Voiceless dental and alveolar lateral fricatives
| Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ɬ | |||
| IPA number | 148 | ||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) |
ɬ | ||
| Unicode (hex) | U+026C | ||
| X-SAMPA |
K | ||
| Kirshenbaum |
s<lat> | ||
| |||
| Sound | |||
 source · help | |||
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The voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral fricatives is ⟨ɬ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ⟨K⟩. The letter ⟨ɬ⟩ is called "belted l" and should not be confused with "l with tilde", ⟨ɫ⟩, which transcribes a different sound, the velarized alveolar lateral approximant. It should also be distinguished from a voiceless alveolar lateral approximant, although the fricative is sometimes incorrectly described as a "voiceless l", a description fitting only of the approximant.
Several Welsh names beginning with this sound have been borrowed into English, where they either retain the Welsh ⟨ll⟩ spelling but are pronounced with an /l/ (Lloyd, Llywelyn), or are substituted with /fl/ (Floyd, Fluellen).
Features
Features of the voiceless alveolar 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 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.
- The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.
Occurrence
Although the sound is rare among European languages outside the Caucasus (being found notably in Welsh, where it is written ⟨ll⟩),[1] it is fairly common among Native American languages, such as Navajo,[2] and North Caucasian languages, such as Avar.[3] It is also found in African languages like Zulu, Asian languages like Chukchi and Taishanese, and several Formosan languages and a number of dialects in Taiwan.
Dental or denti-alveolar
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mapudungun[4] | kagüḻ | [kɜˈɣɘɬ̪] | 'phlegm that is spit' | Interdental; possible utterance-final allophone of /l̪/.[4] | |
| Norwegian | Trondheim dialect[5] | sælt | [s̪aɬ̪t̪] | 'sold' | Laminal denti-alveolar; allophone of /l/. Also described as an approximant [l̪̊].[6] See Norwegian phonology |
Alveolar
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adyghe | плъыжь |  [pɬəʑ] |
'red' | ||
| Ahtna | dzeł | [tsəɬ] | 'mountain' | ||
| Aleut | Atkan dialect | hla | [ɬɑ] | 'boy' | |
| Amis | Southern dialect | kudiwis | [kuɬiwis] | 'rabbit' | |
| Avar | лъабго | [ˈɬabɡo] | 'three' | ||
| Basay | lanum | [ɬanum] | 'water' | ||
| Berber | Ait Seghrouchen | altu | [æˈɬʊw] | 'not yet' | Allophone of /lt/ |
| Bunun | ludun | [ɬuɗun] | 'mountain' | ||
| Bura[7] | Contrasts with [ɮ] and [ʎ̝̊].[7] | ||||
| Cherokee | Some speakers | ᎥᏝ | [ə̃ʔɬa] | 'no' | Corresponds to [tɬ] in the speech of most speakers |
| Chickasaw | lhinko | [ɬiŋko] | 'to be fat' | ||
| Chinese | Taishanese[8] | 三 | [ɬam˧] | 'three' | |
| Chukchi | ԓевыт | [ɬeβət] | 'head' | ||
| Creek | rakkē | [ɬakkiː] | 'big' | Historically transcribed thl or tl by English speakers | |
| Dahalo | [ʡáɬi] | 'fat' | |||
| Eyak | qe'ł | [qʰɛʔɬ] | 'woman' | ||
| Fali | [paɬkan] | 'shoulder' | |||
| Faroese | hjálp | [jɔɬp] | 'help' | ||
| Forest Nenets | [xaɬʲu] | 'rain' | Forest Nenets has both plain /l/ and palatalized /ɬʲ/ | ||
| Greenlandic | illu | [iɬːu] | 'house' | Realization of geminated /l/ | |
| Hadza | sleme | [ɬeme] | 'man' | ||
| Haida | tla'únhl | [tɬʰʌʔʊ́nɬ] | 'six' | ||
| Hmong | hli | [ɬi] |
'moon' | ||
| Icelandic | siglt | [sɪɬt] | 'have sailed' | ||
| Inuktitut | akłak | [akɬak] | 'grizzly bear' | See Inuit phonology | |
| Kabardian | лъы | [ɬə] |
'blood' | ||
| Kaska | tsį̄ł | [tsʰĩːɬ] | 'axe' | ||
| Khanty | Surgut dialect | ԓӓпәт | [ˈɬæpət] | 'seven' | Contrasts with palatalized /ɬʲ/. Corresponds to /l/ or /t/ in other dialects |
| Kazym dialect | ԓапәт | [ˈɬɑpət] | |||
| Mapudungun[4] | kaül | [kɜˈɘɬ] | 'a different song' | Possible utterance-final allophone of /l/.[4] | |
| Mochica | paxllær | [paɬøɾ] | 'lima bean' | ||
| Moloko | sla | [ɬa] | 'cow' | ||
| Nahuatl | āltepētl | [aːɬˈtɛpɛːt͡ɬ] | 'city' | Allophone of /l/ | |
| Navajo | łaʼ | [ɬaʔ] | 'some' | See Navajo phonology | |
| Nisga'a | hloks | [ɬoks] | 'Sun' | ||
| Norwegian | Trøndersk | tatl / tasl | [tʰɑɬ] | 'sissiness' | See Norwegian phonology |
| Saaroa | rahli | [raɬi] | 'chief' | ||
| Sahaptin | łp’úł | [ˈɬpʼuɬ] | 'tears' | ||
| Sandawe | lhaa | [ɬáː] | 'goat' | ||
| Sassarese | morthu | [ˈmoɬtu] |
'dead' | ||
| Sotho | ho hlahloba | [ho ɬɑɬɔbɑ] | 'to examine' | See Sotho phonology | |
| St’át’imcets | lhésp | [ɬə́sp] | 'rash' | ||
| Swedish | Jamtlandic | kallt | [kaɬt] | 'cold' | See Swedish phonology |
| Taos | [ɬìˈwēnæ] | 'wife' | See Taos phonology | ||
| Tera[9] | tleebi | [ɬè̞ːbi] | 'side' | ||
| Thao | kilhpul | [kiɬpul] | 'star' | ||
| Tlingit | lingít | [ɬìnkít] | 'person; Tlingit' | ||
| Tsez | лъи | [ɬi] |
'water' | ||
| Welsh | llall | [ɬaːɬ] | '(the) other' | See Welsh phonology | |
| Yi | ꆧꁨ hlop-bbop | [ɬo˧˩bo˧˩] | 'moon' | ||
| Zulu | isihlahla | [isiˈɬaːɬa] | 'tree' | ||
| Zuni | asdemła | [ʔastemɬan] | 'ten' | ||
Semitic languages
The sound is conjectured as a phoneme for Proto-Semitic, usually transcribed as ś; it has evolved into Arabic [ʃ], Hebrew, [s]:
| Proto-Semitic | Akkadian | Arabic | Phoenician | Hebrew | Aramaic | Ge'ez | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ś | s̠ | ش | š |  | š | שׂ | s | ܫ | s | ሠ | ś |
Amongst Semitic languages, the sound still exists in contemporary Soqotri and Mehri.[10] In Ge'ez, it is written with the letter Śawt.
See also
References
- ↑ Ladefoged, Peter (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. p. 203. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
- ↑ McDonough, Joyce (2003). The Navajo Sound System. Cambridge: Kluwer. ISBN 1-4020-1351-5.
- ↑ Laver, John (1994). Principles of Phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 257–258. ISBN 0-521-45655-X.
- 1 2 3 4 Sadowsky et al. (2013:88, 91)
- ↑ Kristoffersen (2000:79)
- ↑ Vanvik (1979:36)
- 1 2 Grønnum (2005:154–155)
- ↑ Taishanese Dictionary & Resources
- ↑ Tench (2007:228)
- ↑ Howe, Darin (2003). Segmental Phonology. University of Calgary. p. 22.
Bibliography
- Grønnum, Nina (2005), Fonetik og fonologi, Almen og Dansk (3rd ed.), Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, ISBN 87-500-3865-6
- Kristoffersen, Gjert (2000), The Phonology of Norwegian, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-823765-5
- Sadowsky, Scott; Painequeo, Héctor; Salamanca, Gastón; Avelino, Heriberto (2013), "Mapudungun", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 43 (1): 87–96, doi:10.1017/S0025100312000369
- Tench, Paul (2007), "Tera", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 37 (1): 228–234, doi:10.1017/s0025100307002952
- Vanvik, Arne (1979), Norsk fonetikk, Oslo: Universitetet i Oslo, ISBN 82-990584-0-6
External links
- Beth am y llall? John Wells's phonetic blog, 1 July 2009. (How the British phonetician John Wells would teach the sound [ɬ].)
- A chance to share more than just some sounds of languages walesonline.co.uk, 3 May 2012 (Article by Dr Paul Tench including information on transcribing [ɬ] in Chadic languages.)
