How these sounds differ
ŋǁ
Voiced Click Click
- Voicing
- voiced
- Place
- click
- Manner
- click
- Class
- consonant
- In languages
- 2 / 500
kǀ
Voiceless Click Click
- Voicing
- voiceless
- Place
- click
- Manner
- click
- Class
- consonant
- In languages
- 3 / 500
Cross-linguistic distribution
2
Languages with ŋǁ
2
Languages with both
3
Languages with kǀ
2 languages in our database contrast both sounds as distinct phonemes. Languages that have one but not the other tend to merge them into a single phoneme — meaning speakers of those languages often struggle to hear the distinction when learning a language that contrasts them.