Why the clicks?

Imagine if someone, instead of saying your name, replaced the first consonant of it with “tsk!” – for instance, “Tsk! ames” for “James.” Now imagine that that was somehow more polite than just saying your name. Now imagine that English started adding clicks to its words just for that sort of reason. Well, it’s already happened in Zulu and Xhosa – it’s how they got their clicks. Find out more in my latest article for TheWeek.com:

A brief history of African click words