For simplicity, these will be illustrated across various orthographies using the lateral clicks only.

The lateral clicks are a family of click consonants found only in African languages.

The lateral clicks are pronounced by sucking on the molars of one or both sides.

Alveolar lateral clicks are found throughout southern Africa and in two languages in Tanzania.

Most lateral clicks are alveolar.

Features of alveolar lateral clicks:

(A reported distinction between dental lateral and postalveolar lateral clicks has not been confirmed by further research.)

These phones can potentially be pronounced with eleven types of imitable manner of articulations (nasal stops to lateral clicks).

Examples from English include dental and lateral clicks, used to express pity and to spur on horses, respectively; the glottal stop, found in uh-oh!

Voiced lateral clicks are found primarily in the various Khoisan language families of southern Africa and in some neighboring Bantu languages.

In East Africa, however, the alveolar clicks tend to be flapped, while the lateral clicks tend to be more sharp.

Tindall notes that European learners almost invariably pronounce the lateral clicks by placing the tongue against the side teeth and that this articulation is "harsh and foreign to the native ear".

The missing palatal and lateral clicks were substituted with alveolar or sometimes dental clicks (palatals only), and the missing ejective alveolar was substituted with a glottalized alveolar.

Three letters are used to indicate the basic clicks: c for dental clicks, x for lateral clicks, and q for post-alveolar clicks (for a more detailed explanation, see the table of consonant phonemes, below).

Whereas the alveolar and alveolar lateral clicks are apical, these are laminal and postalveolar; where the others are powered by tongue-root retraction, these are powered by lowering the center of the tongue (Miller 2009).