Voiced dental, alveolar and postalveolar lateral approximants

Voiced dental lateral approximant
Voiced dental lateral approximant
l̪
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Voiced postalveolar lateral approximant
Voiced postalveolar lateral approximant
l̠
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Voiced alveolar lateral approximant
Voiced alveolar lateral approximant
l
IPA number	155
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	l
Unicode (hex)	U+006C
X-SAMPA	l
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Voiced dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral approximants are a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents them is ⟨l⟩.

As a sonorant, lateral approximants are nearly always voiced. Voiceless lateral approximants, /l̥/ are common in Sino-Tibetan languages, but uncommon elsewhere. In such cases, voicing typically starts about halfway through the hold of the consonant. No language is known to contrast such a sound with a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative [ɬ].

In a number of languages, including most varieties of English, the phoneme /l/ becomes velarized ("dark l") in certain contexts. By contrast, the non-velarized form is the "clear l" (also known as: "light l"), which occurs before and between vowels in certain English standards.^[1] Some languages have only clear l.^[2] Others may not have a clear l at all, or have them only before front vowels (especially [i]).

^ Adjaye, Sophia (2005). Ghanaian English Pronunciation. Edwin Mellen Press. p. 198. ISBN 978-0-7734-6208-3. realization of /l/ is similar to that of RP: a 'clear' or non-velarized /l/ = [l] pre-vocalically and intervocalically; and a 'dark' or velarized /l/ = [ɫ] pre-consonantally and pre-pausally
^ Celce-Murcia, Marianne; et al. (2010). Teaching Pronunciation. Cambridge U. Press. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-521-72975-8. the light /l/ used in all environments in [standard] German (e.g., Licht "light," viel "much, many") or in French (e.g., lit "bed", île "island")

[1] Adjaye, Sophia (2005). Ghanaian English Pronunciation. Edwin Mellen Press. p. 198. ISBN 978-0-7734-6208-3. realization of /l/ is similar to that of RP: a 'clear' or non-velarized /l/ = [l] pre-vocalically and intervocalically; and a 'dark' or velarized /l/ = [ɫ] pre-consonantally and pre-pausally

[2] Celce-Murcia, Marianne; et al. (2010). Teaching Pronunciation. Cambridge U. Press. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-521-72975-8. the light /l/ used in all environments in [standard] German (e.g., Licht "light," viel "much, many") or in French (e.g., lit "bed", île "island")

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