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IPA – number	177
IPA – text	ǀ
IPA – image
Entity	ǀ
X-SAMPA	|\
Kirshenbaum	t!
Sound sample (help·info)

The dental clicks are a family of click consonants found, as constituents of words, only in Africa and in the Damin ritual jargon of Australia.

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the forward articulation of these sounds is ǀ. This must be combined with a symbol for the rear articulation to represent an actual speech sound. Attested dental clicks include:

• [k͡ǀ] or [ǀ͡k] voiceless velar dental click (may also be aspirated, ejective, affricated, etc.)
• [ɡ͡ǀ] or [ǀ͡ɡ] voiced velar dental click (may also be breathy voiced, affricated, etc.)
• [ŋ͡ǀ] or [ǀ͡ŋ] nasal velar dental click (may also be voiceless, aspirated, etc.)
• [q͡ǀ] or [ǀ͡q] voiceless uvular dental click
• [ɢ͡ǀ] or [ǀ͡ɢ] voiceless uvular dental click (commonly prenasalized)
• [ɴ͡ǀ] or [ǀ͡ɴ] nasal uvular dental click
• [ǀ͡ʔ] glottalized dental click

The last is what is heard in the sound sample at right, as non-native speakers tend to glottalize clicks to avoid nasalizing them.

Prior to 1989, [ʇ] was an accepted IPA representation of the voiceless velar dental click.

Features of dental clicks:

• Their manner of articulation is click, which means they are produced with two articulatory closures in the oral cavity. The pocket of air trapped between the two closures is rarefied by a "sucking" action of the tongue. The release of the forward closure produces the 'click' sound. In the case of the dental clicks, the release is noisy, like an affricate, rather than sharp like a plosive. The rear closure may be a plosive, nasal, ejective, or affricate, and have any of several phonations.
• The forward place of articulation is dental or alveolar and laminal, which means it is articulated with the blade of the tongue on the alveolar ridge or the upper teeth. The rear place of articulation may be either velar or uvular.
• Dental clicks may be either oral or nasal, which means air is allowed to escape either through the mouth or the nose.
• They are central consonants, which means they are produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is velaric ingressive, which means it is produced by movement of air into the mouth by action of the tongue, rather than by the glottis or the lungs.

English does not have the dental click (or any click consonant, for that matter) as a phoneme, but it does occur as an interjection, usually written tsk or tut (and often reduplicated tsk-tsk or tut-tut), used to express commiseration, disapproval, or irritation. Note, however, that while these words often represent a dental click and may be pronounced as such, they are also frequently pronounced as /tɪsk/ or /tʌt/, and in such cases cannot be said to be dental clicks.

Dental clicks are common in Khoisan languages and the neighboring Nguni languages, such as Zulu and Xhosa. In the Nguni languages, the tenuis click is denoted by the letter c, the murmured click by gc, the aspirated click by ch, and the nasal click by nc. The prenasalized clicks are written ngc and nkc.

The Cushitic language Dahalo has four clicks, all of them nasalized: [ŋ̊ǀ, ŋǀ, ŋ̊ǀʷ, ŋǀʷ].

Hungarian does not have any click consonant as a phoneme, but the dental click does occur as an interjection, usually written cöccögés [cœc:œge:ʃ], used to express commiseration, disapproval, or irritation. German uses the dental click in the exact same way as English, though it is usually rendered ts or tss in writing.

Among Persian-speakers, including speakers of Dari and Tajiki, the dental click is used to denote a negative response to a "yes or no"-type question. The dental click is usually accompanied by an upward motion of the head. This use of the dental click can be found in some neighboring regions of the Middle East and Central Asia as well.

• Pullum, Geoffrey K.; Ladusaw, William A. (1996). Phonetic Symbol Guide. University of Chicago Press, 178. 

• List of phonetics topics