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 is distinct from "l with tilde", [ɫ], which transcribes a different sound – the velarized (or pharynɡealized) alveolar lateral approximant, often called "dark L".

Some scholars also posit the voiceless alveolar lateral approximant distinct from the fricative. More recent research distinguishes between "turbulent" and "laminar" airflow in the vocal tract. Ball & Rahilly (1999) state that "the airflow for voiced approximants remains laminar (smooth), and does not become turbulent". The approximant may be represented in the IPA as ⟨l̥⟩.

In Sino-Tibetan language group, Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996) argue that Burmese and Standard Tibetan have voiceless lateral approximants [l̥] and Li Fang-Kuei & William Baxter contrast apophonically the voiceless alveolar lateral approximant from its voiced counterpart in the reconstruction of Old Chinese. Scholten (2000) harvcoltxt error: no target: CITEREFScholten2000 (help) includes the voiceless velarized alveolar lateral approximant [ɫ̥].

However, the voiceless dental & alveolar lateral approximant is constantly found as an allophone of its voiced counterpart in British English and Philadelphia English after voiceless coronal and labial stops, which is velarized before back vowels, the allophone of [l] after voiceless dorsal and laryngeal stops is most realized as a voiceless velar lateral approximant. See English phonology.

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 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.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

The sound is fairly common among indigenous languages of the Americas, such as Nahuatl, Tlingit and Navajo, and in North Caucasian languages, such as Avar. It is also found in African languages, such as Zulu, and Asian languages, such as Chukchi, some Yue dialects like Taishanese, the Hlai languages of Hainan, and several Formosan languages and dialects in Taiwan.

The sound is rare in European languages outside the Caucasus, but it is found notably in Welsh in which it is written ⟨ll⟩. Several Welsh names beginning with this sound (Llwyd [ɬʊɨd], Llywelyn [ɬəˈwɛlɨn]) have been borrowed into English and then retain the Welsh ⟨ll⟩ spelling but are pronounced with an /l/ (Lloyd, Llewellyn), or they are substituted with ⟨fl⟩ (pronounced /fl/) (Floyd, Fluellen). It was also found in certain dialects of Lithuanian Yiddish.

The phoneme /ɬ/ was also found in the most ancient Hebrew speech of the Ancient Israelites. The orthography of Biblical Hebrew, however, did not directly indicate the phoneme since it and several other phonemes of Ancient Hebrew did not have a grapheme of their own. The phoneme, however, is clearly attested by later developments: /ɬ/ was written with ⟨ש⟩, but the letter was also used for the sound /ʃ/. Later, /ɬ/ merged with /s/, a sound that had been written only with ⟨ס⟩. As a result, three etymologically distinct modern Hebrew phonemes can be distinguished: /s/ written ⟨ס⟩, /ʃ/ written ⟨ש⟩ (with later niqqud pointing שׁ), and /s/ evolving from /ɬ/ and written ⟨ש⟩ (with later niqqud pointing שׂ). The specific pronunciation of ⟨ש⟩ evolving to /s/ from [ɬ] is known based on comparative evidence since /ɬ/ is the corresponding Proto-Semitic phoneme and is still attested in Modern South Arabian languages, and early borrowings indicate it from Ancient Hebrew (e.g. balsam < Greek balsamon < Hebrew baśam). The phoneme /ɬ/ began to merge with /s/ in Late Biblical Hebrew, as is indicated by interchange of orthographic ⟨ש⟩ and ⟨ס⟩, possibly under the influence of Aramaic, and became the rule in Mishnaic Hebrew. In all Jewish reading traditions, /ɬ/ and /s/ have merged completely, but in Samaritan Hebrew /ɬ/ has instead merged into /ʃ/.

The [ɬ] sound is also found in two of the constructed languages invented by J. R. R. Tolkien, Sindarin (inspired by Welsh) and Quenya (inspired by Finnish, Ancient Greek, and Latin). In Sindarin, it is written as ⟨lh⟩ initially and ⟨ll⟩ medially and finally, and in Quenya, it appears only initially and is written ⟨hl⟩.

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

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

The voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative (also known as a "lisp" fricative) is a consonantal sound. Consonants is pronounced with simultaneous lateral and central airflow.

• 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. However, it does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.
• 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 central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• 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.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

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.

• Voiced dental and alveolar lateral fricatives
• Voiceless alveolar lateral affricate
• Index of phonetics articles

• Beth am y llall? John Wells's phonetic blog, 1 July 2009. (How the British phonetician John Wells would teach the sound [ɬ].)
• A chance to share more than just some sounds of languages walesonline.co.uk, 3 May 2012 (Article by Dr Paul Tench including information on transcribing [ɬ] in Chadic languages.)

• List of languages with [ɬ] on PHOIBLE
• List of languages with [l̥] on PHOIBLE