Nasal palatal click
consonantal sound
A palatal nasal click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa.
The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for a nasal palatal click with a velar rear articulation is ⟨ŋ͡ǂ⟩ or ⟨ŋ͜ǂ⟩, commonly abbreviated to ⟨ŋǂ⟩, ⟨ᵑǂ⟩ or ⟨ǂ̃⟩. Linguists who prefer the old IPA letters use the analogous Beach convention of ⟨ŋ͡𝼋⟩ or ⟨ŋ͜𝼋⟩, abbreviated ⟨ŋ𝼋⟩, ⟨ᵑ𝼋⟩ or ⟨𝼋̃⟩. For a click with a uvular rear articulation, the equivalents are ⟨ɴ͡ǂ, ɴ͜ǂ, ɴǂ, ᶰǂ⟩ and ⟨ɴ͡𝼋, ɴ͜𝼋, ɴ𝼋, ᶰ𝼋⟩.
Sometimes the accompanying letter comes after the click letter, e.g. ⟨ǂŋ⟩ or ⟨ǂᵑ⟩; this may be a simple orthographic choice, or may imply a difference in the relative timing of the releases.
Features
Features of a palatal nasal 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 place of articulation is palatal, which means it is articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised to the hard palate.
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