Amritas mentions the Khoisan languages in his latest post. The Khoisan languages are famous for having clicks as regular phonemes. I have always been curious about how these sounds are integrated into the language, so I did some searching and found a clip from The Click Song, by Miriam Makeba. (You can buy the whole song here.) I would be interested in longer (free) samples of Khoisan languages. If anyone can direct me to them, I would be most thankful.
Also check out !Xóõ - no, that's not a comic-book curse, !Xóõ is a Khoisan language. If I understand correctly, the exclamation point is a post-dental click and the X is a velar fricative (like kh in my Hebrew transcription).
Posted by David Boxenhorn at June 9, 2005 09:44 AM | TrackBacks