Editing Click consonant (section)

==Phonetics and IPA notation==
Click consonants occur at six principal places of articulation. The [[International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)]] provides five letters for these places (there is as yet no dedicated symbol for the sixth). 
* The easiest clicks for English speakers are the [[dental click]]s written with {{angbr IPA|ǀ}}. These are sharp (high-pitched) squeaky sounds made by sucking on the front teeth. A simple dental click is used in English to express pity or to shame someone, or to call a cat or other animal, and is written ''tut!'' in British English and ''tsk!'' in American English. In many cultures around the Mediterranean a simple dental click is used for "no" in answer to a direct question. They are written with the letter ''c'' in [[Zulu language|Zulu]] and [[Xhosa language|Xhosa]]. 
* Next most familiar to English speakers are the [[lateral click]]s, which are written with {{angbr IPA|ǁ}}. They are also squeaky sounds, though less sharp than {{IPA|[ǀ]}}, made by sucking on the molars on either side (or both sides) of the mouth. A simple lateral click is made in English to get a horse moving, and is conventionally written ''tchick!''. They are written with the letter ''x'' in Zulu and Xhosa. 
* Then there are the [[bilabial click]]s, written with {{angbr IPA|ʘ}}. These are lip-smacking sounds, but often without the pursing of the lips found in a kiss,  that occur in words in only a few languages.

The above clicks sound like [[affricate]]s, in that they involve a lot of friction. The next two families of clicks are more abrupt sounds that do not have this friction.
* With the [[alveolar click]]s, written with {{angbr IPA|ǃ}}, the tip of the tongue is pulled down abruptly and forcefully from the roof of the mouth, sometimes using a lot of jaw motion, and making a hollow ''pop!'' like a cork being pulled from an empty bottle. Something like these sounds may be used for a 'clip-clop' sound as noted above. These sounds can be quite loud. They are written with the letter ''q'' in Zulu and Xhosa. 
* The [[palatal click]]s, {{angbr IPA|ǂ}}, are made with a flat tongue that is pulled backward rather than downward, and are sharper cracking sounds than the {{IPA|[ǃ]}} clicks, like sharply snapped fingers. They are not found in Zulu but are very common in the San languages of southern Africa. 
* Finally, the [[retroflex click]]s are poorly known, being attested from only a single language, [[Central !Kung]]. The tongue is curled back in the mouth, and they are both fricative and hollow sounding, but descriptions of these sounds vary between sources. This may reflect dialect differences. They are perhaps most commonly written {{angbr IPA|‼}}, but that is an ''ad hoc'' transcription. The expected IPA letter is {{angbr IPA|𝼊}} ({{angbr IPA|ǃ}} with retroflex tail), and the IPA supported the addition of that letter to Unicode.
Technically, these IPA letters transcribe only the forward articulation of the click, not the entire consonant. As the ''Handbook'' states,<ref>IPA ''Handbook'', p. 10</ref> 
{{blockquote|Since any click involves a velar or uvular closure [as well], it is possible to symbolize factors such as voicelessness, voicing or nasality of the click by combining the click symbol with the appropriate velar or uvular symbol: {{IPA|[k͡ǂ ɡ͡ǂ ŋ͡ǂ]}}, {{IPA|[q͡ǃ]}}.<ref>Instead of a tie bar, a superscript velar or uvular letter is sometimes seen: {{angbr IPA|ᵏǂ ᶢǂ ᵑǂ 𐞥ǂ}} etc.</ref>}}
Thus technically {{IPA|[ǂ]}} is not a consonant, but only one part of the articulation of a consonant, and one may speak of "ǂ-clicks" to mean any of the various click consonants that share the {{IPA|[ǂ]}} place of articulation.<ref>This can be convenient, as different authorities call the ǂ-clicks different things, so while it is unambiguous to call them "ǂ-clicks", it can be confusing to refer to them with terms like 'palatal', 'palato-alveolar' or 'alveolar', all of which have been used for both the sharp, flat-sounding ǂ-clicks and for the hollow-sounding ǃ-clicks.</ref> In practice, however, the simple letter {{angbr IPA|ǂ}} has long been used as an abbreviation for {{IPA|[k͡ǂ]}}, and in that role it is sometimes seen combined with diacritics for voicing (e.g. {{angbr IPA|ǂ̬}} for {{IPA|[ɡ͡ǂ]}}), nasalization (e.g. {{angbr IPA|ǂ̃}} for {{IPA|[ŋ͡ǂ]}}), etc. These differing transcription conventions may reflect differing theoretical analyses of the nature of click consonants, or attempts to address common misunderstandings of clicks.