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Voiceless velar lateral fricative
𝼄
ʟ̝̊
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Avoiceless velar lateral fricative is a rarespeech sound. As one element of anaffricate, it is found for example inZulu andXhosa (seevelar lateral ejective affricate). However, a simple fricative has only been reported from a few languages in theCaucasus andNew Guinea.

In New Guinea, some of theChimbu–Wahgi languages such asMelpa,Middle Wahgi, andNii, have a velar lateral, which they write with a double-bar el (Ⱡ, ⱡ). One speaker ofKuman was found to have the voiceless fricative insyllable coda position as anallophone of a voiced velar lateral/ʟ/.^[1]

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

Features of a voiceless velar lateral fricative:

• Itsmanner of articulation isfricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causingturbulence.
• Itsplace of articulation isvelar, which means it is articulated with the back of thetongue (the dorsum) at thesoft palate.
• Itsphonation 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 anoral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• It is alateral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream over the sides of the tongue, rather than down the middle.
• Itsairstream mechanism ispulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with theintercostal muscles andabdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

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

• Fricative consonants
• Lateral consonants
• Pulmonic consonants
• Voiceless oral consonants
• Velar consonants
• Voiceless lateral approximants

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