Voiceless alveolar lateral affricate

The voiceless alveolar lateral affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is ⟨t͡ɬ⟩ (often simplified to ⟨tɬ⟩), and in Americanist phonetic notation it is ⟨ƛ⟩ (barred lambda).

tɬ

ƛ

IPA Number 103 (148)

Audio sample

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Encoding

Entity (decimal) t͡ɬ

Unicode (hex) U+0074 U+0361 U+026C

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Features

Features of the voiceless alveolar lateral affricate:

Its manner of articulation is affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the airflow entirely, then allowing air flow through a constricted 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. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
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.

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Cherokee	Otali	tla	[t͡ɬa]	'no'
Chukchi		Ԓыгъоравэтԓьэн	[ɬəɣˀorawetɬˀɛn]	'Chukchi'
Haida		tla'únhl	[t͡ɬʌʊ́nɬ]	'six'
Icelandic		bolli	[ˈpɔt͡ɬɪ]	'cup'	See Icelandic phonology.
Klingon		`tlhIngan Hol`	[ˈt͡ɬɪ.ŋɑn xol]	'Klingon language'	See Klingon phonology.
Ladin		tlo	[t͡ɬo]	'here'	Gherdëina variant
Nahuatl		Nahuatl	[ˈnaːwat͡ɬ] (help·info)	'Nahuatl language'
Pa Na		[t͡ɬa˧˥]		'frost'
Sahaptin		[t͡ɬupt]		'jumping'
Spanish	Mexican^[1]	Xóchitl	[ˈʃo̞t͡ʃit͡ɬ]	'Xóchitl'	See Spanish phonology.
Tlingit^[2]		tleilóo	[t͡ɬeɬúː] (help·info)	'butterfly'	Distinguishes aspirated and unaspirated
Tsez		элIни/eƛni	[ˈʔɛ̝t͡ɬni]	'winter'
Tswana		tlala	[t͡ɬala]	'hunger'

Lope Blanch, Juan M. (2004), Cuestiones de filología mexicana, Mexico: editorial Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, ISBN 978-970-32-0976-7
Maddieson, Ian; Smith, Caroline; Bessell, Nicola (2001), "Aspects of the phonetics of Tlingit", Anthropological Linguistics, 43 (2): 135–176, JSTOR 30028779
Chen, Qiguang [陈其光]. 2001. "A Brief Introduction of Bana Language [巴那语概况]". Minzu Yuwen.