Voiced palatal lateral flap

Voiced palatal lateral flap
ʎ̮
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A voiced palatal lateral flap is a rare type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. There is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound. However, the symbol for a palatal lateral approximant with a breve denoting extra-short ⟨ʎ̆⟩, or equivalently ⟨ʎ̮⟩ to avoid a clash with the ascender, can be used.

Features

Features of a voiced palatal lateral flap:

• Its manner of articulation is tap or flap, which means it is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator (usually the tongue) is thrown against another.
• 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 that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• 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.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most speech sounds.

Occurrence

The Ilgar language of Australia has a palatal lateral flap as well as alveolar and retroflex lateral flaps. Some Northwest Barito languages also have a palatal lateral flap.

Language	Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Ilgar	[miʎ̮arɡu]		'Mildyagru (personal name)'	Contrasts with alveolar [ɺ] and retroflex [𝼈]. Not clear if this is a third lateral flap phoneme or due to palatalization of the alveolar lateral flap.
Oʼodham	leʼeje	[ʎ̮ɨʔɨd͡ʒɨ]	'brat (misbehaving child)'	Described as a palatal lateral flap in recent sources, as an apical alveolar flap in older sources.
Ot Siang	[ʎ̮opou]		'house'	A phonemic distinction between /l/, /ʎ̮/ and /ɾ/ is found in the languages of the area and is reconstructed for Proto-Northwest Barito.
Páez	weʼll	[wɛʔʎ̮]	'stiff'	Perhaps better analyzed as palatalized [ɺʲ], given the pervasive palatalization of the language. Optionally devoiced in coda position.