Palatal lateral approximant

Palatal lateral approximant
ʎ
IPA number	157
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʎ
Unicode (hex)	U+028E
X-SAMPA	L
Kirshenbaum	l^
Braille
Image
Sound

Alveolo-palatal lateral approximant
l̠ʲ
ʎ̟
ȴ

The 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 ⟨ʎ⟩, a rotated lowercase letter ⟨y⟩ (not to be confused with lowercase lambda, ⟨λ⟩), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is L.

Many languages that were previously thought to have a palatal lateral approximant, actually have a lateral approximant that is, broadly, alveolo-palatal; that is to say, it 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. Of 13 languages investigated by Recasens (2013), many of them Romance, none possess a 'true' palatal. This is likely the case for several other languages listed here. Some languages, like Portuguese and Calatan, have a lateral approximant that varies between alveolar and alveolo-palatal.

There is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the alveolo-palatal lateral approximant. If precision is desired, it may be transcribed ⟨l̠ʲ⟩ or ⟨ʎ̟⟩; these are essentially equivalent, since the contact includes both the blade and body (but not the tip) of the tongue. There is also a non-IPA letter ⟨ȴ⟩, used especially in Sinological circles.

Features

Features of the palatal lateral approximant:

• Its manner of articulation is approximant, which means it is produced by narrowing the vocal tract at the place of articulation, but not enough to produce a turbulent airstream.
• 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 lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Aragonese		agulla	[aˈɣuʎa]	'needle'
Asturian	Northern dialects	llana	[ˈʎãna]	'wool'	Where /ʎ/ is absent due to a yeísmo-like merger, it is replaced by different sounds (depending on dialect) and spelled ⟨ḷḷ⟩.
Aymara		llaki	[ʎaki]	'sad'
Basque		bonbilla	[bo̞mbiʎa]	'bulb'
Breton		familh	[famiʎ]	'family'
Bulgarian		любов	[l̠ʲubof]	'love'	Alveolo-palatal.[citation needed]
Catalan		ull	[ˈul̠ʲ]	'eye'	Alveolo-palatal. See Catalan phonology
Enindhilyagwa		angalya	[aŋal̠ʲa]	'place'	Laminal postalveolar.
Faroese		fylgja	[fɪʎd͡ʒa]	'to follow'
Franco-Provençal		balyi	[baʎi]	'give'
Galician		illado	[iˈʎaðo]	'insulated' (m.)	Many Galician speakers are nowadays yeístas because of influence from Spanish.
Greek		λιακάδα liakáda	[ʎɐˈkɐðɐ]	'sunshine'	Postalveolar. See Modern Greek phonology
Hungarian	Northern dialects	lyuk	[ʎuk]	'hole'	Alveolo-palatal. Modern standard Hungarian has undergone a phenomenon akin to Spanish yeísmo, merging /ʎ/ into /j/. See Hungarian ly and Hungarian phonology
Italian		figlio	[ˈfiʎːo]	'son'	Alveolo-palatal. See Italian phonology
Korean		실례 sillye	[ɕil̠ʲl̠ʲe]	'discourtesy'	Alveolo-palatal.[citation needed] See Korean phonology
Leonese		llibru	[ˈʎiβɾu]	'book'
Macedonian		љубов	[ʎubɔv]	'love'	See Macedonian phonology
Norwegian	Northern and central dialects	alle	[ɑʎːe]	'all'	See Norwegian phonology
Occitan	Northern	miralhar	[miɾaˈʎa]	'to reflect'	See Occitan phonology
	Southern
	Gascon	hilh	[hiʎ]	'son'
Portuguese	Some dialects	sandália	[sɐ̃ˈdal̠ʲɐ]	'sandal'	There is no contrast of [lj ~ lʲ ~ l̠ʲ ~ ʎ] for either /li̯/ or /ʎ/ in Brazilian Portuguese. Historically diminished in caipira and hinterland nordestino areas due to more advanced yeísmo-like phenomenon, also affecting in various degrees all of Brazil.
	Most speakers	ralho	[ˈʁal̠ʲu]	'I scold'	Alveolo-palatal in European Portuguese. Contrasts with both /l/ and [j], sounds to which phantom Brazilian /ʎ/ tends to evolve to (especially when not before rounded vowels). See Portuguese phonology
Quechua		qallu	[qaʎu]	'tongue'
Scottish Gaelic		till	[tʲʰiːʎ]	'return'	Alveolo-palatal.[citation needed] See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Serbo-Croatian		љуљaчка / ljuljačka	[l̠ʲǔl̠ʲaːt͡ʃka]	'swing (seat)'	Alveolo-palatal.[citation needed] See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Sissano		piyl	[piʎ]	'fish'
Slovak		ľúbiť	[ˈʎuːbɪc]	'to love'
Spanish	Castilian	millón	[miˈʎõ̞n]	'million'	For most speakers, this sound has merged with /ʝ/, a phenomenon called yeísmo. See Spanish phonology
Ukrainian		ліс	[l̠ʲis]	'forest'	Alveolo-palatal.[citation needed] See Ukrainian phonology

See also

• Yeísmo
• Index of phonetics articles

Bibliography

• Aragão, Maria do Socorro Silva de (2009), Os estudos fonético-fonológicos nos estados da Paraíba e do Ceará [The phonetic-phonological studies in Paraíba and Ceará states] (in Portuguese) 
• Arvaniti, Amalia (2007), "Greek Phonetics: The State of the Art", Journal of Greek Linguistics 8: 97–208 
• Benkő, Loránd (1972), "The Hungarian Language", in Imre, Samu, Janua Linguarum, Series Practica 134, The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter 
• Carbonell, Joan F.; Llisterri, Joaquim (1992), "Catalan", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 22 (1–2): 53–56, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004618 
• Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 25 (2): 90–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005223 
• Oftedal, M. (1956), The Gaelic of Leurbost, Oslo: Norsk Tidskrift for Sprogvidenskap 
• Ladefoged, Peter (1997), "Linguistic phonetic descriptions", in Harcastle, William J.; Laver, John, The handbook of the phonetic sciences, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 589–618 
• Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (2nd ed.), Oxford: Blackwell 
• Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma.; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 255–259, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001373 
• Recasens, Daniel (2013), "On the articulatory classification of (alveolo)palatal consonants", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 43 (1): 1–22, doi:10.1017/S0025100312000199 
• Recasens, Daniel; Farnetani, Edda; Fontdevila, Jordi; Pallarès, Maria Dolors (1993), "An electropalatographic study of alveolar and palatal consonants in Catalan and Italian", Language and Speech 36: 213–234 
• Rogers, Derek; d'Arcangeli, Luciana (2004), "Italian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (1): 117–121, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001628 
• Skjekkeland, Martin (1997), Dei norske dialektane: Tradisjonelle særdrag i jamføring med skriftmåla, Høyskoleforlaget (Norwegian Academic Press) 
• Stein, Cirineu Cecote (2011), O percurso acústico-articulatório da alofonia da consoante lateral palatal [The acoustic-articulatory path of the lateral palatal consonant's allophony] (in Portuguese) 
• Teixeira, António; Martins, Paula; Oliveira, Catarina; Silva, Augusto (2012), "Production and Modeling of the European Portuguese Palatal Lateral", Computational Processing of the Portuguese Language, pp. 318–328, doi:10.1007/978-3-642-28885-2_36