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Dark L

Alveolar lateral approximant
l
IPA number 155
Encoding
Entity (decimal) l
Unicode (hex) U+006C
X-SAMPA l
Kirshenbaum l
Braille ⠇ (braille pattern dots-123)
Sound
Postalveolar lateral approximant
Dental lateral approximant
Dark L
ɫ
IPA number 209
Encoding
Entity (decimal) l​ˠ
Unicode (hex) U+006C U+02E0
X-SAMPA 5 or l_G or l_?\
Kirshenbaum l<vzd>
Sound

The alveolar lateral approximant is a type of econsonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral approximants is ⟨l⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol 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 in certain contexts, a sound often called "dark l". Some languages, like many North American dialects of English, may not have a "clear" /l/ at all, or use it only before front vowels (especially [i]).


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