Retroflex click

The retroflex clicks are a family of click consonants known only from the Central ǃKung language or dialect of Namibia.^[1] They are sub-apical retroflex and should not be confused with the more widespread postalveolar clicks, which are sometimes mistakenly called "retroflex" (for example in Unicode) due to their concave tongue shape.

Tenuis retroflex click (velar)
k͜𝼊
ᵏ𝼊
𝼊
k͜‼ ᵏ‼
k͜ψ ᵏψ
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	𝼊
Unicode (hex)	U+1DF0A
Image

Voiced retroflex click (velar)
ɡ͡𝼊
ᶢ𝼊
ɡ͡ψ ᶢψ

Retroflex nasal click (velar)
ŋ͡𝼊
ᵑ𝼊
ŋ͡ψ ᵑψ

Tenuis retroflex click (uvular)
q͡𝼊
𐞥𝼊
q͡ψ 𐞥ψ

Voiced retroflex click (uvular)
ɢ͡𝼊
𐞒𝼊
ɢ͡ψ 𐞒ψ
ʶψ

Retroflex nasal click (uvular)
ɴ͡𝼊
ᶰ𝼊
ɴ͡ψ ᶰψ

The 'implicit' symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the forward articulation of these sounds is ⟨𝼊⟩.^[2][3] However, usage is rare. In the literature, retroflex clicks are typically written with the ad hoc digraph ⟨‼⟩, the convention since Doke identified them as retroflex in 1925. (Doke's proposed symbol, ⟨ψ⟩,^[4] did not catch on, though it has IPA support for historical transcription, nor did Vedder's and Anders' ⟨⦀⟩.^[5] For a while Amanda Miller, who noted a lateral fricated release (as had Vedder), transcribed them ⟨ǃ𐞷⟩.^[6])

Retroflex clicks are extraordinarily rare. True retroflex clicks occur in at least some dialects of Central ǃKung. They are reconstructed for the Proto-Kxʼa language and tentatively for Proto-Khoe–Kwadi.^[7] The Damin ritual jargon of Australia may have had a voiced nasal retroflex click, transcribed by Hale & Nash as ⟨rn!⟩, though it's not known if it was phonemically distinct. However, Damin clicks presumably reflected the consonant articulations of Lardil, in which the "retroflex" consonants are retracted apical alveolar rather than true retroflex, so it is likely that the Damin distinction could be described as post-alveolar apical [ᵑǃ̠] (⟨rn!⟩) vs a more fronted apical [ᵑǃ̪] (⟨n!⟩).

Basic retroflex clicks are:

Trans. I	Trans. II	Trans. III	Description
(velar)
⟨k͜𝼊⟩	⟨ᵏ𝼊⟩	⟨𝼊⟩	tenuis retroflex click
⟨k͜𝼊ʰ⟩	⟨ᵏ𝼊ʰ⟩	⟨𝼊ʰ⟩	aspirated retroflex click
⟨ɡ͜𝼊⟩	⟨ᶢ𝼊⟩	⟨𝼊̬⟩	voiced retroflex click
⟨ŋ͜𝼊⟩	⟨ᵑ𝼊⟩	⟨𝼊̬̃⟩	retroflex nasal click
⟨ŋ͜𝼊ʰʰ⟩	⟨ᵑ𝼊ʰʰ⟩	⟨𝼊̃ʰʰ⟩	aspirated retroflex nasal click
⟨ŋ͜𝼊ˀ⟩	⟨ᵑ𝼊ˀ⟩	⟨𝼊̃ˀ⟩	glottalized retroflex nasal click
(uvular)
⟨q͜𝼊⟩	⟨𐞥𝼊⟩		tenuis retroflex click
⟨q͜𝼊ʰ⟩	⟨𐞥𝼊ʰ⟩		aspirated retroflex click
⟨ɢ͜𝼊⟩	⟨𐞒𝼊⟩		voiced retroflex click
⟨ɴ͜𝼊⟩	⟨ᶰ𝼊⟩		retroflex nasal click
⟨ɴ͜𝼊ʰʰ⟩	⟨ᶰ𝼊ʰʰ⟩		aspirated retroflex nasal click
⟨ɴ͜𝼊ˀ⟩	⟨ᶰ𝼊ˀ⟩		glottalized retroflex nasal click

Features

Features of postalveolar clicks:

• The basic articulation may be voiced, nasal, aspirated, glottalized, etc.
• The place of articulation is post-alveolar, and the tongue shape may be subapical, which means it is articulated with the tip of the tongue curled up. The center of the tongue moves downward to create suction.
• Clicks may be oral or nasal, which means that the airflow is either restricted to the mouth, or passes through the nose as well.
• It is a lateral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream over the sides of the tongue, rather than down the middle.
• 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.

Occurrence

As with other click articulations, retroflex clicks may be produced with various manners. An example is the voiced retroflex click in the Grootfontein ǃKung (Central Juu) word for 'water', [ᶢ𝼊𐞷ú] (g‼ú).

Damin is the only other language known to have had such a sound, though only the nasal click occurred.

A retroflex series claimed for Ekoka ǃKung turns out to be domed palatal clicks.

See also

• The fricated palatal click of Ekoka ǃKung, which was once thought to be retroflex
• Alveolar click
• Bilabial click
• Dental click
• Lateral click
• Palatal click

Notes and references

1. Scott, Abigail; Miller, Amanda; Namaseb, Levi; Sands, Bonny; Shah, Sheena (June 2, 2010). "Retroflex Clicks in Two Dialects of ǃXung". University of Botswana, Department of African Languages.
2. Kirk Miller & Michael Ashby, L2/20-253R Unicode request for IPA modifier letters (b), non-pulmonic.
3. The character ⟨𝼊⟩ was recently added to Unicode in 2021. It may be substituted in some fonts with a combining diacritic, such as ⟨ǃ̢⟩ (with U+0322 COMBINING RETROFLEX HOOK BELOW) or ⟨ǃ̨⟩ (with U+0328 COMBINING OGONEK).
4. Doke, Clement M. (1925). "An outline of the phonetics of the language of the ʗhũ: Bushman of the North-West Kalahari". Bantu Studies. 2: 129–166. doi:10.1080/02561751.1923.9676181.
5. Anders, H.D. (1935). "A note on a South Eastern Bushman dialect". Zeitschrift für Eingeborenen-Sprachen. 25: 81–89.
   —— "The clicks". South African Journal of Science. 33: 926–939. 1937.
6. Miller, Amanda (2009). Contrastive Coronal Click Types in !Xung.
7. Anne-Maria Fehn & Jorge Rocha (2023) Lost in translation: A historical-comparative reconstruction of Proto-Khoe-Kwadi based on archival data. Diachronica 40:5, p. 609–665.

Further reading

• Scott, Abigail; Miller, Amanda; Namaseb, Levi; Sands, Bonny; Shah, Sheena (June 2, 2010). "Retroflex Clicks in Two Dialects of ǃXung". University of Botswana, Department of African Languages.