Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative
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Template:Infobox IPA 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 this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is K. The symbol is called "belted l" and should not be confused with "l with tilde", , which corresponds to a different sound, the velarized alveolar lateral approximant. It should also be distinguished from a voiceless alveolar lateral approximant, although either may sometimes be described as a "voiceless l".
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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 against the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
- 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.
- The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.
In English
English does not possess this sound, but English speakers can approximate it by pronouncing the sounds [h] and [l] simultaneously. A phonetically similar sound, the voiceless lateral approximant, occurs in English after /p/ and /k/ in words like 'plead' and 'clean'.
In other languages
Welsh
In Welsh spelling, the letters ll represent the voiceless lateral fricative. The Welsh name Lloyd begins with it, while the English spelling "Floyd" is an attempt to capture both the lateral and fricative aspects of this sound.
Xhosa and Zulu
In Xhosa and Zulu spelling, the letters hl correspond to this sound.
The voiceless lateral approximant
In Icelandic spelling, the initial letters hl, as well as the l in lp, lt, lk are voiceless lateral approximants. Tibetan also has this, for example in the city name Lhasa. However, these sounds lack the striking fricative quality of the Welsh and Zulu lateral fricative.
See also