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 lowercase lambda, ), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is L.

Many languages that were previously thought to have a palatal lateral approximant actually have a lateral approximant that is, broadly, alveolo-palatal; that is to say, it is articulated at a place in-between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate (excluded), and it may be variously described as alveolo-palatal, lamino-postalveolar, or postalveolo-prepalatal. None of the 13 languages investigated by , many of them Romance, has a 'true' palatal. That is likely the case for several other languages listed here. Some languages, like Portuguese and Catalan, have a lateral approximant that varies between alveolar and alveolo-palatal.

There is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the alveolo-palatal lateral approximant. If precision is desired, it may be transcribed  or ; they are essentially equivalent because the contact includes both the blade and body (but not the tip) of the tongue. There is also a non-IPA letter  ("l", plus the curl found in the symbols for alveolo-palatal sibilant fricatives ), used especially in Sinological circles.

The palatal lateral approximant contrasts phonemically with its voiceless counterpart  in the Xumi language spoken in China.

Features 
Features of the voiced palatal lateral approximant:

Occurrence

See also 
Yeísmo, a feature of Spanish dialects that have merged this sound with 
Index of phonetics articles

Notes

References 

 

 

Category:Lateral consonants
Category:Palatal consonants
Category:Alveolo-palatal consonants
Category:Pulmonic consonants
Category:Oral consonants