Voiceless retroflex lateral fricative

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The voiceless retroflex lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The IPA has no officially recognized symbol for this sound. However, in the literature the "belt" on the recognized symbol for a voiceless lateral fricative is combined with the tail of the retroflex consonants to create the ad hoc symbol <ɬ̡> (here created as a digraph, with a diacritic for the tail, since Unicode will not support this symbol until version 7.0).

Now that font-editing software has become accessible, well designed glyphs for this and other non-sanctioned lateral fricatives will occasionally be seen:

Image:Lateral fricatives.png

Indeed, SIL International has added these symbols to the Private Use Areas of their Charis and Doulos fonts, as U+F266 (). Unicode has accepted the first for its 7.0 release.

[edit] Features

Features of the voiceless retroflex 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 retroflex, which prototypically means it is articulated with the tip of the tongue curled up, but more generally means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized. That is, besides the prototypical sub-apical (curled) articulation, the tongue contact can be apical (pointed) or laminal (flat).
  • 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.

[edit] Occurrence

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Toda example needed --

[edit] See also

  Consonants (List, table) See also: IPA, Vowels  
Pulmonics Bila​bial Labio​dental Den​tal Alve​olar Post-​alve​olar Retro​flex Pal​a​tal Ve​lar Uvu​lar Pha​ryn​geal Epi​glot​tal Glot​tal Non-pulmonics and other symbols
Nasals m ɱ n̪ n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ Clicks  ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ
Plosives p b p̪ b̪ t̪ d̪ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Implo­­sives  ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ ʛ
Fricatives  ɸ β f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Ejec­­tives  pʼ tʼ kʼ qʼ sʼ
Approximants  ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ Affricates  t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ t͡ɕ d͡ʑ t͡ʂ d͡ʐ t͡ɬ d͡ɮ p̪͡f
Trills ʙ r • ʀ • Other laterals  ɺ • ɫ
Flaps & Taps • ѵ ɾ ɽ • • Co-articulated fricatives  ɕ ʑ ɧ
Lat. Fricatives ɬ ɮ • • • Co-articulated approximants  ʍ w ɥ
Lat. Appr'mants l ɭ ʎ ʟ Co-articulated stops  k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m
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Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged impossible.
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