Extemporaneous musings, occasionally poetic, about life in its richly varied dimensions, especially as relates to history, theology, law, literature, science, by one who is an attorney, ordained minister, historian, writer, and African American.
Friday, October 17, 2014
CLICK SOUND
"In attempting to trace (or suggest) the development of pre-human sounds into verbal language it appears to me that one line of variation may be found in 'the growth of the conscious manipulation of the breath.' Conscious manipulation of the Breath lies at the origin of the Hottentot Clicks. Whereas the ordinary sounds of language are now made by the expulsion of breath, the Clicks are produced on the opposite principle.
"The Clicks and Clickers do not simply exhale their meaning in sound; they express it by the aid of inhalation; they first lay hold of the air and suck it into articulated sound. The Breath is prepensely drawn for the Click to be articulated. They are 'Inspirates' instead of 'Aspirates'."
P.257, THE NATURAL GENESIS by Gerald Massey (Black Classic Press, Baltimore, MD: 1883, 1998)