Nǁng has one of the more complex sound inventories of the world's languages. Most lexical words consist of a phonological foot with two moras (tone-bearing units). The first mora must start with a consonant (CV). The second mora may be a single vowel (V), a nasal consonant m or n (N), or one of a drastically reduced number of consonants plus a vowel (cV). That is, lexical roots, not counting sometimes lexicalized CV prefixes and suffixes, are typically CVcV, CVV, CVN, though there are also a few which are CV, as well as longer words of two phonological feet: CVCV, where the second C is not one of the reduced set of consonants but cannot be a click,[1] CVCVN, CVVCV, CVNCV, CVVCVN, CVNCVN, CVcVCV, CVVCVcV. Grammatical words tend to be CV or V.[2]
There are occasional exceptions to these patterns in ideophonic words such as /ɟùɾùkúɟúí-sí/ 'Namaqua sandgrouse' (CVcVCVCVV + suffix) and historically reduplicated words with clicks such as /ǁáḿǁàm̀/ 'to talk'.
Vowels[]
Like most languages in southern Africa, Nǁng has five vowel qualities. These may occur strident and nasalized. A word may have two adjacent vowels, which resemble a long vowel or diphthong.
The strident vowels are thought to have the phonation called harsh voice. They are strongly pharyngealized, and for some speakers involve low-frequency trilling that presumably involves the aryepiglottic fold. The four strident vowel qualities (there is no strident i) are rather different from the non-strident vowels, as is common when a vowel is pharyngealized.
| High front | Mid front | Low central | Mid back | High back/central | |
| Modal | i [i̞] | e [e̞] | a [ä] | o [o̞] | u [u̽] |
| Nasal | ĩ [ĩ̞] | ẽ [ẽ̞] | ã [ä̃] | õ [õ̞] | ũ [u̽̃] |
| Strident[3] | eʢ [ɛ̰̰] | aʢ [ɑ̟̰̰] | oʢ [ɔ̟̰̰] | uʢ [ɵ̰̰] | |
| Nasal strident | (?) | ãʢ [ɑ̟̰̰̃] | õʢ [ɔ̟̰̰̃] | ũʢ [ɵ̰̰̃] |
Nǁng is the only Khoisan language known to have a strident front vowel, /eˤ/, though this is rare, occurring in only two known words, /zḛ̰́é/ 'to fly' and /ᵑ̊ǂḛ̰̀βé/ 'loincloth'. The lack of a nasalized equivalent is thought to be an accidental gap or simply unattested due to the small number of known words.
The tone-bearing segment may be a syllabic nasal, /ŋ̍/, rather than a vowel, as in the name Nǁng.
Only certain sequences of vowels may occur in a bimoraic foot, regardless of whether there is an intervening consonant. (That is, the permitted vowels are the same whether a word is CVcV or CVV.) If the first vowel is any variety (nasal, strident, etc.) of /i, e, ŋ̍/, then the second vowel must be identical. If the first vowel is /a/, then the second may be anything but /ŋ̍/. If the first vowel is /o/ or /u/, then the second may be either /a/ or a vowel of the same height: that is, oa, oo, oe; ua, uu, ui. The vowels must be both oral or both nasal; nasal vowels cannot follow a nasal stop (though they may follow nasal clicks). Only the first vowel may be strident.
Front vowels can only follow the click types ǀ and ǂ (the back-vowel constraint), with a single known exception, ᵑǁˀé 'to go'. Front vowels and strident vowels may also not follow [χ], whether an affricate release or a fricative, with the exception of three female kin terms where the second syllable is /χè/. As with the lack of strident front vowels, there are thus a small number of exceptions for these constraints with /e/, but none with /i/.
Tones[]
Nǁng moras may carry a high or low tone, /H/ or /L/. A typical lexical word consists of two moras, and so may have a high (HH), low (LL), rising (LH), or falling (HL) tone.
Monomoraic lexical roots, such as /cú/ 'mouth', are high- rather than low-tone by a 5–1 margin. CVV and CVN roots are HH, HL, and LH with about equal frequency, with LL slightly less common. However, half of all CVcV roots are LH, making it markedly frequent, while only 5% are HL. In an additional CV foot the distribution of H and L is approximately equal; an additional CVN or CVcV foot may pattern like an initial foot, but they are too infrequent to be sure.
Consonants[]
The majority of Nǁng consonants are clicks. It was once thought that Khoisan languages distinguish velar and uvular clicks, but recent research into Nǁng, and reevaluation of the data on ǃXóõ, indicates that, for these languages at least, the distinction is one of pure clicks versus click–plosive contours.
| Bilabial | Laminal alveolar |
Pre- palatal |
Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | (n) | ɲ̟ | ||||
| Plosive | aspirated | (?) | c̟ʰ | kʰ | |||
| voiceless | p | c̟ | k | ʔ | |||
| voiced | b | ɟ̟ | g | ||||
| Affricate | voiceless | (?) | ts | c̟χ | |||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | χ | h | |||
| voiced | z | ||||||
"(?)" marks possible accidental gaps; these consonants might be expected based on their occurrence in neighboring languages with similar phonologies, but are expected to be rare, and may occur in Nǁng words that have not been recorded.
What were historically initial alveolar occlusives have become pre-palatal in lexical words. Among grammatical words in Nǀuu dialect there is a single exception, ná 'I'; in ǁʼAu dialect even that has merged, for ɲá 'I'.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | |
|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n |
| Oral (central) | β | ɾ |
| Lateral | l |
Only sonorants may occur as the medial consonant of a phonological foot. /l/ is only known from three words. The oral sonorants do not occur in initial position.
| Bilabial | Laminal alveolar |
Pre- palatal |
Velar | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | (?) | cʼ | (?) | |
| Affricate | t͡sʼ | k͡χʼ |
| Labio- uvular |
Denti- pharyngeal |
Alveo-uvular | Palato- pharyngeal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | lateral | |||||
| Nasal | voiced | ᵑʘ | ᵑǀ | ᵑǃ | ᵑǁ | ᵑǂ |
| glottalized | ᵑʘˀ | ᵑǀˀ | ᵑǃˀ | ᵑǁˀ | ᵑǂˀ | |
| aspirated | (?) | ᵑ̊ǀʰ | ᵑ̊ǃʰ | ᵑ̊ǁʰ | ᵑ̊ǂʰ | |
| Plosive | voiced | ᶢʘ | ᶢǀ | ᶢǃ | ᶢǁ | ᶢǂ |
| tenuis | ʘ | ǀ | ǃ | ǁ | ǂ | |
| aspirated | (?) | ǀʰ | ǃʰ | ǁʰ | ǂʰ | |
These are simple clicks. The traditional term "velaric" is something of a misnomer, for the rear articulation is further back than the velum, and indeed further back than Nǁng /q/. Miller et al. prefer the term "lingual" for this airstream mechanism; they also reject the existence of click "accompaniments", using the IPA symbols to represent both points of articulation rather than solely the anterior articulation. Besides being motivated phonetically, this has the benefit of better illustrating the parallels between clicks and pulmonic consonants.
In the above rubric, the first element of the name is the forward articulation, and the second is the rear articulation.
| Linguo-pulmonic consonants |
Labio- uvular |
Denti- pharyngeal |
Alveo-uvular | Palato- pharyngeal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | lateral | |||||
| Plosive | tenuis | ʘ͡q | ǀ͡q | ǃ͡q | ǁ͡q | ǂ͡q |
| aspirated | (?) | ǀ͡qʰ | ǃ͡qʰ | ǁ͡qʰ | ǂ͡qʰ | |
| voiced | (?) | ǀ͡ɢ | (?) | (?) | (?) | |
| Affricate | ʘ͡χ | ǀ͡χ | ǃ͡χ | ǁ͡χ | ǂ͡χ | |
These are airstream contour consonants, which start off with a lingual (velaric) airstream mechanism and finish with a pulmonic airstream (whereas affricates are manner contour consonants, starting as plosives and finishing as fricatives). Traditionally, these were considered to be uvular clicks, because the uvular or pharyngeal closure is audible, but in fact the rear closure of all Nǁng clicks is uvular or pharyngeal. (The distinction between uvular and pharyngeal is not represented here.) Effectively, in these clicks the release of the rear articulation is delayed, so that there is a double release burst, the forward (lingual) release followed by the rear (pulmonic) release.
| Linguo-glottalic consonants |
Labio- uvular |
Denti- pharyngeal |
Alveo-uvular | Palato- pharyngeal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | lateral | |||||
| Plosive | ʘ͡qʼ | ǀ͡qʼ | ǃ͡qʼ | ǁ͡qʼ | ǂ͡qʼ | |
| Affricate | (?) | ǀ͡χʼ | ǃ͡χʼ | ǁ͡χʼ | ǂ͡χʼ | |
These differ from the previous consonants in that the second, rear release is an ejective.