Palatal lateral ejective affricate

The palatal lateral ejective affricate is a rare type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨c͜𝼆ʼ⟩ (extIPA; strict IPA: ⟨c͜ʎ̝̊ʼ⟩).

Palatal lateral ejective affricate
c𝼆ʼ
cʎ̝̊ʼ
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It is a rare sound, found in Dahalo, a Cushitic language of Kenya, and in Hadza, a language isolate of Tanzania. In Dahalo, /c͜𝼆ʼ/ contrasts with alveolar /t͜ɬʼ/, and in Hadza it contrasts with velar [k͜𝼄ʼ], an allophone of /kʼ/.

Features

Features of the palatal lateral ejective affricate:

• Its manner of articulation is affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the airflow entirely, then allowing air flow through a constricted channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is palatal, which means it is articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised to the hard palate.
• Its phonation 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 only.
• It is a lateral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream over the sides of the tongue, rather than down the middle.
• The airstream mechanism is ejective (glottalic egressive), which means the air is forced out by pumping the glottis upward.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning
Dahalo		[ʔac𝼆ʼáno]		'semen'
Hadza		[mitc𝼆ʼa]		'bone'

The Hadza sound has been transcribed as [t͜𝼆ʼ], but alveolar contact of the tongue is variable and not distinctive.

References

• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996), The Sounds of the World's Languages, Oxford: Blackwell, ISBN 0-631-19815-6
• Maddieson, Ian; Spajić, Siniša; Sands, Bonny; Ladefoged, Peter (1993), "Phonetic structures of Dahalo", in Maddieson, Ian (ed.), UCLA working papers in phonetics: Fieldwork studies of targeted languages, vol. 84, Los Angeles: The UCLA Phonetics Laboratory Group, pp. 25–65