The voiced retroflex lateral approximant is a type of
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced ...
al sound used in some
spoken language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s. The symbol in the
International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent
X-SAMPA
The Extended Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (X-SAMPA) is a variant of SAMPA developed in 1995 by John C. Wells, professor of phonetics at University College London. It is designed to unify the individual language SAMPA alphabets, a ...
symbol is
l`.
The retroflex lateral approximant contrasts phonemically with its
voiceless counterpart in
Iaai
Iaai (Iaai pronunciation: ) is a language of Ouvéa Island (New Caledonia). It shares the island of Ouvéa with Fagauvea, a Polynesian outlier language.
Iaai is the sixth-most-spoken language of New Caledonia, with 4078 speakers as of 2009. It ...
and
Toda. In both of these languages it also contrasts with more anterior , which are dental in Iaai and alveolar in Toda.
Features
Features of the voiced retroflex lateral approximant:
Occurrence
In the following transcriptions, diacritics may be used to distinguish between
apical and
laminal
A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact
with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...
.
See also
*
Index of phonetics articles
A
* Acoustic phonetics
* Active articulator
* Affricate
* Airstream mechanism
* Alexander John Ellis
* Alexander Melville Bell
* Alfred C. Gimson
* Allophone
* Alveolar approximant ()
* Alveolar click ()
* Alveolar consonant
* Alveolar ...
Notes
References
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External links
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Lateral consonants
Retroflex consonants
Pulmonic consonants
Oral consonants