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IPA – number	180
IPA – text	ǁ
IPA – image
Entity	ǁ
X-SAMPA	|\|\
Kirshenbaum	l!
Sound sample (help·info)

The lateral alveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found only in Africa. The clucking sound used by equestrians to urge on their horses is a lateral click, although it isn't speech sound in this context.

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

• [k͡ǁ] or [ǁ͡k] voiceless velar lateral click (may also be aspirated, ejective, affricated, etc.)
• [ɡ͡ǁ] or [ǁ͡ɡ] voiced velar lateral click (may also be breathy voiced, affricated, etc.)
• [ŋ͡ǁ] or [ǁ͡ŋ] nasal velar lateral click (may also be voiceless, aspirated, etc.)
• [q͡ǁ] or [ǁ͡q] voiceless uvular lateral click
• [ɢ͡ǁ] or [ǁ͡ɢ] voiced uvular lateral click (commonly prenasalized)
• [ɴ͡ǁ] or [ǁ͡ɴ] nasal uvular lateral click
• [ǁ͡ʔ] glottalized lateral 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, [ʖ] was an accepted IPA representation of the voiceless velar lateral click.

In addition to alveolar variants, a lateral dental click is reported from the ǃXũũ language of Mangetti Dune, Namibia. This is provisionally written with three pipes, |||, rather than the two of 'ǁ'. At least in this language, the dental click is laminal alveolar or dent-alveolar, ([ǁ̻]), while the click transcribed as [ǁ] is apical postalveolar, [ǁ̺]:

Features of lateral clicks:

• The manner of articulation is a noisy, affricate-like release.

The rear closure may be voiced, nasal, ejective, or affricate, and have any of several phonations.

• The forward place of articulation is alveolar or palatal, which means it is articulated with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge or the body of the tongue against the palate. The rear place of articulation may be either velar or uvular.
• Lateral clicks may be either oral or nasal, which means air is allowed to escape either through the mouth or the nose.
• They are lateral consonants, which means they are produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the sides of the tongue, rather than the middle of the tongue. Some speakers pronounce them on one side of the mouth, some on both.
• The airstream mechanism is velaric ingressive (AKA lingual ingressive), which means the pocket of air trapped between the two closures is rarefied by a "sucking" action of the tongue, rather than by the glottis or the lungs. The release of the forward closure produces the 'click' sound.

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

• List of phonetics topics