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Portable, high-speed, ultrasound equipment allows linguists to see tongue movement during clicks.
High-speed, ultrasound imaging of the human tongue helped linguists precisely categorize sounds produced by the N|uu language speakers of southern Africa's Kalahari Desert. The equipment allowed speech scientists to see the entire movement of the tongue during the production of clicks in ways that previous imaging tools could not.
Credit: Credit: Johanna Brugman, Cornell University and Bonny Sands, Northern Arizona University.
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Related story: Classifying "Clicks"