Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks
Other · one world map for each value
WALS codes 143 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Clicks may express affective but not logical meanings”, covers 71 of them (50%); the least frequent, “Clicks may express neither affective nor logical meanings”, covers 25.
That value is most frequent in Papunesia (85% of the 20 languages coded there) and least frequent in Eurasia (44% of 77).
Among families with at least eight coded languages, Austronesian is the most uniform: 15 of 18 have “Clicks may express affective but not logical meanings”.
Indo-European is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 15 of 28.
Clicks may express logical meanings ('yes' and/or 'no')47 languages · 33%
Clicks may express affective but not logical meanings71 languages · 50%
Clicks may express neither affective nor logical meanings25 languages · 17%
One map per value; each dot is a language WALS codes with that value.
By macro-area
| Value | Africa | Eurasia | Papunesia | Australia | North America | South America |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clicks may express logical meanings ('yes' and/or 'no') | 15 | 31 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Clicks may express affective but not logical meanings | 16 | 34 | 17 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| Clicks may express neither affective nor logical meanings | 0 | 12 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| All values | 31 | 77 | 20 | 3 | 7 | 5 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indo-European | 28 | Clicks may express logical meanings ('yes' and/or 'no') | 54% |
| Niger-Congo | 19 | Clicks may express affective but not logical meanings | 63% |
| Austronesian | 18 | Clicks may express affective but not logical meanings | 83% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 12 | Clicks may express logical meanings ('yes' and/or 'no') | 83% |
| Austro-Asiatic | 9 | Clicks may express affective but not logical meanings | 67% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.
- Clicks may express logical meanings ('yes' and/or 'no'): Turkish, Georgian, Greek (Modern), Persian, Hindi, Hebrew (Modern)
- Clicks may express affective but not logical meanings: English, Russian, Finnish, Spanish, Hungarian, Japanese
- Clicks may express neither affective nor logical meanings: Tagalog, Meithei, Pirahã, Yukaghir (Kolyma), Lakhota, Wichí