Voiced palatal lateral approximant

A 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 Template:Angbr IPA, a rotated lowercase letter Template:Angbr, not to be confused with the Greek lowercase letter lambda Template:Angbr.

Many languages that were previously thought to have a palatal lateral approximant actually have a lateral approximant that is, broadly, alveolo-palatal: the sound is articulated at a place in-between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate (excluded), and it may be variously described as alveolo-palatal, lamino-postalveolar, or postalveolo-prepalatal.Template:Sfnp None of the 13 languages investigated by Template:Harvcoltxt, many of them Romance, has a 'true' palatal.Template:Sfnp That is likely the case for several other languages listed here. Some languages, like Portuguese and Catalan, have a lateral approximant that varies between alveolar and alveolo-palatal.Template:Sfnp

What is transcribed Template:Angbr IPA is often actually a voiced alveolo-palatal lateral approximant. There is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound, which is one reason that Template:Angbr IPA is used. If more precision is desired, it may be transcribed Template:Angbr IPA. There is a non-IPA letter, Template:Unichar; Template:Angbr IPA (Template:Angbr, plus the curl found in the symbols for alveolo-palatal sibilant fricatives Template:Angle brackets), which is used especially in Sinological circles.

A voiced palatal lateral approximant contrasts phonemically with its voiceless counterpart in the Xumi language spoken in China.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Features

Features of a voiced palatal lateral approximant:

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Albanian	Malsia e Madhe			'flower'
	Arbëresh
	Arvanitika
Aragonese				'needle'
Aromanian				'rabbit'
Astur-Leonese	Asturian			'language'	Where is absent and replaced by different sounds (depending on dialect), a phenomenon known as , its corresponding sounds are spelled Template:Angbr.
	Leonese
	Mirandese
Aymara				'sad'
Basque				'bulb'
Breton				'family'
Bulgarian				'love'	Alveolo-palatal. See Bulgarian phonology
Catalan	Standard			'lake'	Alveolo-palatal.Template:Sfnp See Catalan phonology
	Eastern Aragon			'key'	Allophone of in consonant clusters.
Chipaya		lloqa		'bank'	See Chipaya languages
English	Australian			'million'	Frequent realization of the sequence
	Canadian (Atlantic and Newfoundland)
	County Donegal				Realization of the sequence .
	General AmericanTemplate:Sfnp				Common realization of the sequence ; sometimes realized as .Template:Sfnp See English phonology
	Hiberno-English				Common realization of the sequence
	New England
	New York City
	New Zealand
	Received Pronunciation
	South African
	Southern American
	Philippine			'gorilla'	Common realization of Template:Angbr between vowels due to Spanish influence.
Enindhilyagwa				'place'	Laminal post-alveolar
FaroeseTemplate:Sfnp				'to carve'	Allophone of before palatal consonants.Template:Sfnp Sometimes voiceless Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfnp See Faroese phonology
Franco-Provençal				'give'
French	Some dialects			'butterfly'	Corresponds to in modern standard French. See French phonology
Galician	Standard			'insulated'	Most Galician speakers, especially the urban and younger populations, are nowadays yeístas because of influence from Spanish
Greek			Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'sun'	Postalveolar.Template:Sfnp See Modern Greek phonology
Hungarian	Northern dialectsTemplate:Sfnp		Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'hole'	Alveolo-palatal.Template:Sfnp Modern Standard Hungarian has undergone a phenomenon akin to Spanish yeísmo, merging into . See Hungarian ly and Hungarian phonology
Irish				'leaf'	Alveolo-palatal. Some dialects contrast it with palatalized alveolar . See Irish phonology
ItalianTemplate:Sfnp			Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'son'	Alveolo-palatal.Template:Sfnp Realized as fricative Template:IPAblink in a large number of accents. See Italian phonology
Ivilyuat		Ivil̃uɂat		'the speaking [Ivilyuat]' ('Ivilyuat language')
Jaqaru		allaka		'pumpkin'	See Jaqaru Language
Jebero		llinllin		'name'	See Jebero Language
Korean	Seoul dialect			'qianlima'	is palatalized to before and before palatal consonant allophones
Latvian				'people'	See Latvian phonology
Mapudungun				'nine'	See Mapuche language
Norwegian	Northern and central dialectsTemplate:Sfnp			'all'	See Norwegian phonology
Occitan	Standard			'to reflect'	See Occitan phonology
Paiwan	Standard			'banana'	See Paiwan language
Paez		silli		'reed'	See Paezan languages
Portuguese	Standard			'garlic'	Alveolo-palatal in European Portuguese.Template:Sfnp May instead be , Template:IPAblink (Northeast) or Template:IPAblink (Caipira), especially before unrounded vowels.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp See Portuguese phonology
	Many dialects			'sandal'	Possible realization of post-stressed plus vowel.
QuechuaTemplate:Sfnp				'tongue'
Romanian	Transylvanian dialectsTemplate:Sfnp			'spoon'	Corresponds to Template:IPAblinkTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology
Romansh	Sursilvan			'son'
	Sutsilvan
	Surmiran
	Puter
	Vallader
	Rumantsch Grischun
Scottish GaelicTemplate:Sfnp				'return'	Palatal or palatalised apical dental. Can manifest as , or among some younger speakers, as .Template:Sfnp See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Serbo-Croatian		/	,	'swing (seat)'	Palato-alveolar. See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Sissano				'fish'
Slovak			Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'to love'	Merges with in western dialects. See Slovak phonology
Spanish	Andean (from Argentina to Colombia)			'horse'	Found in traditional speakers in Peninsular Spanish. Also found in Andean countries and Paraguay. For most speakers, this sound has merged with Template:IPAslink, a phenomenon called yeísmo. See Spanish phonology. "Caballo" with yeísmo is pronounced
	Castilian, Aragonese and Catalonian outside of large citiesTemplate:Sfnp
	Central areas in Extremadura
	Eastern and southwestern Manchego
	Murcian
	Paraguayan
	Philippine
	Very few areas in Andalusia
Xumi	LowerTemplate:Sfnp			'musk deer'	Alveolo-palatal; contrasts with the voiceless .Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
	UpperTemplate:Sfnp			'correct, right'

See also

• Yeísmo, a feature of Spanish dialects that have merged this sound with Template:IPAc-es
• Index of phonetics articles