A voiceless velar lateral fricative is a rare speech sound. As one element of an affricate, it is found for example in Zulu and Xhosa (see velar lateral ejective affricate). However, a simple fricative has only been reported from a few languages in the Caucasus and New Guinea.
In New Guinea, some of the Chimbu–Wahgi languages such as Melpa, Middle Wahgi, and Nii, have a velar lateral, which they write with a double-bar el (Ⱡ, ⱡ). One speaker of Kuman was found to have the voiceless fricative in syllable coda position as an allophone of a voiced velar lateral .
The extIPA has the letter for this sound. It was added to Unicode in 2021.
Features
Features of a voiceless velar lateral fricative:
Occurrence
{| class="wikitable"
!colspan=2| Language
! Word
! IPA
! Meaning
! Notes
|-
|colspan=2| Wahgi
| nòⱡ
|
| 'water'
|
|}
Voiceless velar lateral approximant
Some scholars also posit a voiceless velar lateral approximant distinct from the fricative. The approximant may be represented in the IPA as .
{| class="wikitable"
!colspan=2| Language
! Word
! IPA
! Meaning
! Notes
|-
|English
| Western American
|clear
|
| 'clear'
| Possible allophone of after . See English phonology
|-
| German
| Austrian
|
|
| 'clear'
| Possible allophone of after the aspirated allophone of . See Standard German phonology
|-
|colspan=2|Welsh
|pwll
|
| 'pool'
| Possible allophone of after back vowels.
|-
|}
See also
- Voiced velar lateral fricative
- Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative
- Voiceless velar fricative