Voiceless palatal lateral fricative

A voiceless palatal lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in a few spoken languages. This sound is somewhat rare; Dahalo has both a palatal lateral fricative and an affricate; Hadza has a series of palatal lateral affricates. In Bura, it is the realization of palatalized /ɬʲ/ and contrasts with [ʎ].

Voiceless palatal lateral fricative
𝼆
ʎ̥˔
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	𝼆
Unicode (hex)	U+1DF06
Image

Voiceless palatal lateral approximant
ʎ̥
IPA number	157 402A
Encoding
X-SAMPA	L_0

Voiceless alveolo-palatal lateral fricative
ɬ̠ʲ

Voiceless alveolo-palatal lateral approximant
l̠̊ʲ

The extensions to the IPA transcribes this sound with the letter ⟨𝼆⟩ (⟨ʎ⟩ with a belt, analogous to ⟨ɬ⟩ for the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative), which was added to Unicode in 2021. Some scholars also posit a voiceless palatal lateral approximant distinct from the fricative. The approximant may be represented in the IPA as ⟨ʎ̥⟩.

If distinction is necessary, a voiceless alveolo-palatal lateral fricative may be transcribed as ⟨ɬ̠ʲ⟩ (retracted and palatalized ⟨ɬ⟩) or as advanced ⟨𝼆̟⟩; these are essentially equivalent. The approximant also occurs and can be represented as ⟨l̠̊ʲ⟩ or ⟨ʎ̥˖⟩.

Features

Features of the voiceless palatal lateral fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• 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 un-voiced, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• 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 solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Bura		[example needed]			Contrasts with /l, ʎ, ɬ, ɮ, ʎ̝̊/.
Dahalo		[𝼆aːbu]		'leaf'	Contrasts with [ɬ] and [ɬʷ]
Faroese[1]		kjálki	[ˈt͡ʃʰaʎ̥t͡ʃɪ]	'jaw'	Allophone of /l/.[1] See Faroese phonology
Inupiaq[2]		sikł̣aq	[sik𝼆̟ɑq]	'pickaxe'	Alveolo-palatal;[2] also described as an approximant.[3] Contrasts with voiceless /ɬ/ and voiced /ʎ/ and /l/.
		nuiŋił̣ł̣uni	[nuiŋi𝼆̟ːuni]	'because it did not appear'
Kumeyaay[4]		kałyəxwiiw	[kɑ𝼆əxʷeːw]	'skunk'	Rare in word-initial position.[4] Contrasts with voiceless /ɬ/ and voiced /ʎ/ and /l/.
Norwegian	Trondheim subdialect of Trøndersk[5]	alt	[ɑʎ̥c]	'everything, all'	Allophone of /ʎ/ before /c/.[5] See Norwegian phonology
	Some subdialects of Trøndersk[5]	tatle	[tɑʎ̥]	'acting silly'	According to some scholars,[6][7] it is a phoneme that contrasts with /ʎ/ (as in /tɑʎ/ 'softwood'.)[5] See Norwegian phonology
Scottish Gaelic[8]		coilltean	[ˈkʰɤiʎ̥tʲən]	'woods'	Allophone of /ʎ/ before /tʲ/.[8]
Turkish[9]		dil	[ˈd̟iʎ̟̊]	'tongue'	Devoiced allophone of alveolo-palatal /l/, frequent finally and before voiceless consonants.[9] See Turkish phonology
Xumi	Lower[10]	[ʎ̥˖o˦]		'spirit'	Described as an approximant. Alveolo-palatal; contrasts with the voiced /ʎ/.[10][11]
	Upper[11]	[ʎ̥˖ɛ˦]		'flavorless'