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⟩ (lambda bar).

Voiceless alveolar lateral affricate
tɬ
ƛ
IPA Number	103 (148)
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	t​͡​ɬ
Unicode (hex)	U+0074 U+0361 U+026C
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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.

• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Haida		tla'únhl	[t͡ɬʌʊ́nɬ]	'six'
Icelandic		bolli	[ˈpɔt͡ɬɪ]	'cup'	See Icelandic phonology.
Ladin		tlo	[t͡ɬo]	'here'	Gherdëina variant
Nahuatl		āxōlōtl	[aːʃoːloːt͡ɬ]	'axolotl'
Sahaptin		[t͡ɬupt]		'jumping'
Spanish	Mexican[1]	Xóchitl	[ˈso̞t͡ʃit͡ɬ]	'Xóchitl'	See Spanish phonology.
Tlingit[2]		tleilóo	[t͡ɬeɬúː]	'butterfly'
Tsez		элIни	[ˈʔɛ̝t͡ɬni]	'winter'
Tswana		tlala	[t͡ɬala]	'hunger'

References

1. Lope Blanch (2004:29)
2. Maddieson, Smith & Bessell (2001:141)

Sources

• Lope Blanch, Juan M. (2004), Cuestiones de filología mexicana, Mexico: editorial Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, ISBN 978-970-32-0976-7
• Maddieson, Ian; Smith, Caroline; Bessell, Nicola (2001), "Aspects of the phonetics of Tlingit", Anthropological Linguistics, 43 (2): 135–176, JSTOR 30028779

External links

• List of languages with [tɬ] on PHOIBLE
• List of languages with [t̪ɬ̪] on PHOIBLE