How these sounds differ
lː
Voiced Alveolar Lateral Fricative
- Voicing
- voiced
- Place
- alveolar
- Manner
- lateral fricative
- Class
- consonant
- In languages
- 29 / 500
ɬʲ
Voiceless Alveolar Lateral Fricative
- Voicing
- voiceless
- Place
- alveolar
- Manner
- lateral fricative
- Class
- consonant
- In languages
- 2 / 500
Cross-linguistic distribution
29
Languages with lː
0
Languages with both
2
Languages with ɬʲ
0 languages in our database contrast both sounds as distinct phonemes. Languages that have one but not the other tend to merge them into a single phoneme — meaning speakers of those languages often struggle to hear the distinction when learning a language that contrasts them.
Has lː, not ɬʲ (20)
Chamorro
Austronesian
Nara
Language isolate
Border Kuna
Chibchan
Yakut
Turkic
Mahas-Fiyadikka
Nubian
Songhai
Songhay
Kadugli (Miri)
Kadugli-Krongo
Maltese
Afro-Asiatic
Zuni
Language isolate
Delaware
Algic
Hindi-Urdu
Indo-European
Bengali
Indo-European
Egyptian Arabic
Afro-Asiatic
Telugu
Dravidian
Korean
Koreanic
Italian
Indo-European
Amharic
Afro-Asiatic
Nepali
Indo-European
fulfulde (NGA)
Atlantic-Congo
Somali
Afro-Asiatic