Click Consonants

Artifexian on non-pulmonic consonants aka click consonants.
Topics discussed: what click consonants are, how to pronounce the 5 principal clicks, where clicks come from, who speaks click languages, why clicks arose in human language, how clicks spread, hlonipha, click loss and Damin!
-----
DISCUSS THIS EPISODE ON REDDIT: goo.gl/hBTUs0
-----
ARTIFEXIAN ON THE INTERWEB:
KZbin: goo.gl/sBamr8
Facebook: goo.gl/OOBZHt
Twitter: goo.gl/ap3b8X
Podcast: goo.gl/BcYOja
Reddit: goo.gl/hBTUs0
-----
LINKS AND FURTHER READING:
Miriam Makeba's Click Song: goo.gl/0e8I4j
Click Consonants: goo.gl/7WJXlx
World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS): goo.gl/F8GCH4
Khoisan Langauges: goo.gl/WpWYaz
Bantu Languages: goo.gl/cH96qM
Hlonipha: goo.gl/QLMphi
Damin: goo.gl/d4Snso
-----
"Unwritten Return" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
creativecommons...
-----
Thanks you all so much for watching (and reading)…Edgar out!

[@wesselstienstra7020]

It still facinates me that you're perfectly able to pronounce all the clicks but still find it impossible to make a 'rolling r' sound. Language is weird

[@Artifexian]

Wessel Stienstra YUP! Tell me about it.

[@FLlTTER]

I can make an alveolar trill (rolled r) but not a uvular trill, even though I can make every other uvular sound

[@Valosken]

+Wessel Stienstra /r/ is a common difficulty. It took me a month of near constant practice (especially walking home from school) to finally get it (and still only sort of).

[@that_pac123]

I'm the same way, the clicks are easy.

[@bonbonpony]

+Artifexian Try approaching your tongue slowly towards the palate when pronouncing some vowel. When you get your usual English "r" sound, try pushing the tongue a bit harder against the palate, and if this still won't help, try raising the back of your tongue a bit, so that there was less space for the air in the back of the tongue. And I think this "back of the tongue" part might be the most important element, because the trill comes from the fact that the back part of the tongue is more stiff, while the front end is more loose and can oscillate freely.

[@ChristoBoshoff]

I'm South African and I speak Xhosa. Most non isiXhosa speakers here, English and Afrikaans speakers, replace the clicks with either K's or G's or the like (the exact phenomenon you explained in the video). That said, I am so very impressed at your clicking, especially for someone who is not in contact with clicking language! Well done, I was genuinely impressed. Keep up the awesome videos!

[@joao1812ful]

@@pixiepandaplush Still tho, have you tried to say jul'hoan ir xhosa out loud? Even if you use these sounds regularly, using them as consonants is different and the guy in the video nails it

[@KuraIthys]

@@pixiepandaplush Yeah... But I've tried to say some of these things at times and it really doesn't come naturally even though I can make most of the sounds involved on their own easily enough, using them close to other sounds is challenging.

[@eliad6543]

@@KuraIthys Same.

[@xerenas1593]

I’m a Brit who’s very interested in learning isiXhosa. Are there any sources (internet or otherwise) that are good? I know little bits from Miriam Makeba songs 😂 but that’s really about it. I have no trouble pronouncing clicks, mind, but I struggle to distinguish between them. Thanks in advance!

[@BG-wz1iu]

I’m also xhosa

[@Uroboro_Djinn]

I'm Greek and I never realized that the way we say "No" with our head could be considered part of our language. This is interesting.

[@mmmmmmok5292]

Ikr

[@parthiancapitalist2733]

Nice name

[@nettart4924]

I... think we do it too. I never realized until now. I'm turkish.

[@sofienos1]

@@nettart4924 most Mediterranean ppl do it

[@nettart4924]

@@sofienos1 yeah i was just shook for a moment there

[@SuperStingray]

Clickolas Cage?

[@kiro9291]

damn

[@cyberdefender2786]

+Po Yao “Kiro” Cheong damin

[@cyberdefender2786]

Dobráoví Večer thumbnail

[@MushVPeets]

+SuperStingray !colas Cage?

[@rebelbeammasterx8472]

+SuperStingray //ickolas cage.

[@somefellow2]

Yup... I definitely can't make those sounds in a particular or neat way, unless I think about their uses in animal husbandry.

[@Artifexian]

Eoin Brennan Ditto! Imagery: works wonders :)

[@jun_kage]

Muhammad Adam Abdul Rahman Dont worry....i speak a Sub-Saharan African language and i still cant click right

[@majorkatzmann2240]

That's not the sound of a horse! That's just two halves of a coconut being banged together.

[@flurf5245]

xD

[@shiningarmor2838]

Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?

[@liv5645]

Only when there are unladen swallows nearby.

[@zeromancer-x]

Major Katzmann Well played.

[@MK-ex4pb]

Major Katzmann your joke is funnier than that whole garbage movie

[@TimmacTR]

It's funny how categorizing sounds and schematizing theme makes it so much easier to pronounce them..

[@Artifexian]

TimmacTR Yup! Most sounds can be learned quiet easily once you decipher the IPA

[@parthiancapitalist2733]

except for the uvular trill, I can't make that sounds

[@Valosken]

If you want to find out how foreign words are pronounced, type in the word and then 'wiktionary'. Wiktionary normally provides IPA.

[@feanorofsunspear2320]

Valosken not all

[@kori228]

minor languages are a pain though, literally none list suzhounese ipa

[@sunolili862]

@@kori228 even Icelandic words are hard to find, and it's a widely-known language!

[@Liggliluff]

Really depends on language and how common the word is

[@archkull]

@Guomin Xu be the change you want to see in the world haha

[@gwaur]

Alas this video didn't really tackle a question I wondered about some time ago: How can it be that the IPA has just five clicks and some languages have dozens of them? I was hoping the video would answer that because I think someone else might be wondering the same. Just in case someone is, here: It's because these clicks are accompanied by all sorts of effects, such as pre- and postaspirations, pre- and postnasalizations, palatalizations and so on. Those thingies have their own symbols in IPA and they can generate dozens of combinations that are seen as single consonants because of how they behave phonotactically, but there are still just five core clicks.

[@Artifexian]

***** Great comment. I was going to include this but had to make some pretty vicious cuts due to time constraints. In any case, thanks for pointing this out. I think of it like color. We have primary colors (principal clicks) and derivative colors (click variations).

[@Arkylie]

Well... I would say that allophones are the variations, but if you've got phonemic distinctions with minimal pairs, I don't know you can call them just variations. They deserve to have anchor points (names or symbols) so it's easier to talk about and compare them. If we're going colors, yeah we can make colors out of a small set of primaries (red, green, and blue light), but in general the major colors are the ones most people can identify with a specific name (the colors of the rainbow, plus black, white, grey, and brown -- and I'd question indigo/violet as a necessary distinction because a lot of people don't distinguish purple that way), there's a wider set that people interested in color can name (including sage, chartreuse, mauve, taupe, khaki, Rebecca Purple, and the like), and then there's the millions of colors that don't have names, which'd be unnamed variations. Rare shades in particular are interesting to me. What interests me most about terminology is that some of the colors I thought I had down pat when I was younger turn out to be quite different from my understanding -- like "purple" in my head referring to a bluish purple whereas most of the time when I look it up it's assumed to be a reddish/magenta color -- and others seem to have a fair amount of dispute over which color the name refers to, something like regional dialects of color or something. The way "puce" is described in Santa Claus the Movie made me anticipate a color quite unlike the one that shows up when you look it up (and also, the one that shows up online is a horrible choice for kiddie lollipops). And there's quite a range of variance for a lot of color words, and very little for others. Also, why do we have a commonly-understood word for light red (pink), light purple (lavender), light cyan (aqua), and, perhaps stretching it a bit, light green (lime) and maybe light orange (peach?) -- but keep on using "light blue"? Also, is yellow really that qualitatively different from the others that it doesn't really take a lighter shade, just a less strong one or something? And how many words for darker colors do we have in common parlance? Burgundy for red, indigo for blue-green, forest for green maybe... there's a lack of symmetry.

[@jauregi2726]

+Kilyle Interestingly (at least to me) in Spanish we have a word for "light blue", which is "celeste". Originally it was an adjective: "azul celeste" literally means "sky(ish) blue", and it´s still technically the correct way to refer to the color, but nowadays everybody just says "celeste".

[@Arkylie]

Koldo Jauregi Kind of like how Japanese has a specific word for "hot water" (yu) as opposed to normal water (mizu or, in compounds, sui). They put "yu" on their bath houses -- if I recall correctly, you can see the letter (which is my favorite letter) on the door of the bath house in Spirited Away. (For that matter, the Japanese have a word (aoi) that can refer to the spectrum from blue to green, while another (midori) is just green, and light blue is different. If I'm remembering that correctly. And their word for grey is "mouse-colored," and for brown it's "tea-colored." I saved a pack of origami papers entirely because it gives me an idea of the color spread for Japanese, each one labeled on the back.) Or like how English has distinct words for an animal verses its meat -- in the most common meats, at least -- while a lot of other languages don't make that distinction. This stemmed from the French being in charge for a while; French words became the meat, with Anglo-Saxon words referring to the animals. So many interesting distinctions as you move from language to language....

[@Saturinus]

They have like voiced clicks, unvoiced clicks, nasalized clicks, aspirated clicks, etc, etc.

[@Meadow0Muffin]

So, do you have to look up these words in a clicktionary?

[@ninady861]

nice

[@PeckerBrown]

Oh, snap!

[@atomnous]

Jaime M They have the usual dicktionary

[@candorthecandyman9021]

Atom Nous woooooosh

[@ValleyOfWinds]

This is super awesome and educational. I also really appreciate the end, where you point out the shame in click loss. These languages are beautiful, and no, they are not primitive. Thank you for your content

[@clumsyjester459]

A while ago I had a quite interesting conversation with an African. We really clicked!

[@zenithchan1646]

Oh my go- get out, now

[@savannahmapping2340]

​@@zenithchan1646 🤓

[@ugwuanyicollins6136]

Where in Africa???

[@ugwuanyicollins6136]

Which part of Africa

[@anwelda4468]

Nice job here. People with decent knowledge in linguistics are quite rare on KZbin. Even more appreciated when well explained and understandable for everyone. Keep it up, bro!

[@Griffiana]

Honestly I'm just happy you pronounced Xhosa correctly. Most foreigners pronounce the click, and leave an odd gap before saying the "o." Always bugs me when that happens.

[@janTesika]

I know I'd have to do that. I'm sure it's really annoying, but I'll definitely need more practice before I can transition from a click to a pulmonic sound.

[@Red-in-Green]

I work with mostly fantasy races when conlanging, so I often draw from the closest culture I. The real world, but this video has helped me do something different. The Mers in my world (Merfolk) are closer to dolphins than anything else, so I decided archaic Mer was made entirely of clicks and contoured vowels, like dolphin speak made human.

[@alejandrite9]

"welcome to the wonderful world of click consonants" ejectives and implosives: *sad non-pulmonic noises*

[@Writer_Productions_Map]

ʘ ǀ ǁ ǃ ǂ

[@ramy701]

USHIROMIYA ANGE ???? Hiiii

[@alejandrite9]

@@ramy701 Hello???

[@GermansEagle]

Wow man, nice video. This is some professional level explanation right there, had no problem understanding :D!

[@Artifexian]

German Eagle Cheers, German Eagle. Thanks for watching and commenting. Means a lot :)

[@kalez238]

So... I was a bit late on watching this due to life stuff. Very interesting stuff, as usual. It is interesting how we English speakers use these sounds without even realizing their alternate uses. I had only ever heard of the ! used in speech, myself.

[@lokiju230]

[χ˒ʷːx˒ ǂ nːɑɪ̯sː]

[@tananansad]

this made me regret learning ipa LMAO

[@bluetannery1527]

I JUST LOSt my SHIT

[@muhtesemsiyanur]

lokiju230 lol

[@mmmmmmok5292]

Hv hi nice?

[@cosmopoiesecriandomundos7446]

Cook the nails?

[@Pyovali]

In my language, we make a clicking sound, if we're not pleased with an outcome.

[@joshuachhakchhuak1097]

I think that happens in a lot of languages

[@samuelmelcher333]

I'd heard recordings of these languages before but just assumed that those were sounds I couldn't make. Turns out that I already make most of those sounds. This just blew my mind.

[@IgnisDomini97]

I'd love it if you could do a video on other kinds of non-pulmonic consonants. Ejectives in particular have always been really interesting to me.

[@Artifexian]

Ignis Domini The next language video will be on ejectives and implosives. Guaranteed. Stay tuned :)

[@radimbartosek5356]

Explanation of click sounds never be so easy and clear! Thanks.

[@anthonykranjc4379]

I spent all day researching click consonants and expected a bit of a struggle. A lot of the information I got was from Wikipedia, and from what I can tell, Wikipedia generally is pretty good for linguistics. Then at the very end of the day I came across your video and it just nicely summarized everything I had learned in a very nice, concise and entertaining way. The video also included additional interesting information, some of which I had previously only been hinted to about-info that in your video gets nicely explained, like the explanation of Hlonipha and how it was behind the spread of clicks into the Bantu languages. Excellent video, for lack of a better word! As for your pronunciation of the clicks, from what I can tell they seem pretty good to me. A lot of sites which have audio samples for the phones of the IPA give what seem to be pretty poor (inaccurate?) audio examples for click consonants. Finding out how clicks are pronounced I expected would be a challenge, especially with the presumably few good explanations out there and inconsistent audio samples. You even added a nice and clear explanation for the articulation of palatal clicks which seems to be a more obscure click. There is a comment below the video that points out what may be the one last bit of information I was wondering about: “How can it be that the IPA has just five clicks and some languages have dozens of them?” Which the commenter goes on to answer as being a matter of combinations of the five main clicks with secondary articulations. You, Artifexian, respond that you wanted to include this information but left it out because of some vicious time restraint cuts. Can you get around these time restraints and make that longer even more information packed video? I’m assuming that you may have, like myself, got a lot of your information from Wikipedia. So, if Wikipedia is wrong or misleading, then my rating of a mere “excellent” for your video would probably drop a few notches, but since I’m assuming that Wikipedia is not wrong, and that Wikipedia may be better than a lot of sources out there for this topic, there shouldn’t be a need to drop the rating any. /ɛ‖ɛnt/ !

[@tuanminister]

This is amazing. When watching and listening to all the examples you pointed I tried to pronounce them. But i cannot produce more than one or two click sounds out of 5 sounds you showed. Anyway this is fascinating. It reminds me of my first day learning English and speaking the sound /ð/ in “this” and “that”.

[@andres6039]

A note on 3:34 Sandawe, a Khoisan language, allows medial clicks (Brugman 51, 2009)

[@Aerialyn]

1:01 yes true its more common in cyprus my friend is greek and bulgarian. he doesnt do that

[@ZoveRen]

There's a theory that the Proto-Language got divided into two branches: Khoisan and Aboriginal Australian languages in one, and all the other (Papuan, Amerind, PanAfrican, Austric and Borealic) in the other

[@IceBirdCajz]

My conlang uses clicks to shorten words! Kinda like slang, you can say only part of the word then add a click after it!

[@56independent42]

Ooh, how do you handle words with the same beggining? "photosynthesis" and "photograph" might be shortened using a click, but how do you choose what to add to the new "pho" word?

[@Alanzice]

Excellent work as always, Edgar! Gratz!

[@Artifexian]

KamatsuKyoto No probs. Glad you enjoyed :)

[@sonicthehedgehog0100]

1:08 I see you have good taste in horses xD

[@guidemeChrist]

+Deli73 don't fucking tell me this guy is a brony too

[@CavePony]

+Uselube yeah, I think he is. I saw more in his other videos.

[@guidemeChrist]

This shit makes me not want to study linguistics

[@CavePony]

+Uselube then don't, but that would be a very stupid reason not to. (just saying)

[@sonicthehedgehog0100]

Uselube if you're seriously THAT offended by ponies, you might want to step away from the internet.

[@Dracopol]

5:47 Words like "measure" and "pleasure" were borrowed from French, but in French they are "mesure" and "plaisir" which have "z" sounds, so I don't see why the sound mutated in that way to "zh" unless the bridging of that sound across different vowels induced a sound-change.

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

Because the "u" after the "s" provides a "y"-like sound, which is easily turned into a "zh". This also happens in a lot of dialects, where "Dune" is pronounced like "June".

[@lock_ray]

I... clicked the like button... heh... get it? clicked... k, I'll just go...

[@Artifexian]

Lock Ray Hehe ;)

[@bonbonpony]

Did it click back though? :J

[@mmmmmmok5292]

I tapped it Oops

[@eliad6543]

@@mmmmmmok5292 i flapped it

[@EmonEconomist]

I was really disappointed @Artifexian didn't say to "! the like button" in this video!

[@Damjes]

What about ejectives and implosives? How to pronounce them?

[@Artifexian]

***** The next language video will deal with them.

[@AutoCat10000]

Can't wait for the next episode in this awesome language creation series. Argh! I need a tardis!

[@thursdaysrain]

I'm a big fan of your videos. You have great attention to detail, and I like the current variety. I look forward to more language videos as well as any future topics.

[@Artifexian]

thursdaypostal Cheers, Thursdaypostal. Thanks for the kind words.

[@SailorBarsoom]

I could buy the click substitution politeness thing, but why does it only happen in a few parts of sub-Saharan Africa and no where else? A conlang for the grown-ups! The Conlang of the Gods! That's kind of amazing. C.J. Cherryh invented an alien language based on the sounds her cats made, with Latin grammar. I'd love to find somebody on YT speaking it, or even using a keyboard loaded up with cat sounds to speak it.

[@silversteampunk]

Thank you SO much for making these videos!!!

[@masehostoryteller1896]

Fantastic! Entertaining, educating and respectful. Thank you so much

[@asielsmith6007]

"LETS WORD-BUILD" in case anyone is wondering.... that, or he means, like J.R.R Tolkien, making indepth worlds, in particular making languages.

[@DouglasTheMagicBean]

The ogham text in your intro is wrong on the second to last character, it says artifeion there should be an eamhancholl after the eadhadh

[@kirsten1577]

Great video! Though "Khoisan" is no longer considered a language family - outdated and based on kinda BS ideas. See Brenzinger's "Classifying the Non-Bantu Click Languages" or Bernd's "The K'xa Family"

[@SJKlapecki]

One of my earlier and less-naturalistic conlangs had all 5 clicks. They were all seen as being identical sounds though. They could occur at the end of the word, which lead to weird things like their word for "fire" being [æʷ . maʘ], spelled æwmaʘ.

[@Artifexian]

***** Ye, I think when it comes to constructing sound inventories less is definitely more. Although, I like the idea of including a click sound in the word for "fire". Makes the word sound like the crackling of a campfire.

[@SJKlapecki]

Yeah. I'm a sucker for words like that. Same language's word for rain was "plik" and the word for arrow was "fym." The y in that case was a voiceless o.

[@SJKlapecki]

Artifexian Are you going to do videos on the other non-plumonics, like implosives?

[@Artifexian]

Yup! Next language video will be on ejectives and implosives.

[@Hwyadylaw]

+The Primal Bond How do you even pronounce æʷ?

[@mal2ksc]

In the movie _The Gods Must Be Crazy,_ I believe the protagonist is Xhosa but he makes references to the way nobody else seems to be able to speak properly. I think he called us all "mush-mouthed", but that's probably a somewhat localized translation.

[@parthiancapitalist2733]

I'm visiting Ireland I come from the US!!!!!

[@manju2872]

The root of happy in my conlang ends with a alveolar click.though it commonly has a /a/ sound after it.

[@manju2872]

Hi in my conlang ends mostly with a alveolar and is a one syllable word ending with a click.

[@phineas7635]

Good discussion. Hadza and Sandawe are unrelated to Khoisan languages, they are language isolates. Dahalo is another language with clicks, it is spoken in Kenya.

[@Officialhelpkenet]

I hear you often substitute th with t or d, is that dialectical?

[@Artifexian]

Officialhelpkenet Yes, certain Irish dialects ignore the th in favour of t or d. I've been trying to adopt a more "broadcast friendly" delivery recently but every so often a rogue t or d makes it past the filter.

[@Officialhelpkenet]

Cool!

[@quagsiremcgee1647]

Tried to make a written language based on sounds in the english language. Realized how massive that list is. I have a lot of work to do. Got any advice.

[@Crutypus]

English didn't borrow the [ʒ] sound from French, it has [dʒ] wherever French has [ʒ]. The introduction of /ʒ/ in English as a phoneme happened much later through assibilation when /z/ followed the major stress. It's the main reason you have [ʃ] and not [s] in words like ocean.

[@parthiancapitalist2733]

Is a uvular click possible? I think if it was found in a language, that language would change to make it an ejective /q'/ but I still don't know if it's possible

[@that_orange_hat]

there's a velar click /ʞ/, which i suppose could be backed to /ʞ̠/

[@essennagerry]

Eeeeeeeey, you mentioned our ancient Bulgarian no-saying system! :D

Click the links? But the links themselves do not have clicks in them... what a shame...

[@ThatBernie]

Clicks are only one kind of non-pulmonic consonants. Non-pulmonic just means that the movement of air is caused by something other than the lungs. Other non-pulmonic consonants include ejectives and implosives.

[@valentinaaugustina]

Im like 90% sure that German is developing clicks where k is the first letter like in kopf... is this correct?

[@michagrill9432]

What?? Im german and ive NEVER heard that before

[@jamez6398]

How do you shout over loud crowds with these??

[@CavePony]

Click louder?

[@jamez6398]

CavePony -_-

[@TheSandwichAftermath]

I've actually heard a young girl sing to me in Khosa, and it just surprised me how well she could project and sing with all that interruption. But she could ask the same when we pronounce /b/ and /m/ etc... :)

[@jamez6398]

***** What?

[@TheSandwichAftermath]

James Oldfield Reread what I typed? Some people would consider it hard to be heard with b's and m's in our language. It's no different with clicks. :)

[@Ida-xe8pg]

When you can pronounce both ʙ̥r̥ʀ̥ and ʙrʀ but not clicks I can do only a dental click

[@Ida-xe8pg]

Update now i know how to pronounce some of the clicks

[@WilliamDearthwd]

Oh, you got Pinkie Pie shown there. I wouldn't need to do that to call a sentient fun-loving pony. But cute to see that.

[@soapycanthandle]

When you're holding a sign infront of a bilabial click letter: "damn"

[@Luigicat11]

So what about other sounds that could theoretically be used in conlangs, but aren't in the IPA as far as I know? For example, the labiopalatal fricative (often transcribed as "pthb").

[@parthiancapitalist2733]

Luigicat11 or the laboal dental plosive

[@fascilime]

that's one reason why I dislike the IPA, it doesn't include every sound a human can make, which is what it's supposed to do. for example: the IPA has only 5 click consonants, and there are languages with many more clicks that weren't included.

[@Luigicat11]

If I recall correctly, they only add a sound to the IPA if it's used in an actual language as part of some word or other. It's still a bit annoying to not know about some sounds that _could_ be used, though.

[@Wiimeiser]

They have the linguolabial trill (albeit as a diacritic) and the only language that uses in phonemically is one of mine...

[@Luigicat11]

It's kind of interesting that very few have thought to use sounds that we are capable of using, but have never actually used in a language, in their conlangs. It should be done more often.

[@Thkaal]

There is a conlang with all these klicks from a TV show lasted only one season called Alien Nation

[@MogaTange]

That end screen would have been a great place for a sponsor app that teaches you how to pronounce new and foreign words.

[@Sprecherfuchs]

Apparently a click, accompanied by looking upward also means "no" in Setswana

[@jankima8646]

My newest Conlang, called Mvaga /'ɱaŋa/, has 4 clicks (not ǁ) which can appear as the onset or coda, for example c = ǂ •cć /ǂǂ̃/ (second click with high tone) (past tense ccác /ǂǂ̃́ǽǂ/) To Convince •cááwoi /ǂ̃ǽːʋoi/ Volcano •sagc /saŋǂ̃/ (past tense: sagcaq /saŋǂ̃aǃ/) To Walk PS. How can you show tone without reserving to diacritics (Mvaga has only 2 tones)

[@cubertthegrox2138]

Hohepa Mishotokati use tone letters

[@jankima8646]

@@cubertthegrox2138 ???

[@cubertthegrox2138]

Hohepa Mishotokati they are supersegmantal letters used by the IPA to transcribe tone So: High tone- ˦ Low tone- ˨ Mid tone- ˧ Extra high- ˥ Extra low- ˩ You can mix these together and create contour tones Example: Rising:Low-mid-high Falling:high-mid-low And so on.... Hope this helped!

[@shinydewott]

that "click sound and moving the head back" thing also a thing in Turkey

[@PLKartofel]

0:57 Same in Poland, but not once, but about, idk, 10 of them

[@MultiSciGeek]

Interesting video. What if the click sounds developed just like any other sounds, but never spread or were created isolated?

[@Artifexian]

MultiSciGeek I think we'd pretty much end up in the same situation we are currently in. Sub-saharan africa, although an very area, represents a small portion of the world. If click languages were created in isolation perhaps less language shift would occur and there would be less click loss.

[@MultiSciGeek]

Artifexian Maybe.... You should do a video on how the sounds in the language started altogether.

[@Artifexian]

Wow! That would be a hell of a topic to undertake. I'll look into it. :)

[@MultiSciGeek]

Artifexian haha do what you feel your channel needs more of. I personally really like the creating a language series. You should also create your own language on the way. Like this by the end of the series you have also created a language... just a thought.

[@Lucy-ng7cw]

I love how you say 'oeder'

[@teriww]

How about the T and K sound? Are they considered clicks? If not, then why?

[@the_biblioklept2533]

Brayden McAcy No, they are stops, and also plosives.

[@AliciaB.]

5:50 the french words "mesure" and "plaisir" after which measure & pleasure were modelled are actually pronouced with a "z" sound. So... not a good example

[@JimboJamble]

Has there ever been a language (that we know of) that incorporated belching noises? They're a bit harder and a lot less comfortable to produce voluntarily, but that hasn't stopped people in the past. What about other noises, besides clicks, that are produced in the mouth? What about whistling? And how about gestures, like facial contortions, head shaking and hand waving?

[@jayasuryangoral-maanyan3901]

JimboJambo there's a language in the canary islands which is just whistles (it was developed by miners and it's supposed to emulate spanish

[@gayvideos3808]

I mean signed languages are entirely "hand waving"

[@camcam_burger]

So that last click kind of creates a vacuum?

[@Sabersonic]

A rather interesting look at the click languages, especially noteworthy in just how recent they are compared to other languages. Sad that they are also fading away like it was a bad fad... Still, it would make for an interesting constructed language for a future human or alien language. Or interestingly enough, fantasy. Though for some odd reason, it feels like click language would fit better for elves than orcs. Not sure why.....

[@Artifexian]

Sabersonic Clicks are quite complex, intricate sounds this is perhaps words more associated with elves than orcs.

[@thedinobros1218]

Strangely, I am a native English speaker and other than the Palatal and Lateral clicks, I can produce clicks easily.

[@archniki_]

i wanna mention that when i watched "g0ds go crazy" i noted that these clicks are creating kind of music melody

[@ndegeanaruka]

Ah sure, the circles in the logo are just your interpretation of Ogham's non-slanted full staves!

[@Moojingles_]

1:08 That ain't a horse, it's a pony....

[@tapashalister2250]

You said that the IPA only recognises 5 clicks yet some languages have over 100?

[@jauregi2726]

That is beauty!

[@lexibyday9504]

apparently, an analysis of fossil hominid skulls suggested they might have spoken with chirps and trills like really weird birds.

[@jetwaffle1116]

I swear everything I’ve heard in Zulu sounds so damn cool

[@the_linguist_ll]

I don't know if he's done Zulu, but Chritopher Tin has great songs in Swahili

[@uhoh8489]

Lmao when I was a little kid, about 6/7, I somehow managed to discover the ǂ sound, but I wasn't able to snap my fingers. My school put on some sort of winter play and everyone had to snap their fingers, so I just did that click instead

[@wiktorszymczak4760]

I must say that argument about clicks being "complex" seems kinda silly. They literally exploit only tonge, easiest to use muscle

[@archangelofsorrow]

I, as a english speaker, can make the palatal click better than any other

[@MGDrzyzga]

Given my own setting (which I'm not fully conlanging for - just crafting the facade of one) employs click consonants in one of the protolangs (I'm interested in cultural cross-pollination), I'm left wondering: Are there tonal click languages?

[@IAMCUBEMAN]

First Comment, and one of the first 301 views!!! Awesome Video!

[@Artifexian]

Bradley Neon Cheers, Bradley. Thanks for watching. :)

[@grogmaninteractive]

wonderful video

[@MultiSciGeek]

Why do you always add a vowel "a" after every consonant you pronounce? Is that the way you are supposed to pronounce it or are you pronouncing it wrong?

[@Artifexian]

MultiSciGeek No, I just choose to include a vowel sound (it just happens to be "a") after the consonant. It oftentimes makes the sound easier to understand. Personal preference really.

[@MultiSciGeek]

Artifexian Alright. Thank you fro explaining. Great channel btw

[@Artifexian]

No probs. Glad you enjoyed my content. More on the way soon.

[@motorolachino5987]

What about implosives and ejectives?

[@WaxyCoronet-od5kq]

i suddenly gleeked while saying the "!" click.

[@yeozdemir75]

I'm working on an artlang and i decided to add the click sounds ||, ! and that one looking like O

[@paulflute]

i'm curious as to why you say that the click sounds are 'more complicated' to produce than other sounds.. and therefore more probably a modern rather than en earlier arising linguistic feature..? this makes no sense to me on about 10 levels at once..

[@keithlarsen7557]

+paulflute Considering that clicks *don't* require vocal chords to produce... couldn't they be WAY older than the rest of sounds? But also, how does one yell a click?

[@paulflute]

i imagine as hunters it is important to be able to make noises that communicate clearly over distance with as little actual volume as possible.. clicks would be ideal for this.. the best way to tell you fellow that there is s gazelle behind him without letting the gazelle know.. as to the older.. yes quite.. the notion that anybody has any idea what order early man used particular noises in is hysterically silly.. i don't understand why people have to pretend to know stuff that they clearly don't and can't..

[@holdthatlforluigi]

Um, ejectives and implosives are also non-pulmonic

[@the_biblioklept2533]

Hold That L For Luigi Yeah

[@rdelaluz5m1th]

Hey! So I started watching your videos and I liked them! Okay so you talked about how to make your own planets, stars, solar systems but I was wondering what else you can do? I really want to know if an earth-like planet can have rings like Saturn. Is it possible for it to happen and so how would it be? Or are rings just reserved for gas giants and not rocky planets.

[@rubbedibubb5017]

I would like the word ”click” to become /ǁik/ in the future.

[@spacedoutorca4550]

Anyone else read the title as “quick crossaints”?

[@slap_my_hand]

the click song is banned by the GEMA in germany. y?

[@johannageisel5390]

Because they hate us. :(

[@kronivatta8996]

Rapid clicks means ACCEPTED

[@mistyminnie5922]

i can do all the clicks but not with a vowel after it?

[@the_biblioklept2533]

sublunar There'll be a gap