In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract.Examples are [p] and [b], pronounced with the lips; [t] and [d], pronounced with the front of the tongue; [k] and [g], pronounced with the back of the tongue; [h], pronounced in the throat; [f], [v], and [s], pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (); …

In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream.In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants.Some languages have glottalized sonorants with creaky voice that pattern with ejectives phonologically, and other languages have ejectives that …

Alveolar (/ æ l ˈ v iː ə l ər /; UK also / æ l v i ˈ oʊ l ər /) consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the upper teeth. Alveolar consonants may be articulated with the tip of the tongue (the apical consonants), as in English, or with the flat of the tongue just ...

Coronal consonants (articulated by using the tip of the tongue) Dental consonants. dental clicks [ǀ] etc. dental lateral clicks [ǁ̪] etc. dental ejective [t̪ʼ] dental nasal [n̪] voiced dental fricative [ð] (this) voiced dental implosive [ɗ̪] voiced dental plosive [d̪] voiceless bidental fricative; voiceless dental fricative [θ] (thing)

Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words sip, zip, ship, and genre.The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet used to denote the sibilant sounds in these words are, respectively, [s] [z] [ʃ] [ʒ].

The ejective consonants px tx kx become the corresponding plosives p t k; the plosives and affricate p t ts k become the corresponding fricatives f s h; and the glottal stop ’ disappears entirely. For example, the plural form of po "s/he" is ayfo "they", with the p weakening into an f after the prefix ay-.

Characteristics. The most common type of palatal consonant is the extremely common approximant [j], which ranks as among the ten most common sounds in the world's languages. The nasal [ɲ] is also common, occurring in around 35 percent of the world's languages, in most of which its equivalent obstruent is not the stop [c], but the affricate [].Only a few languages in …

Northern Sotho, or Sesotho sa Leboa as an endonym, is a Sotho-Tswana language spoken in the northeastern provinces of South Africa.It is sometimes referred to as Sepedi or Pedi, its main dialect, through synecdoche.. According to the South African National Census of 2011, it is the first language of over 4.6 million (9.1%) people, making it the 5th most spoken language in …

The following is the chart of the International Phonetic Alphabet, a standardized system of phonetic symbols devised and maintained by the International Phonetic Association.It is not a complete list of all possible speech sounds in the world's languages, only those about which stand-alone articles exist in this encyclopedia.

The Swazi or siSwati language is a Bantu language of the Nguni group spoken in Eswatini and South Africa by the Swati people.The number of speakers is estimated to be in the region of 2.4 million. The language is taught in Eswatini and some South African schools in Mpumalanga, particularly former KaNgwane areas. Siswati is an official language of Eswatini (along with …