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] (or [tɬ]), and in Americanist phonetic notation it is [ƛ] (lambda bar).

Features

Features of the voiceless alveolar lateral affricate:

• Its manner of articulation is affricate, which means it is produced by stopping air flow entirely, followed by forcing it through a narrow channel, causing turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
• Its phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• 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

The voiceless alveolar lateral affricate is a common sound in the languages of western North America. It is commonly spelled tl. Because [tɬ] was a common grammatical ending in the classical Nahuatl (Aztec) language, the tl spelling, but not the affricate pronunciation, has passed into English with words such as atlatl and axolotl, as well as in place names such as Tenochtitlan.