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From: rharmsen@knoware.nl (Ruud Harmsen)
Subject: Help, I can't click!
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Date: Sun, 26 Mar 1995 23:51:23 GMT
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Keywords: Xhosa, click, Makeba

I can make some of the more exotic sounds found in languages
of the world, but the African clicks I have never mastered.
I know that for clicks the breath flows inwards instead of outward,
but when do you switch from one to the other? If there's a vowel
after the click, is it said also with the air flowing in?
Like in Xhosa, which I think starts with a click, does the air
return to an outward flow with the s, or already before that?
Do the lungs generate the inward flow, or cavities in the mouth
or throat?

It's also difficult to hear clicks, as it is difficult to hear or
see most things you're not used to. E.g. in Miriam Makeba's famous
song "Pata Pata", I now believe to hear a click, in a word that sounds
like Xhosa (is it in that language?), but for a long time I thought
it wasn't part of the lyrics, but made instead with some percussion
instrument.
Does anyone know the lyrics of that song?

