Voiced alveolar lateral flap

A voiced alveolar lateral flap is a type of consonantal sound, found in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɺ⟩, a fusion of a rotated lowercase letter ⟨r⟩ with a letter ⟨l⟩. Approved in 1928, the symbol represented a sound intermediate between [d] and [l]^[1][2] or between [r] and [l]^[3][4] until 1979, when its value was redefined as an alveolar lateral flap.^[5]

Voiced alveolar lateral flap
ɺ
IPA number	181
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɺ
Unicode (hex)	U+027A
X-SAMPA	l\
Braille
Image

Voiced postalveolar lateral flap
ɺ̠

Some languages that are described as having a lateral flap actually have a flap that is indeterminate with respect to centrality, and may surface as either central or lateral, either in free variation or allophonically depending on surrounding vowels and consonants.^[6]

Additionally, some languages have a voiced postalveolar lateral flap, which can be transcribed in the IPA with the retracted diacritic, such as ⟨ɺ̠⟩.

Features

Features of a voiced alveolar 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 alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• 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 only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Alveolar

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Baniwa[7]		riwadzore	[ɺiwa'dzoɺe]	'ember'	Varies a median flap, but is lateral in careful pronunciation.[7]
Chaga (Vunjo dialect)[8]		iraa	[iɺaa]	'to dress oneself'	Contrasts with /l̪/
Iwaidja		ayanjildin[9]	[ajanɟiɺin]	'sweetheart'	Contrasts /l, ɺ, ɭ , ɭ̆ / and possibly /ʎ, ʎ̮/.
Japanese[10]		六 roku	[ɺo̞kɯ̟ᵝ]	'six'	Allophonically [ɾ]. See Japanese phonology
		心 kokoro	[ko̞ko̞ɺo̞]	'heart'
Kasua[11]		hilila	[hiɺiɺɑ]	'heavy'	Never used at the beginning nor the end of a word.[11]
Wayuu		püülükü	[pɨːɺɨkɨ]	'pig'	Contrasts with /r/.
Yalë[12]		Yalë	[jaɺɛ]	'Yalë'	In free variation with [d]; written as ⟨d⟩ or ⟨l⟩.

Postalveolar

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Amis		ꞌuꞌul	[ʡuʡuɺ̠ᵊ]	'fog'	Has a vowel-like release when word final.[13]
Norwegian	Trøndersk[14]	glas	[ˈɡɺ̠ɑːs]	'glass'	Also described as central [ɽ].[15] See Norwegian phonology

See also

• Index of phonetics articles
• Perception of English /r/ and /l/ by Japanese speakers