Voiceless dental and alveolar lateral fricatives

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 symbol [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.

Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative
ɬ
IPA Number148
Encoding
Entity (decimal)ɬ
Unicode (hex)U+026C
X-SAMPAK
Audio sample
source · help

Several Welsh names beginning with this sound (e.g. Llwyd [ɬʊɨd], Llywelyn [ɬəˈwɛlɨn]) have been borrowed into English, where they either retain the Welsh ⟨ll⟩ spelling but are pronounced with an /l/ (Lloyd, Llewellyn), or are substituted with ⟨fl⟩ (pronounced /fl/) (Floyd, Fluellen).

Features

Features of the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative:

  • 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.

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 indigenous languages of the Americas such as Nahuatl, Navajo,[2] and North Caucasian languages, such as Avar.[3] It is also found in African languages like Zulu, Asian languages like Chukchi and some Yue dialects like Taishanese, and several Formosan languages and a number of dialects in Taiwan.[4]

The sound is found in one of the artificial languages invented by J.R.R. Tolkien, Sindarin (inspired by Welsh).[5][6]

Dental or denti-alveolar
Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Mapudungun[7] kagüḻ [kɜˈɣɘɬ̪] 'phlegm that is spit' Interdental; possible utterance-final allophone of /l̪/.[7]
Norwegian Trondheim dialect[8] sælt [s̪aɬ̪t̪] 'sold' Laminal denti-alveolar; allophone of /l/. Also described as an approximant [l̪̊].[9] See Norwegian phonology

Alveolar
Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Ahtna dzeł [tsəɬ] 'mountain'
Aleut Atkan dialect hlax̂ [ɬɑχ] '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 Isbukun ludun [ɬuɗun] 'mountain'
Bura[10] Contrasts with [ɮ] and [ʎ̝̊].[10]
Cherokee Some speakers ᎥᏝ [ə̃ʔɬa] 'no' Corresponds to [tɬ] in the speech of most speakers
Chickasaw lhinko [ɬiŋko] 'to be fat'
Chinese Taishanese[11] 三 [ɬam˧] 'three' Corresponds to [s] in Standard Cantonese
Pinghua
Pu-Xian Min 沙 [ɬua˥˧˧] 'sand'
Chipewyan łue [ɬue] 'fish'
Chukchi ԓевыт [ɬeβət] 'head'
Circassian плъыжь [pɬəʑ]  'red'
Creek (Mvskoke) rakkē [ɬakkiː] 'big' Historically transcribed thl or tl by English speakers
Dahalo [ʡáɬi] 'fat'
Dogrib ło [ɬo] 'smoke'
Eyak qeł [qʰɛʔɬ] 'woman'
Fali [paɬkan] 'shoulder'
Faroese hjálp [jɔɬp] 'help'
Forest Nenets хару [xaɬʲu] 'rain' Forest Nenets has both plain /ɬ/ and palatalized /ɬʲ/
Greenlandic illu [iɬːu] 'house' Realization of geminated /l/
Hadza sleme [ɬeme] 'man'
Haida tla'únhl [tɬʰʌʔʊ́nɬ] 'six'
Halkomelem ɬ'eqw [ɬeqw] 'wet'
Hebrew Biblical שָׂטָן‎ [ɬɑːtˤɑːn] 'Satan'
Hla'alua hla [ɬɑ] 'and'
Hmong hli [ɬi]  'moon'
Icelandic siglt [sɪɬt] 'have sailed' Allophone of /l̥/. See Icelandic phonology.
Inuktitut akłak [akɬak] 'grizzly bear' See Inuit phonology
Kabardian лъы [ɬə]  'blood'
Kaska tsį̄ł [tsʰĩːɬ] 'axe'
Lushootseed łukʷał [ɬukʷaɬ] 'sun'
Mapudungun[7] kaül [kɜˈɘɬ] 'a different song' Possible utterance-final allophone of /l/.[7]
Mochica paxllær [paɬøɾ] Phaseolus lunatus
Moloko sla [ɬa] 'cow'
Mongolian лхагва [ɬaʁʷ] 'Wednesday' Only in loanwords from Tibetan;[12] here from ལྷག་པ (lhag-pa)
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
Nuxalk lhm [ɬm] 'to stand'
Saanich ȽNIṈEȽ [ɬníŋəɬ] 'we, us'
Saaroa rahli [raɬi] 'chief'
Sahaptin łp’úł [ˈɬpʼuɬ] 'tears'
Sandawe lhaa [ɬáː] 'goat'
Sassarese morthu [ˈmoɬtu]  'dead'
Sawi ɬo [ɬo] 'three' Developed out of the earlier tr consonant clusters[13]
Shuswap ɬept [ɬept] 'fire is out'
Sotho ho hlahloba [ho ɬɑɬɔbɑ] 'to examine' See Sotho phonology
St’át’imcets lhésp [ɬə́sp] 'rash'
Swedish Jämtlandic kallt [kaɬt] 'cold' See Swedish phonology
Taos łiwéna [ɬìˈwēnæ] 'wife' See Taos phonology
Tera[14] tleebi [ɬè̞ːbi] 'side'
Thao kilhpul [kiɬpul] 'star'
Tlingit lingít [ɬɪ̀nkɪ́tʰ] 'Tlingit'
Tsez лъи [ɬi]  'water'
Welsh llall [ɬaːɬ] '(the) other' See Welsh phonology
Yi ꆧꁨ hlop-bbop [ɬo˧˩bo˧˩] 'moon'
Xhosa sihlala [síˈɬaːla] 'we stay'
Zulu isihlahla [isíˈɬaːɬa] 'tree'
Zuni asdemła [ʔastemɬan] 'ten'

Semitic languages

The sound is conjectured as a phoneme for Proto-Semitic language, usually transcribed as ś; it has evolved into Arabic [ʃ], Hebrew [s]:

Proto-Semitic Akkadian Arabic Phoenician Hebrew Aramaic Ge'ez
ś s̠ شš š שׂ‎s ܫs ሠś

Amongst Semitic languages, the sound still exists in contemporary Soqotri and Mehri.[15] In Ge'ez, it is written with the letter Śawt.

Capital letter
Latin Capital Letter L with Belt

Since the IPA letter "ɬ" has been adopted into the standard orthographies for many native North American languages, a capital letter L with belt "Ɬ" was requested by academics and added to the Unicode Standard version 7.0 in 2014 at U+A7AD.[16][17]

gollark: <@151391317740486657>
gollark: Excellent. Mwahahahaha.
gollark: Iron farming?
gollark: So you're getting the villager cured at some significant expense why?
gollark: ?

See also

Notes
  1. Ladefoged, Peter (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. p. 203. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
  2. McDonough, Joyce (2003). The Navajo Sound System. Cambridge: Kluwer. ISBN 1-4020-1351-5.
  3. Laver, John (1994). Principles of Phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 257–258. ISBN 0-521-45655-X.
  4. Henry Y., Chang (2000). 噶瑪蘭語參考語法 (Kavalan Grammar). Taipei: 遠流 (Yuan-Liou). pp. 43–45. ISBN 9573238985.
  5. Helge, Fauskanger. "Sindarin – the Noble Tongue". Ardalambion. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
  6. Helge, Fauskanger. "Quenya Course". Ardalambion. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
  7. Sadowsky et al. (2013:88, 91)
  8. Kristoffersen (2000:79)
  9. Vanvik (1979:36)
  10. Grønnum (2005:154–155)
  11. Taishanese Dictionary & Resources
  12. Svantesson et al. (2005:30–33)
  13. Liljegren, Henrik (2009). "The Dangari Tongue of Choke and Machoke: Tracing the proto-language of Shina enclaves in the Hindu Kush". Acta Orientalia (70): 7–62.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  14. Tench (2007:228)
  15. Howe, Darin (2003). Segmental Phonology. University of Calgary. p. 22.
  16. Joshua M Jensen, Karl Pentzlin, 2012-02-08, Proposal to encode a Latin Capital Letter L with Belt
  17. "Unicode Character 'LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L WITH BELT' (U+A7AD)". www.fileformat.info. FileFormat.Info. Retrieved 20 June 2020.

References
  • 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
  • Svantesson, Jan-Olof; Tsendina, Anna; Mukhanova Karlsson, Anastasia; Franzen, Vivan (2005), The phonology of Mongolian, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0199260176
  • 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

Further reading
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