Alveolar lateral ejective fricative
# Alveolar lateral ejective fricative

The alveolar lateral ejective fricative is a type of consonantal sound, reported in the Northwest Caucasian languages and in Modern South Arabian languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɬʼ⟩.

## Features

Features of the alveolar lateral ejective 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 alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
* Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
* It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
* 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.
* The airstream mechanism is ejective (glottalic egressive), which means the air is forced out by pumping the glottis upward.

## Occurrence

[ɬʼ] occurs in the reconstructed Proto-Semitic language.

| Language | Language | Word | IPA | Meaning |
| - | - | - | - | - |
| Adyghe | Adyghe | лIэшIэгъу | [ɬʼaʃʼaʁʷə] | 'century' |
| Kabardian | Kabardian | плӀы | (help·info) | 'four' |
| Tlingit | Tlingit | lʼook | (help·info) | ‘fish’ |
