The voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spokenlanguages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolarfricatives 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 corresponds to 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. The sound is relatively rare among the world's languages. It is common among Native American languages, such as Navajo. [1]Welsh is perhaps the best-known example of a language with this sound [2] (it is indicated in Welsh orthography with a doubled "l").
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 phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
It is a lateral consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the sides of the tongue, rather than the middle of the tongue.
This page contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help]
Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged impossible.
