Voiced palatal lateral flap

A voiced palatal lateral flap is a rare type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. There is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound. However, the symbol for a palatal lateral approximant with a breve denoting extra-short ⟨ʎ̆⟩, or equivalently ⟨ʎ̮⟩ may be used to avoid a clash with the ascender.^[1]

Voiced palatal lateral flap
ʎ̆
ʎ̮
Audio sample
source · help

Features

Features of a voiced palatal lateral flap:

• Its manner of articulation is tap or flap, which means it is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator (usually the tongue) is thrown against another.
• Its place of articulation is palatal, which means it is articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised to the hard palate.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means that air is exclusively allowed to escape through the mouth.
• It is a lateral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream over the sides of the tongue, rather than down the middle.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

The Ilgar language of Australia has a palatal lateral flap as well as alveolar and retroflex lateral flaps. However, a phonetic palatal flap has not been shown to be phonemic.^[2]

Language	IPA	Word	Meaning	Notes
Ilgar	[miʎ̆arɡu]		Mildyagru (personal name)	Contrasts with [ɺ] and [𝼈].[2]
Oʼodham	[ʎ̆ɨʔɨd͡ʒɨ]	leʼeje	brat (misbehaving child)	Described as a palatal lateral flap in recent sources,[which?] as retroflex in older sources.[3]