Voiced palatal lateral fricative
# Voiced palatal lateral fricative

The voiced palatal lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʎ̝⟩, though in extIPA ⟨𝼆̬⟩ is preferred. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is L_r.

This sound is not known to occur as a phoneme in any language, but it does occur as an allophone of /ʎ/ in Italian and Jebero.

## Features

Features of the voiced palatal lateral 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 palatal, which means it is articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised to the hard palate.
* Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
* 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 pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

## Occurrence

| Language | Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes |
| - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Italian | Many accents | figlio | [ˈfiʎ̝ːo] | 'son' | Approximant [ʎ] in other accents. See Italian phonology |
| Jebero | Jebero | [iˈʎ̝apa] | [iˈʎ̝apa] | 'shotgun' | Dentoalveolo-palatal. Occasional allophone of /ʎ/; only lightly fricated. |
