The voiceless velar lateral affricate is a relatively uncommon speech sound found as a phoneme in the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia (country), Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range ...

and as an

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 '' ...

in several languages of eastern and southern Africa. In strict IPA, it needs to be transcribed with diacritics, but a proper letter exists in extIPA: . Archi, a Northeast Caucasian language of Dagestan, has two such affricates, plain and

labialized Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve ...

, though they are further forward than

velar Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...

s in most languages, and might better be called ''prevelar''. Archi also has

ejective In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some ...

variants of its lateral affricates, several voiceless lateral fricatives, and a

voiced 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 ...

at the same

place of articulation In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...

, but no alveolar lateral fricatives or

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 ...

.The Archi Language Tutorial
The source uses the symbol for 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 , ...

for the fricative part of this sound (), but also indicates the sound to be prevelar. Zulu and

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 ...

have a voiceless lateral affricate as an allophone of their

voiceless velar affricate The voiceless velar affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound are and , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is k_x. The tie bar may be omi ...

. Hadza has an ejective velar lateral affricate as an allophone of its velar ejective affricate. Indeed, in Hadza this contrasts with a

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 ...

, . ǁXegwi is reported to have contrasted velar from alveolar .

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 ...

, a Loloish language of Vietnam, contrasts four velar lateral affricates, .

Features

Features of the voiceless velar lateral affricate:

Occurrence

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Voiceless Velar Lateral Fricative Lateral consonants Pulmonic consonants Voiceless oral consonants Velar consonants