Learn English – Which word to use when speaker sound is not working properly

The words "bellow", "shout" and "yell" all have similar definitions, but are different enough so that depending on your preference and situation at least one will be accurate without being an onomatopoeia. "Bellow" would be my choice since it's defined as "the deep roaring sound characteristic of a bull". Notice that the sound is described as roaring, but referred to as a bellow. This is attributable to the fact that cows low, so bulls can be expected to make a bull-low. I'm not sure if this is 'abstract' enough, but having the sound identified with the type of animal, as opposed to the noise the animal actually makes strikes me as fairly uncommon.

This sound is used as an actual phoneme in many African languages such as Xhosa. In other words, in many languages this sound appears as part of a word. The technical name for a sound of this type is an unvoiced alveolar lateral click. In English speaking cultures, this sound is only used non-verbally, where it can have a variety of meanings. For example, English speaking horse-riders will use this sound to encourage their horses to start to move, or speed up. We also sometimes use this when winking as a gesture of camaraderie with the person we're winking to.

For an audio example of a voiceless alveolar lateral click see here.

For instructions on how to make them, see this video here.

If unvoiced alveolar lateral click is too long, you could of course, refer to it simply as a click.