Topic-093: Velaric Airstream Mechanism In addition to pulmonic and glottalic airstream mechanisms, there is a third possibility involving velum. Under this mechanism, speech sounds are made by sucking the air (see airstream). This sucking mechanism is used first by babies for feeding and by adult humans in later stages of life for such things as sucking liquid through a straw or drawing smoke from a cigarette (using the back of the tongue against the velum. The basic mechanism for this is the airtight closure between the back of the tongue and the soft palate, just as if the tongue is then retracted, and the pressure in the oral cavity is lowered and suction takes place. Consonants produced with this mechanism are called clicks. These sounds have a distinctive role in some languages such as Zulu. In English, they maybe heard in the tut tutor tsk tsk) sounds, and in a few other contexts.
