Voiced palatal lateral approximant
The voiced 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, a rotated lowercase letter , 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, and it may be variously described as alveolo-palatal, lamino-postalveolar, or postalveolo-prepalatal. None of the 13 languages investigated by, many of them Romance, has a 'true' palatal. That is likely the case for several other languages listed here. Some languages, like Portuguese and Catalan, 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 or ; they are essentially equivalent because the contact includes both the blade and body of the tongue. There is also a non-IPA letter , used especially in Sinological circles.
The palatal lateral approximant contrasts phonemically with its voiceless counterpart in the Xumi language spoken in China.Features of the voiced palatal lateral approximant:Occurrence
