Voiceless retroflex lateral approximant

The voiceless retroflex lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ɭ̊, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is l`_0.

Voiceless retroflex lateral approximant
ɭ̊
IPA Number156 402A
Encoding
X-SAMPAl`_0

It is found as a phoneme distinct from its voiced counterpart /ɭ/ in Iaai and Toda.[1] In both of these languages it also contrasts with more anterior /l̥, l/, which are dental in Iaai and alveolar in Toda.[1]

Features

Features of the voiceless retroflex lateral approximant:

  • 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

In the following transcriptions, diacritics may be used to distinguish between apical [ɭ̺̊] and laminal [ɭ̻̊].

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Iaai[1] Contrasts with /ɭ/.[1]
Toda[1] [paɭ̊] 'valley' Contrasts with /ɭ/ (as in /paɭ/ 'bangle').[1]
gollark: So you're just hoping that evil governments will also be incompetent?
gollark: Also, you live in Turkey, which has a kind of evil government, right? If Google cooperated with them, they could probably use that data to track down and/or identify dissidents.
gollark: I think they already use location data to "help" investigate crimes, in ways which tend to implicate innocent people randomly.
gollark: Giving one company access to people's accurate location history, conversations, emails and whatnot could probably lead to problems.
gollark: Presumably, somewhat creepy overtargeted advertising, spread it further (which I don't really like in itself), probably (if I was weird and still used Google stuff on my phone) listen into my conversations.

See also

Notes

References

  • Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-19815-4.
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