Voiceless velar lateral fricative

A voiceless velar lateral fricative is a rare speech sound. As one element of an affricate, it is found for example in Zulu and Xhosa (see velar lateral ejective affricate). However, a simple fricative has only been reported from a few languages in the Caucasus and New Guinea.

In New Guinea, some of the Chimbu–Wahgi languages such as Melpa, Middle Wahgi, and Nii, have a velar lateral, which they write with a double-bar el (Ⱡ, ⱡ). One speaker of Kuman was found to have the voiceless fricative in syllable coda position as an allophone of a voiced velar lateral /ʟ/.^[1]

The extIPA has the letter ⟨𝼄⟩ for this sound. It was added to Unicode in 2021.

Features of a voiceless 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 voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
• 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.

Some scholars also posit a voiceless velar lateral approximant distinct from the fricative. The approximant may be represented in the IPA as ⟨ʟ̥⟩.

• Voiced velar lateral fricative
• Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative
• Voiceless velar fricative