Concept
Airstream mechanism
Related concepts (18)
Taa language
Taa ˈtɑː, also known as ǃXóõ ˈkoʊ (also spelled ǃKhong and ǃXoon; ǃ͡χɔ̃ː˦), is a Tuu language notable for its large number of phonemes, perhaps the largest in the world. It is also notable for having perhaps the heaviest functional load of click consonants, with one count finding that 82% of basic vocabulary items started with a click. Most speakers live in Botswana, but a few hundred live in Namibia. The people call themselves ǃXoon (pl. ǃXooŋake) or ʼNǀohan (pl. Nǀumde), depending on the dialect they speak.
Index of phonetics articles
Acoustic phonetics Active articulator Affricate Airstream mechanism Alexander John Ellis Alexander Melville Bell Alfred C. Gimson Allophone Alveolar approximant (ɹ) Alveolar click (ǃ) Alveolar consonant Alveolar ejective affricate (tsʼ) Alveolar ejective (tʼ) Alveolar ejective fricative (sʼ) Alveolar flap (ɾ) Alveolar lateral approximant (l, l̥) Alveolar lateral ejective affricate (tɬʼ) Alveolar lateral ejective fricative (ɬʼ) Alveolar lateral flap (ɺ) Alveolar nasal (n) Alveolar ridge Alveolar trill (r, r̥) Alveolo-palatal consonant Alveolo-palatal ejective fricative (ɕʼ) Apical consonant Approximant consonant Articulatory phonetics Aspirated consonant (◌h) Auditory phonetics Back vowel Basis of articulation Bernd J.
Ejective consonant
In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some languages have glottalized sonorants with creaky voice that pattern with ejectives phonologically, and other languages have ejectives that pattern with implosives, which has led to phonologists positing a phonological class of glottalic consonants, which includes ejectives.
Bilabial consonant
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips. Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tlingit, Chipewyan, Oneida, and Wichita. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are: Owere Igbo has a six-way contrast among bilabial stops: [p ph ɓ̥ b b̤ ɓ]. The extensions to the IPA also define a ([ʬ]) for smacking the lips together.
Click consonant
Click consonants, or clicks, are speech sounds that occur as consonants in many languages of Southern Africa and in three languages of East Africa. Examples familiar to English-speakers are the tut-tut (British spelling) or tsk! tsk! (American spelling) used to express disapproval or pity (IPA [ǀ]), the tchick! used to spur on a horse (IPA [ǁ]), and the clip-clop! sound children make with their tongue to imitate a horse trotting (IPA [ǃ]).
Plosive
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (t, d), tongue body (k, ɡ), lips (p, b), or glottis (ʔ). Plosives contrast with nasals, where the vocal tract is blocked but airflow continues through the nose, as in m and n, and with fricatives, where partial occlusion impedes but does not block airflow in the vocal tract.
Articulatory phonetics
The field of articulatory phonetics is a subfield of phonetics that studies articulation and ways that humans produce speech. Articulatory phoneticians explain how humans produce speech sounds via the interaction of different physiological structures. Generally, articulatory phonetics is concerned with the transformation of aerodynamic energy into acoustic energy. Aerodynamic energy refers to the airflow through the vocal tract. Its potential form is air pressure; its kinetic form is the actual dynamic airflow.
Dahalo language
Dahalo is an endangered Cushitic language spoken by around 500-600 Dahalo people on the coast of Kenya, near the mouth of the Tana River. Dahalo is unusual among the world's languages in using all four airstream mechanisms found in human language - clicks, implosives, ejectives, and regular consonants. While the language is known primarily as “Dahalo” to linguists, the term itself is an exonym supposedly used by Aweer-speakers that itself essentially means “stupid” or “worthless”.
Implosive consonant
Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward in addition to expelling air from the lungs. Therefore, unlike the purely glottalic ejective consonants, implosives can be modified by phonation. Contrastive implosives are found in approximately 13% of the world's languages.
Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. The field of phonetics is traditionally divided into three sub-disciplines based on the research questions involved such as how humans plan and execute movements to produce speech (articulatory phonetics), how various movements affect the properties of the resulting sound (acoustic phonetics), or how humans convert sound waves to linguistic information (auditory phonetics).