Talk:Retroflex lateral approximant

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[edit] Use in Tamil and Malayalam

I believe that the letter often transcribed as zh, and that occurrs as the 'l' in Tamil is actually a retroflex approximant, not a retroflex lateral approximant. Can someone provide a non-wikipedia source for the use of the retroflex lateral approximant in Tamil or Malayalam.

Arun 18:43, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Added a reference. Removed disputed tag.
  • Arun 19:03, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Arun, what you're referring to is the retroflex lateral fricative, I have yet to find a formal source or an IPA symbol for the 'zh' sound. The sound discussed in this article is the second 'l' in the Tamil alphabet: e.g. the L in pongaL.

Rohit

Does this sound not exist in English words such as english or explode? To me, those sounds sound exactly like a malayalam ള. --Grammatical error 19:37, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

That's the closest Malayalam comes to the English sounds, but they're not the same. kwami 09:01, 13 April 2006 (UTC)