Voiced velar lateral fricative

The voiced velar lateral fricative is a very rare consonantal sound that can be found in Archi, a Northeast Caucasian language of Dagestan, in which it is clearly a fricative, although further forward than velars in most languages, and might better be called prevelar.^[1]

Voiced velar lateral fricative
ʟ̝
𝼄̬
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It occurs as an intervocalic allophone of /𝼄/ in Nii and perhaps some related Wahgi languages of New Guinea.^{[citation needed]}

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that traditionally represents this sound is ⟨ʟ̝⟩, though in extIPA ⟨𝼄̬⟩ is preferred. The two symbols are equivalent.

Features

Features of the voiced velar 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 velar, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) at the soft palate.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• 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 solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Archi[1]		наӏлъдут	[naˤʟ̝dut]	'blue'	Prevelar.[1]

References

1. "The Archi Language Tutorial" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-09-04. Retrieved 2009-12-23. (The source uses the symbol for the voiced alveolar lateral fricative, ⟨ɮ⟩, but also notes that the sound to be prevelar.)