Voiced dental and alveolar lateral fricatives

A voiced alveolar lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages.

Voiced alveolar lateral fricative
ɮ
IPA number	149
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɮ
Unicode (hex)	U+026E
X-SAMPA	K\
Braille
Image

Voiced postalveolar lateral fricative
ɮ̠
Audio sample
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Notation

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral fricatives is ⟨ɮ⟩, sometimes referred to as lezh.

In 1938, a symbol shaped similarly to heng ⟨ꜧ⟩ was approved as the official IPA symbol for the voiced alveolar lateral fricative, replacing ⟨ɮ⟩. It was suggested at the same time, however, that a compromise shaped like something between the two may also be used at the author's discretion. It was this compromise version that was included in the 1949 Principles of the International Phonetic Association and the subsequent IPA charts, until it was replaced again by ⟨ɮ⟩ at the 1989 Kiel Convention. Despite the Association's prescription, ⟨ɮ⟩ is nonetheless seen in literature from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Related characters

There are several Unicode characters based on lezh (ɮ):

• U+1079E 𐞞 MODIFIER LETTER SMALL LEZH is a superscript IPA letter
• U+1079F 𐞟 MODIFIER LETTER SMALL LEZH WITH RETROFLEX HOOK is a superscript IPA letter
• U+1DF05 𝼅 LATIN SMALL LETTER LEZH WITH RETROFLEX HOOK is an extension to IPA for disordered speech (extIPA)

Features

Features of a voiced alveolar 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 alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• It is a lateral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream over the sides of the tongue, rather than down the middle.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Dental or denti-alveolar

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Amis	Kangko	ada	[ʔaɮ̟aʔ]	'enemy'	May be realized as denti-alveolar [ɮ̟] or interdental [ɮ̪͆]. Corresponds to [ð̪] in the Fengpin dialect.

Alveolar

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Adyghe		къалэ		'town'	Can also be pronounced as [l]
Bura		dlambà	[ɮamba]	'cloud'	Contrasts with [ɬ] and [𝼆].
English	South African	ibandla	[iˈbaːnɮa]	'meeting of a Nguni chief or community'	Only found in Zulu loan words in South African English.
Kabalan		dedan	[ɮə'an]	'sky'
Kabardian		блы		'seven'	Can also be pronounced as [l]
Ket		олын	[ɔɮɨn]	'nose'	Can also be pronounced as [l]
Moloko		zlan	[ɮàŋ]	'start, begin'	Contrasts with [ɬ], [l] and [ʒ]
Mongolian		монгол	[ˈmɔɴɢɞ̆ɮ]	'Mongol'	Devoiced to [ɬ] at the end of a word or when surrounded by voiceless consonants
Pinuyumayan		lrevek	[ɮə'vək]	'tooth'	Puyuma dialect doesn't have the sound.
Sassarese		caldhu		'hot'
Tera		dlepti	[ɮè̞pti]	'planting'	Contrasts with both [ɬ] and [l]
Truku		lukus	['ɮukus]	'clothes'
Zulu		ukudla	[úɠùːɮá]	'to eat'	Contrasts with both [ɬ] and [l]; realized as [dɮ] after nasals

Voiced lateral-median fricative

Voiced alveolar lateral–median fricative
ʫ
ð̠ˡ
Image

Voiced dental lateral–median fricative
ʫ̪
ðˡ

The voiced alveolar lateral–median fricative (also known as a "lisp" fricative) is a consonantal sound pronounced with simultaneous lateral and central airflow.

Features

• 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. However, it does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.
• Its place of articulation is alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• It is a median consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream down the midline of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• It is a lateral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream over the sides of the tongue, rather than down the middle.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Arabic	Rijal Almaʽa	ضَبْعْ	[ðˡˤabʕ]	'hyena'	Classical Arabic ɮˁ and Modern Standard Arabic [dˤ]
Mehri		ذوفر	[ðˡˤoːfar]	'plait'

See also

• Index of phonetics articles
• Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative
• Ḍād