg|{{center|v}}
Unicode 0x03C8.svg|{{center|‼}}
Doke's letters for voiced clicks:
Unicode 0x0020.svg
IPA Unicode 0x0263.svg|{{center|gc}}
Double gamma.svg|{{center|gx}}
Calligraphic Q.svg|{{center|gq}}
Doke palatal voiced click.svg|{{center|gv}}
Turned psi.svg|{{center|g‼}}
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Double loop.svg|{{center|gx (variant)}}
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Doke's letters for nasal clicks:
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Doke dental nasal click.svg|{{center|nc}}
Doke lateral nasal click.svg|{{center|nx}}
Doke alveolar nasal click.svg|{{center|nq}}
Doke palatal nasal click.svg|{{center|nv}}
Doke retroflex nasal click.svg|{{center|n‼}}
Beach's et al. letters for voiceless clicks:
Unicode 0x024B.svg
IPA Unicode 0x0287.svg|{{center|c}}
IPA Unicode 0x0296.svg|{{center|x}}
IPA Unicode 0x0297.svg|{{center|q}}
U+1DF0B.svg|{{center|v}}
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Beach's letters for nasal clicks:
Unicode 0x0020.svg
U+1DF0D.svg|{{center|nc}}
U+1DF0E.svg|{{center|nx}}
U+1DF0F.svg|{{center|nq}}
U+1DF0C.svg|{{center|nv}}
Unicode 0x0020.svg
Post-Kiel IPA (baseline, e.g. 1989):
IPA Unicode 0x0298.svg
IPA Unicode 0x01C0 alt.svg|{{center|c}}
IPA Unicode 0x01C1 alt.svg|{{center|x}}
IPA Unicode 0x01C3.svg|{{center|q}}
IPA Unicode 0x01C2 alt.svg|{{center|v}}
IPA Unicode 1xDF0A.svg|{{center|‼}}
Post-Kiel IPA (with descenders, e.g. 2020):
IPA Unicode 0x0298.svg
IPA Unicode 0x01C0.svg|{{center|c}}
IPA Unicode 0x01C1.svg|{{center|x}}
IPA Unicode 0x01C3.svg|{{center|q}}
IPA Unicode 0x01C2.svg|{{center|v}}
IPA Unicode 1xDF0A.svg|{{center|‼}}
Nko phonetic letters:
Nko bilabial click.svg
Nko dental click.svg|{{center|c}}
Nko lateral click.svg|{{center|x}}
Nko alveolar click.svg|{{center|q}}
Nko palatal click.svg|{{center|v}}