Palatal lateral approximant

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 turned letter "y" (not to be confused with lowercase lambda, λ), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is L.

Features

Features of the palatal lateral approximant:

• Its manner of articulation is approximant, which means it is produced by bringing one articulator close to another but without the vocal tract being narrowed to such an extent that a turbulent airstream is produced.
• Its place of articulation is palatal which means it is articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised against the hard palate.
• Its phonation type is voiced, which means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
• It is a lateral consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the sides of the tongue, rather than the middle of the tongue.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Arpitan		balyi		'give'
Aymara		llaki		'sad'
Bulgarian		любов	[ʎubov]	'love'
Catalan		ull	[ˈuʎ]	'eye'	The sound is very frequent in the language and can appear even in coda position. Some Catalan speakers, notably those of the Balearic dialects, merge this sound with semivocalic "i" /j/, a phenomenon called ieisme and akin to Spanish yeísmo. See Catalan phonology.
Croatian		odijeljen		'separated'
Enindhilyagwa		angalya		'place'
Faroese		fylgja		'to follow'
Galician		ollo		'eye'	Many Galician speakers are nowadays yeístas because of influence from Spanish.
Greek		λιακάδα		'sunshine'	See Modern Greek phonology.
Hungarian		lyuk	[ˈʎuk]	'hole'	This sound is currently archaic in the language and only preserved in non-standard dialects of the northern part of the country. Modern standard Hungarian has undergone a phenomenon akin to Spanish yeísmo, merging the old phoneme of "ly" into that of "j". See Hungarian ly.
Italian		figlio	[ˈfiʎːo]	'son'	The sound is pronounced geminate, except when word initial (as in the definite article gli). See Italian phonology.
Norwegian	northern dialects	alle	[ɑʎːe]	'everybody'	See Norwegian phonology.
Portuguese		olho	[ˈoʎu]	'eye'	See Portuguese phonology.
Occitan		miralhar		'to reflect'
	Gascon	hilh		'son'
Quechua		allin		'good'
Scottish Gaelic		till		'return'
Serbian		љуљaшka /ljuljaška		'swing (seat)'
Sissano		piyl		'fish'
Slovak		roľa		'field'
Slovene		polje		'field'
Spanish		millón	[miˈʎon]	'million'	For most speakers this sound has disappeared and merged with "y" (/ʝ/ or /ʒ/ depending on dialect), a phenomenon called yeísmo. See Spanish phonology.

See also

• List of phonetics topics
• Yeísmo

References

Bibliography