Editing Click consonant (section)

== Use ==

===Spread of clicks from loanwords===
Once clicks are borrowed into a language as regular speech sounds, they may spread to native words, as has happened due to ''[[hlonipa]]'' word-taboo in the [[Nguni languages]]. In [[Gciriku language|Gciriku]], for example, the European loanword ''tomate'' (tomato) appears as ''cumáte'' with a click {{IPA|[ǀ]}}, though it begins with a ''t'' in all neighbouring languages. It has also been argued that click phonemes have been adopted into some languages through the process of [[Avoidance speech|''hlonipha'']], women refraining from saying certain words and sounds that were similar to the name of their husband, sometimes replacing local sounds by borrowing clicks from a nearby language.<ref>Gunnink, Hilde. "The adoption and proliferation of clicks in Bantu languages: the role of ''hlonipha'' revisited." ''South African Journal of African Languages'' 43, no. 3 (2023): 216–225.</ref>

=== Marginal usage of clicks ===
Scattered clicks are found in [[ideophone]]s and mimesis in other languages, such as [[Kongo language|Kongo]] {{IPA|/ᵑǃ/}}, [[Mijikenda language|Mijikenda]] {{IPA|/ᵑǀ/}} and Hadza {{IPA|/ᵑʘʷ/}} (Hadza does not otherwise have labial clicks). Ideophones often use phonemic distinctions not found in normal vocabulary.

English and many other languages may use bare click releases in [[interjection]]s, without an accompanying rear release or transition into a vowel, such as the dental "tsk-tsk" sound used to express disapproval, or the lateral ''tchick'' used with horses. In a number of languages ranging from the central Mediterranean to Iran,<ref>Including [[Armenian language|Armenian]], [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]], [[Greek language|Greek]], [[Levantine Arabic]], [[Maltese language|Maltese]], [[Persian language|Persian]], [[Romanian language|Romanian]], [[Sicilian language|Sicilian]], [[Catalan language|Catalan]], [[Turkish language|Turkish]], and occasionally in [[French language|French]].</ref> a bare dental click release accompanied by tipping the head upwards signifies "no". [[Libyan Arabic]] apparently has three such sounds.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Libyan Arabic language |url=https://www.omniglot.com/writing/arabic_libyan.htm |access-date=2024-11-14 |website=www.omniglot.com}}</ref> A voiceless nasal [[back-released velar click]] {{IPA|[ʞ]}} is used throughout Africa for [[backchannel (linguistics)|backchannel]]ing. This sound starts off as a typical click, but the action is reversed and it is the rear velar or uvular closure that is released, drawing in air from the throat and nasal passages.  

Lexical clicks occasionally turn up elsewhere. In [[West Africa]], clicks have been reported allophonically, and similarly in French and German, faint clicks have been recorded in rapid speech where consonants such as {{IPA|/t/}} and {{IPA|/k/}} overlap between words.<ref name="germ">{{cite conference|first1=Susanne|last1=Fuchs|first2=Laura|last2=Koenig|first3=Ralf|last3=Winkler|title=Weak clicks in German?|conference=Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences|pages=449–452|year=2007|location=Saarbrücken|url=http://www.icphs2007.de/conference/Papers/1678/1678.pdf|access-date=16 May 2011|archive-date=24 July 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724152822/http://www.icphs2007.de/conference/Papers/1678/1678.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> In [[Rwanda language|Rwanda]], the sequence {{IPA|/mŋ/}} may be pronounced either with an epenthetic vowel, {{IPA|[mᵊ̃ŋ]}}, or with a light bilabial click, {{IPA|[m𐞵̃ŋ]}}—often by the same speaker.

Speakers of [[Gan Chinese]] from [[Ningdu]] county, as well as speakers of Mandarin from Beijing and [[Jilin]] and presumably people from other parts of the country, produce flapped nasal clicks in nursery rhymes with varying degrees of competence, in the words for 'goose' and 'duck', both of which begin with {{IPA|/ŋ/}} in Gan and until recently began with {{IPA|/ŋ/}} in Mandarin as well. In Gan, the nursery rhyme is,
:{{IPA|[tʰien i tsʰak ᵑǃ¡o]}} 天上一隻鵝 'a goose in the sky'
:{{IPA|[ti ha i tsʰak ᵑǃ¡a]}} 地下一隻鴨 'a duck on the ground'
:{{IPA|[ᵑǃ¡o saŋ ᵑǃ¡o tʰan, ᵑǃ¡o pʰau ᵑǃ¡o]}} 鵝生鵝蛋鵝孵鵝 'a goose lays a goose egg, a goose hatches a goose'
:{{IPA|[ᵑǃ¡a saŋ ᵑǃ¡a tʰan, ᵑǃ¡a pʰau ᵑǃ¡a]}} 鴨生鴨蛋鴨孵鴨 'a duck lays a duck egg, a duck hatches a duck'
where the {{IPA|/ŋ/}} onsets are all pronounced {{IPA|[ᵑǃ¡]}}.<ref>Geoffrey Nathan, 'Clicks in a Chinese Nursery Rhyme', JIPA (2001) 31/2.</ref>

Occasionally other languages are claimed to have click sounds in general vocabulary. This is usually a misnomer for [[ejective consonant]]s, which are found across much of the world.

=== Position in word ===
{{See also|#Phonotactics}}
For the most part, the Southern African [[Khoisan languages]] only use [[root word|root]]-initial clicks.<ref group="note">Exceptions occurs in words borrowed from Bantu languages, which may have click in the middle.</ref> Hadza, Sandawe and several [[Bantu languages]] also allow [[syllable]]-initial clicks within roots. In no language does a click close a syllable or end a word, but since the languages of the world that happen to have clicks consist mostly of CV syllables and allow at most only a limited set of consonants (such as a nasal or a glottal stop) to close a syllable or end a word, ''most'' consonants share the distribution of clicks in these languages.

=== Number of click-types in languages ===
Most languages of the Khoesan families (Tuu, Kxʼa and Khoe) have four click types: {{IPA|{&thinsp;ǀ ǁ ǃ ǂ&thinsp;}}} or variants thereof, though a few have three or five, the last supplemented with either [[bilabial click|bilabial]] {{IPA|{&thinsp;ʘ&thinsp;}}} or [[retroflex click|retroflex]] {{IPA|{&thinsp;𝼊&thinsp;}}}. Hadza and Sandawe in Tanzania have three, {{IPA|{&thinsp;ǀ ǁ ǃ&thinsp;}}}. Yeyi is the only Bantu language with four, {{IPA|{&thinsp;ǀ ǁ ǃ ǂ&thinsp;}}}, while Xhosa and Zulu have three, {{IPA|{&thinsp;ǀ ǁ ǃ&thinsp;}}}, and most other Bantu languages with clicks have fewer.