Re: THEORY: clicks

From: "Mike Ellis" <nihilsum@...>

> Joe wrote:
>
> >/q_</ sounds vaguely click-like.  However, it hurts to say it.
>
> The SAMPA chart I'm looking at gives _< as the symbol for "voiced
> implosive". I can pronounce q_> ("uvular ejective"), which I think would
> mean "start to make a q , let the pressure build up behind the uvula and
> then let it 'pop' out." The result is very click-like, but it tickles the
> gag reflex. The sound isn't too odd (it might appear in a few natlangs for
> all I know), but it could make alliterative poetry rather messy.
It does appear in some natlangs, including Georgian and Quechua, and other
languages of the Caucasus and Pacific Northwest. Something like it might be
in Klingon as well, or at least the affricate /qX/.

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