Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative - Definition and Overview

IPA - Unicode	ɬ
IPA - image
X-SAMPA	K
Kirshenbaum	s<lat>
Sound sample

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 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.

Features of this consonant:

• 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 the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge.
• 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.

The lateral voiceless alveolar fricative occurs in Welsh; the letters 'll' correspond to this sound in Welsh spelling. English speakers can approximate this sound by pronouncing the sounds [h] and [l] simultaneously.