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A lateral is a
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
in which the
airstream Airstream is an American brand of travel trailer ("caravan" in British English) easily recognized by the distinctive shape of its rounded and polished aluminum coachwork. This body shape dates back to the 1930s and is based on the Bowlus Road C ...
proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
''L'', as in ''Larry''. Lateral consonants contrast with
central consonants Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
, in which the airstream flows through the center of the mouth. For the most common laterals, the tip of the tongue makes contact with the upper teeth (see
dental consonant A dental consonant is a consonant articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , . In some languages, dentals are distinguished from other groups, such as alveolar consonants, in which the tongue contacts the gum ridge. Dental c ...
) or the upper gum (see
alveolar consonant Alveolar (; UK also ) consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the upper teeth. Alveolar consonants may be articulated with ...
), but there are many other possible places for laterals to be made. The most common laterals are
approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a ...
s and belong to the class of
liquids A liquid is a nearly incompressible fluid that conforms to the shape of its container but retains a (nearly) constant volume independent of pressure. As such, it is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, gas, a ...
, but lateral
fricatives A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
and
affricates An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair ...
are also common in some parts of the world. Some languages, such as the
Iwaidja The Iwaidja are an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory. Name Norman Tindale states that the name is based on their word for 'no' (''ii''). Language Iwaidja is one of the Iwaidjan languages of the Cobourg Peninsula, all of whi ...
and Ilgar languages of
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, have
lateral flap A lateral flap is a family of consonantal sounds, used in some spoken languages. There are four attested or claimed lateral flaps in the world's languages: * The alveolar lateral flap is quite common. *A retroflex lateral flap () is found throu ...
s, and others, such as the
Xhosa Xhosa may refer to: * Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa * Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people See als ...
and Zulu languages of
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
, have
lateral click The lateral clicks are a family of click consonants found only in African languages. The clicking sound used by equestrians to urge on their horses is a lateral click, although it is not a speech sound in that context. Lateral clicks are found t ...
s. When pronouncing the
labiodental In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth. Labiodental consonants in the IPA The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are: The IPA chart shades out ''labio ...
fricatives , the lip blocks the airflow in the centre of the vocal tract, so the airstream proceeds along the sides instead. Nevertheless, they are not considered lateral consonants because the airflow never goes over the side of the tongue. No known language makes a distinction between lateral and non-lateral labiodentals.
Plosives In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
are never lateral, but they may have lateral release.
Nasals In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majorit ...
are never lateral either, but some languages have
lateral nasal click The lateral nasal click is a click consonant found primarily among the languages of southern Africa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is or ; a symbol abandoned by the IPA but still preferred by some ...
s. For consonants articulated in the throat (
laryngeals The laryngeal theory is a theory in the historical linguistics of the Indo-European languages positing that: * The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) had a series of phonemes beyond those reconstructable by the comparative method. That is, the ...
), the lateral distinction is not made by any language, although pharyngeal and epiglottal laterals are reportedly possible.


Examples

English has one lateral phoneme: the lateral approximant , which in many accents has two
allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
s. One, found before vowels as in ''lady'' or ''fly'', is called ''clear l'', pronounced as the alveolar lateral approximant with a "neutral" position of the body of the tongue. The other variant, so-called ''dark l'', found before consonants or word-finally, as in ''bold'' or ''tell'', is pronounced as the
velarized alveolar lateral approximant The voiced alveolar lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral approximants is , and the e ...
with the tongue assuming a spoon-like shape with its back part raised, which gives the sound a - or -like resonance. In some languages, like Albanian, those two sounds are different phonemes.
East Slavic languages The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of the Slavic languages, distinct from the West and South Slavic languages. East Slavic languages are currently spoken natively throughout Eastern Europe, and eastwards to Sibe ...
contrast and but do not have In many British accents (e.g.
Cockney Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or ...
), dark may undergo vocalization through the reduction and loss of contact between the tip of the tongue and the alveolar ridge, becoming a rounded back vowel or glide. This process turns ''tell'' into , as must have happened with ''talk'' or ''walk'' at some stage. A similar process happened during the development of many other languages, including
Brazilian Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese (' ), also Portuguese of Brazil (', ) or South American Portuguese (') is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the most influential form of Portuguese worldwide. It is spoken by almost all of ...
,
Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...
, and
Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
, in all three of these resulting in
voiced velar approximant The voiced velar approximant 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 M\. The consonant is not presen ...
or
voiced labio-velar approximant Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to re ...
, whence
Modern French French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in No ...
''sauce'' as compared with
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
''salsa'', or Polish ''Wisła'' (pronounced ) as compared with English ''
Vistula The Vistula (; pl, Wisła, ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest river in Europe, at in length. The drainage basin, reaching into three other nations, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in ...
''. In central and Venice dialects of Venetian, intervocalic has turned into a semivocalic , so that the written word ''ła bała'' is pronounced . The orthography uses the letter ł to represent this phoneme (it specifically represents not the sound but the phoneme that is, in some dialects, and, in others, ). Many aboriginal
Australian languages The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...
have a series of three or four lateral approximants, as do various dialects of
Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
. Rarer lateral consonants include the retroflex laterals that can be found in many
languages of India Languages spoken in India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-European languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians, both families together are sometimes known ...
and in some
Swedish dialects Swedish dialects are the various forms of the Swedish language, particularly those that differ considerably from Standard Swedish. Traditional dialects The linguistic definition of a Swedish traditional dialect, in the literature merely called ' ...
, and the
voiceless alveolar lateral fricative 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 , ...
, found in many Native North American languages,
Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
and Zulu. In Adyghe and some
Athabaskan languages Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific C ...
like
Hän The Hän, Han or Hwëch'in / Han Hwech’in (meaning "People of the River, i.e. Yukon River", in English also Hankutchin) are a First Nations people of Canada and an Alaska Native Athabaskan people of the United States; they are part of the At ...
, both voiceless and voiced alveolar lateral fricatives occur, but there is no approximant. Many of these languages also have lateral
affricate An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. ...
s. Some languages have palatal or velar voiceless lateral fricatives or affricates, such as Dahalo and Zulu, but the IPA has no symbols for such sounds. However, appropriate symbols are easy to make by adding a lateral-fricative belt to the symbol for the corresponding lateral approximant (see below). Also, a devoicing diacritic may be added to the approximant. Nearly all languages with such lateral obstruents also have the approximant. However, there are a number of exceptions, many of them located in the
Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...
area of the United States. For example,
Tlingit The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ),
has but no . Other examples from the same area include
Nuu-chah-nulth The Nuu-chah-nulth (; Nuučaan̓uł: ), also formerly referred to as the Nootka, Nutka, Aht, Nuuchahnulth or Tahkaht, are one of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast in Canada. The term Nuu-chah-nulth is used to describe fifte ...
and
Kutenai The Kutenai ( ), also known as the Ktunaxa ( ; ), Ksanka ( ), Kootenay (in Canada) and Kootenai (in the United States), are an indigenous people of Canada and the United States. Kutenai bands live in southeastern British Columbia, northern ...
, and elsewhere, Chukchi and Kabardian.
Standard Tibetan Lhasa Tibetan (), or Standard Tibetan, is the Tibetan dialect spoken by educated people of Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China. It is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region. In the traditional "three-branch ...
has a voiceless lateral approximant, usually romanized as ''lh'', as in the name
Lhasa Lhasa (; Lhasa dialect: ; bo, text=ལྷ་ས, translation=Place of Gods) is the urban center of the prefecture-level city, prefecture-level Lhasa (prefecture-level city), Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Regio ...
. A uvular lateral approximant has been reported to occur in some speakers of
American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
.
Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official languages ...
has a
retroflex lateral flap The voiced retroflex lateral flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The expected symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is ().Kirk Miller & Michael AshbyL2/20-252RUnicode request for IPA modifier-letters (a), ...
that becomes
voiced retroflex approximant The voiced retroflex approximant is a type of consonant used in some languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r\`. The IPA symbol is a turned lowercase lett ...
when it is at the end of a syllable and a word. There are a large number of lateral
click consonant Click consonants, or clicks, are speech sounds that occur as consonants in many languages of Southern Africa and in three languages of East Africa. Examples familiar to English-speakers are the '' tut-tut'' (British spelling) or '' tsk! tsk!'' ...
s; 17 occur in !Xóõ. Lateral trills are also possible, but they do not occur in any known language. They may be pronounced by initiating or with an especially forceful airflow. There is no symbol for them in the IPA. They are sometimes used to imitate
bird call Bird vocalization includes both bird calls and bird songs. In non-technical use, bird songs are the bird sounds that are melodious to the human ear. In ornithology and birding, songs (relatively complex vocalizations) are distinguished by func ...
s, and they are a component of
Donald Duck talk Donald Duck talk, formally called buccal speech, is an alaryngeal form of vocalization which uses the inner cheek to produce sound rather than the larynx. also published as The speech is most closely associated with the Disney cartoon character, ...
.


List of laterals


Approximants

*
Voiced dental lateral approximant The voiced alveolar lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral approximants is , and the eq ...
*
Voiced alveolar lateral approximant The voiced alveolar lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral approximants is , and the equ ...
*
Voiced retroflex lateral approximant The voiced retroflex lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some Speech, spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is l`. The retrofl ...
*
Voiced palatal lateral approximant The voiced palatal 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 , a rotated lowercase letter (not to be confused with lowercas ...
*
Voiced velar lateral approximant The voiced velar lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used as a distinct consonant in a very small number of Speech, spoken languages in the world. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is (s ...
* Voiced uvular lateral approximant


Fricatives

*
Voiceless dental lateral fricative 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 , a ...
(in Wahgi) * Voiced dental lateral fricative (allophonic in Wahgi) *
Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative 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 , ...
(in Adyghe, Chukchi, Kabardian,
Navajo The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
,
Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
) *
Voiced alveolar lateral fricative The voiced alveolar lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral fricatives is (sometimes ...
(in Adyghe, Kabardian, Mongolian, Tigak) *
Voiceless retroflex lateral fricative The voiceless retroflex lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The IPA has no symbol for this sound. However, the "belt" of the voiceless lateral fricative is combined with the tail of the retroflex con ...
(in Toda) *
Voiced retroflex lateral fricative The voiced retroflex lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound. The IPA has no symbol for this sound, though there is an extIPA letter for it, , added to Unicode in 2021. Features Features of the voiced retroflex lateral fricative: ...
or extIPA (in Ao) *
Voiceless palatal lateral fricative The voiceless palatal lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in a few spoken languages. This sound is somewhat rare; Dahalo has both a palatal lateral fricative and an affricate; Hadza has a series of affricates. In Bura, ...
or or extIPA (in Dahalo, Inupiaq) *
Voiced palatal lateral fricative The voiced palatal 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 L_r. It is not known to o ...
or extIPA (allophonic in Jebero) *
Voiceless velar lateral fricative The voiceless velar lateral fricative is a rare speech sound. As one element of an affricate, it is found for example in Zulu and Xhosa (see velar lateral ejective affricate). However, a simple fricative has only been reported from a few lang ...
or extIPA (in Archi, Nii, Wahgi) *
Voiced velar lateral fricative The voiced velar lateral fricative is a very rare speech sound that can be found in Archi, a Northeast Caucasian language of Dagestan, in which it is clearly a fricative, although further forward than velars in most languages, and might better ...
or extIPA (in Archi, allophonic in Wahgi) Only the alveolar lateral fricatives have dedicated letters in the IPA. However, others appear in the extIPA.


Affricates

*
Voiceless alveolar lateral affricate The voiceless alveolar lateral affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is (often simplified to ), and in Americanist phonetic notation it is (barred lambda). T ...
(in Navajo,
Tlingit The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ),
) *
Voiced alveolar lateral affricate The voiced alveolar lateral affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is (often simplified to ). Features Features of the voiced alveolar lateral affricate: ...
(allophonic in Zulu and Xhosa) *
Voiceless retroflex lateral affricate The voiceless retroflex lateral affricate is a rare consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet extIPA The Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for Disordered Speech, comm ...
(in Kamkata-vari) *
Voiced retroflex lateral affricate The voiced retroflex lateral affricate is a rare consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is and in extIPA The Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for Disordered Spee ...
or extIPA (in Kamkata-vari) *
Voiceless palatal lateral affricate The voiceless palatal lateral affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. There are two ways it can be represented: either extIPA or strict IPA . Features Features of the voiceless alveolar lateral affricate: ...
or extIPA (perhaps prepalatal in Sandawe and Hadza) *
Voiced palatal lateral affricate The voiced palatal lateral affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. There are two ways it can be represented: either by using the IPA as ⟨⟩, or by using the non-IPA sign for the voiced palatal lateral fricativ ...
(perhaps prepalatal in Sandawe) *
Voiceless velar lateral affricate The voiceless velar lateral affricate is a relatively uncommon speech sound found as a phoneme in the Caucasus and as an allophone in several languages of eastern and southern Africa. In strict IPA, it needs to be transcribed with diacritics, bu ...
or extIPA (in Archi,
Laghuu Laghuu ( vi, Xá Phó, Phù Lá Lão) is a Loloish language spoken in northwestern Vietnam.Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005. ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World''. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics. In Nậm Sài, Sa Pa (to ...
,
Muji (), or is a Japanese retail company which sells a wide variety of household and consumer goods. Muji's design philosophy is minimalist, and it places an emphasis on recycling, reducing production and packaging waste, and a no-logo or "no-bran ...
) *
Voiced velar lateral affricate The voiced velar lateral affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . This consonant exists in the Laghuu Laghuu ( vi, Xá Phó, Phù ...
(in Hiw,
Laghuu Laghuu ( vi, Xá Phó, Phù Lá Lão) is a Loloish language spoken in northwestern Vietnam.Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005. ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World''. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics. In Nậm Sài, Sa Pa (to ...
,
Muji (), or is a Japanese retail company which sells a wide variety of household and consumer goods. Muji's design philosophy is minimalist, and it places an emphasis on recycling, reducing production and packaging waste, and a no-logo or "no-bran ...
)


Flaps

*
Voiceless alveolar lateral flap The voiceless alveolar lateral flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation ...
(in Yavitero) *
Voiced alveolar lateral flap The voiced alveolar lateral flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech, spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a fusion of a rotated lowercase letter with a letter . Appr ...
(in
Wayuu The Wayuu (also Wayu, Wayúu, Guajiro, Wahiro) are an Amerindian ethnic group of the Guajira Peninsula in northernmost part of Colombia and northwest Venezuela. The Wayuu language is part of the Maipuran (Arawak) language family. Geography ...
) *
Voiceless retroflex lateral flap The voiceless retroflex lateral flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages (as in Wahgi). It has no explicitly approved symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet, but may be represented with a retroflex tail, , as a s ...
or (allophonic in Wahgi) *
Voiced retroflex lateral flap The voiced retroflex lateral flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The expected symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is ().Kirk Miller & Michael AshbyL2/20-252RUnicode request for IPA modifier-letters (a), ...
or (in
Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official languages ...
,
Iwaidja The Iwaidja are an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory. Name Norman Tindale states that the name is based on their word for 'no' (''ii''). Language Iwaidja is one of the Iwaidjan languages of the Cobourg Peninsula, all of whi ...
) * Palatal lateral flap (allophonic in
Iwaidja The Iwaidja are an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory. Name Norman Tindale states that the name is based on their word for 'no' (''ii''). Language Iwaidja is one of the Iwaidjan languages of the Cobourg Peninsula, all of whi ...
and Ilgar) *
Velar lateral flap The voiced velar lateral tap is an allophone of the velar lateral approximant in some languages of New Guinea, such as Kanite and Melpa. The extremely short duration of the in intervocalic position (20–30 ms) warrants calling it a tap, acc ...
(in Kanite and Melpa)


Ejective


Fricatives

* Alveolar lateral ejective fricative (in Adyghe, Kabardian,
Tlingit The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ),
) * Retroflex lateral ejective fricative * Palatal lateral ejective fricative or extIPA * Velar lateral ejective fricative or extIPA Only the alveolar has been attested in natural languages.


Affricates

*
Alveolar lateral ejective affricate (in Baslaney, Navajo, Tlingit) *
Palatal lateral ejective affricate The palatal lateral ejective affricate is a rare type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ( extIPA; strict IPA: ). It is a rare sound, found in Da ...
or extIPA (in Dahalo, Sandawe, Hadza) *
Velar lateral ejective affricate The velar lateral ejective affricate is a rare type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is (extIPA; strict IPA: ). It is found in two forms in Archi, ...
or extIPA (in Archi, Gǀwi, Zulu) *
Uvular lateral ejective affricate Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be stops, fricatives, nasals, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provi ...
or extIPA (in Gǀui, ǂʼAmkoe)


Clicks

* Alveolar lateral clicks , , , , , ''etc.'' (in all five
Khoisan Khoisan , or (), according to the contemporary Khoekhoegowab orthography, is a catch-all term for those indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who do not speak one of the Bantu languages, combining the (formerly "Khoikhoi") and the or ( in t ...
families and several
Bantu languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The t ...
)


Ambiguous centrality

The IPA requires sounds to be defined as to centrality, as either central or lateral. However, languages may be ambiguous as to some consonants' laterality. A well-known example is the liquid consonant in Japanese, represented in common transliteration systems as , which can be recognized as a (post)
alveolar tap Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit. Uses in anatomy and zoology * Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs ** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte ** Alveolar duct ** Alveolar macrophage * M ...
,Okada, Hideo (1999), "Japanese", in ''International Phonetic Association, Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet'', Cambridge University Press, pp. 117–119, . alveolar lateral flap, (post) alveolar lateral approximant, (post)
alveolar approximant The voiced alveolar approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the alveolar and postalveolar approximants is , a lowercase letter ''r'' rotated 18 ...
,
voiced retroflex stop The voiced retroflex plosive or stop 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 d`. Like all the retroflex ...
, and various less common forms.


Lateralized consonants

A superscript is defined as lateral release. Consonants may also be pronounced with simultaneous lateral and central airflow. This is well-known from speech pathology with a
lateral lisp A lisp is a speech impairment in which a person misarticulates sibilants (, , , , , , , ). These misarticulations often result in unclear speech. Types * A frontal lisp occurs when the tongue is placed anterior to the target. Interdental lisping ...
. However, it also occurs in nondisordered speech in some southern
Arabic dialects The varieties (or dialects or vernacular languages) of Arabic, a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family originating in the Arabian Peninsula, are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. There are considerable varia ...
and possibly some
Modern South Arabian languages The Modern South Arabian languages (MSALs), also known as Eastern South Semitic languages, are a group of endangered languages spoken by small populations inhabiting the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen and Oman, and Socotra Island. Together with the ...
, which have pharyngealized nonsibilant and (simultaneous and ) and possibly a sibilant (simultaneous ). Examples are 'pain' in the dialect of Al-Rubu'ah and 'back' and 'hyena' in
Rijal Almaa Rijal Almaa or Rijal Almaa (رجال ألمع) is a village located in the Rijal Almaa province, 'Asir Region, Saudi Arabia. It is about west of Abha, in the southwest of Saudi Arabia. The village is more than 900 years old. The village had an ide ...
. (Here the indicates simultaneous laterality rather than lateral release.) Old Arabic has been analyzed as having the emphatic central–lateral fricatives , and .Potet (2013) ''Arabic and Persian Loanwords in Tagalog'', p. 89 ff.


See also

*
Delateralization Delateralization is a replacement of a lateral consonant by a central consonant. Yeísmo Arguably, the best known example of this sound change is yeísmo, which occurs in many Spanish and some Galician dialects. In accents with yeísmo, the p ...
*
Lateral release (phonetics) In phonetics, a lateral release is the release of a plosive consonant into a lateral consonant. Such sounds are transcribed in the IPA with a superscript , for example as in English ''spotless'' . In English words such as ''middle'' in which, his ...
*
List of phonetics topics A * Acoustic phonetics * Active articulator * Affricate * Airstream mechanism * Alexander John Ellis * Alexander Melville Bell * Alfred C. Gimson * Allophone * Alveolar approximant () * Alveolar click () * Alveolar consonant * Alveolar ej ...


Notes


References


Sources

* * * {{Authority control Consonants by manner of articulation