Voiceless alveolar lateral affricate

The voiceless alveolar lateral affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is ⟨t͡ɬ⟩ (often simplified to ⟨tɬ⟩), and in Americanist phonetic notation it is ⟨ƛ⟩ (barred lambda).

Voiceless alveolar lateral affricate
tɬ
𝼢
ƛ
IPA number	103 (148)
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	t​͡​ɬ
Unicode (hex)	U+0074 U+0361 U+026C
Image

Features

Features of the voiceless alveolar lateral affricate:

• Its manner of articulation is affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the airflow entirely, then allowing air flow through a constricted channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• 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 voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• 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

Family	Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Semitic	Arabic	Levantine	ثلاثة/tlete	[t͡ɬe̞ːte̞]	'three'	Allophone of /tl/
Northeast Caucasian	Avar		лӀугьине/Ļuhine/ڸۇھێنې	[t͡ɬ:uhine]	'to become'
Iroquoian	Cherokee	Otali	Ꮭ/tla	[t͡ɬa]	'no'
Chukotko-Kamchatkan	Chukchi		Ԓыгъоравэтԓьэн	[ɬəɣˀorawetɬˀɛn]	'Chukchi'
Isolate	Haida		tla'únhl	[t͡ɬʌʊ́nɬ]	'six'
Semitic	Hebrew		תלונה/tluna	[ˈt͡ɬuna]	'complaint'	Pronunciation of /tl/ sequence by some speakers.
Germanic	Icelandic		bolli	[ˈpɔt͡ɬɪ]	'cup'	See Icelandic phonology.
Romance	Ladin		tlo	[t͡ɬo]	'here'	Gherdëina variant
Uto-Aztecan	Nahuatl		Nahuatl	[ˈnaːwat͡ɬ]ⓘ	'Nahuatl language'
Hmongic	Pa Na		[t͡ɬa˧˥]		'frost'
Plateau-Penutian	Sahaptin		[t͡ɬupt]		'jumping'
Romance	Spanish	Mexican[1]	Xóchitl	[ˈʃo̞t͡ʃit͡ɬ]	'Xóchitl'	See Spanish phonology.
Na-Dene	Tlingit[2]		tleilóo	[t͡ɬeɬúː]ⓘ	'butterfly'	Distinguishes aspirated and unaspirated
Northeast Caucasian	Tsez		элIни/eƛni	[ˈʔɛ̝t͡ɬni]	'winter'
Bantu	Tswana		tlala	[t͡ɬala]	'hunger'	Distinguishes aspirated and unaspirated