Delateralization is a replacement of a

lateral consonant A lateral is a consonant in which the airstream proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the English ''L'', as in ''L ...

by a

central consonant A central consonant, also known as a median consonant, is a consonant sound that is produced when air flows across the center of the mouth over the tongue. The class contrasts with lateral consonants, in which air flows over the sides of the tong ...

Yeísmo (Romance languages)

Arguably, the best known example of this sound change is yeísmo, which occurs in many Spanish and some Galician dialects. In accents with yeísmo, the

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 , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbo ...

merges with the

palatal approximant The voiced palatal approximant is a type of consonant used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ; the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is j, and in the Americanist phonetic notation i ...

which, phonetically, can be an affricate (word-initially and after ), an approximant (in other environments) or a fricative (in the same environments as the approximant, but only in careful speech). In Romanian, the palatal lateral approximant merged with centuries ago. The same happened to the historic palatal nasal , although that is an example of

lenition In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language ...

. In French, ⟨il⟩ (except in the word "il" l and ⟨ill⟩ (usually followed by "e"; exceptions include "ville" il are usually pronounced j It generally occurs word- or morpheme-finally. For example, ''travail'' "work" (noun) ʁavaj ''travaillait'' "(he/she/it) used to work" ʁavaje ''gentille'' "kind"

feminine Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and Gender roles, roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as Social construction of gender, socially constructed, and there is also s ...

singular �ɑ̃tij Furthermore, when a French word ending in ''al'' is pluralized, rather than becoming ''als'', it becomes ''aux''. For example, ''un animal spécial'' "a special animal" > ''des animaux spéciaux'' "(some) special animals".

Turkish

Delateralisation can occur in Turkish. Its one lateral is which can become after For example, ''değil'' "not" is pronounced e.ij

English

In some accents, when appears word-finally, or after a vowel and before a consonant, it can become For example, little �lɪ.tʰl̩> �lɪ.tʰw̩ bell ɛl> ɛw help ɛlp> ɛwpʰ

Polish

The Polish letter Ł represents the sound The orthography is evidence of an original lateral.

Arabic ''Ḍād''

Another known example of delateralization is the sound change that happened to the

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

''ḍād'', which, historically, was a lateral consonant, either a

pharyngealized Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound. IPA symbols In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicate ...

voiced alveolar lateral fricative The voiced alveolar lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral fricatives is (sometime ...

or a similar

affricate An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pai ...

d sound or . The affricated form is suggested by loans of ''ḍ'' into Akkadian as ''ld'' or ''lṭ'' and into Malaysian as ''dl''. However, some linguists, such as the French orientalist André Roman supposes that the letter was actually a pharyngealized

voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant The voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ("z", plus the curl also found in its voiceless counterp ...

, similar to the Polish '' ź'', which is not a lateral sound. In modern Arabic, there are three possible realizations of this sound, all of which are central: * Pharyngealized voiced alveolar stop * Pharyngealized voiced dental stop * Velarized voiced dental stop .

References

Lateral consonants Sound changes Central consonants {{Phonetics-stub