Voiced dental and alveolar lateral fricatives

IPA Unicode 0x026E

Voiced dental and alveolar lateral fricatives are types of consonantal sounds used in some spoken languages. These sounds are characterized by the obstruction of airflow in the mouth which is directed along the side of the tongue to produce a turbulent airflow. They are distinct in their articulation, being produced either with a dental or an alveolar placement, and are notable for their lateral release, meaning the airflow escapes over one or both sides of the tongue.

Articulation

The articulation of these sounds involves the following components:

• Voicing: Both the voiced dental and alveolar lateral fricatives are voiced, meaning the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation of the sound.
• Place of Articulation: These sounds can be dental, meaning they are articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, or alveolar, meaning they are articulated with the tongue against the alveolar ridge, which is the gum ridge behind the upper teeth.
• Manner of Articulation: They are fricatives, which means the sound is produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. In this case, the sound is lateral, meaning the air flows along the sides of the tongue.

Occurrence

The voiced dental and alveolar lateral fricatives are relatively rare sounds across languages. Some languages that feature these sounds include:

• Welsh, where the voiced alveolar lateral fricative ⟨ll⟩ is a well-known feature of the language.
• Zulu and Xhosa, which have both dental and alveolar lateral fricatives.
• Certain dialects of Norwegian and Swedish, where the voiced dental lateral fricative can occur, albeit infrequently.

Phonetic Notation

In the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the symbols for these sounds are as follows:

• Voiced dental lateral fricative: ⟨ɮ̪⟩ (a voiced lateral fricative symbol with a dental diacritic).
• Voiced alveolar lateral fricative: ⟨ɮ⟩.

Features

The key features of these sounds include:

• Their rarity in world languages.
• The lateral manner of airflow.
• The voicing characteristic.
• The specific dental or alveolar place of articulation.

See also

• Lateral consonant
• Fricative consonant
• Voiced dental fricative
• Voiced alveolar fricative