Voiceless velar lateral fricative

A voiceless velar lateral fricative is a rare speech sound. As one element of an affricate, it is found for example in Zulu and Xhosa (see velar lateral ejective affricate). However, a simple fricative has only been reported from a few languages in the Caucasus and New Guinea.

Voiceless velar lateral fricative
𝼄
ʟ̝̊
Audio sample
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In New Guinea, some of the Chimbu–Wahgi languages such as Melpa, Middle Wahgi, and Nii, have a velar lateral fricative, which they write with a double-bar el (Ⱡ, ⱡ). One speaker of Kuman was found to have this sound in syllable coda position as an allophone of a voiced velar lateral /ʟ/.^[1]

The extIPA has the letter ⟨𝼄⟩ for this sound. It was added to Unicode in 2021.

Features

Features of a voiceless velar 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 velar, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) at the soft palate.
• 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 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

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Wahgi[2]		nòⱡ	[no𝼄˩]	'water'

Voiceless velar lateral approximant

Voiceless velar lateral approximant
ʟ̥
IPA number	158 402A
Encoding
X-SAMPA	L\_0

Some scholars also posit a voiceless velar lateral approximant distinct from the fricative. The approximant may be represented in the IPA as ⟨ʟ̥⟩.

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
English	Western American[3]	clear	[kʟ̥iɚ̯]	'clear'	Possible allophone of /l/ after /k/.[3] See English phonology
German	Austrian[4]	klar	[kʟ̥ɑː]	'clear'	Possible allophone of /l/ after the aspirated allophone of /k/.[4] See Standard German phonology
Welsh		pwll	[pʊʟ̥]	'pool'	Possible allophone of /ɬ/ after back vowels.