The voiceless velar lateral fricative is a very rare speech sound. As one element of an affricate, it is found for example in Zulu

Zulu language

Zulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa as well as being understood by over 50% of the population...

 and Xhosa

Xhosa language

Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...

. However, a simple fricative has only been reported from a few languages in the Caucasus

Caucasus

The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...

 and New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

.

Archi

Archi language

Archi is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by the 1,200 Archis in the village of Archib, southern Dagestan, Russia and the six surrounding smaller villages...

, a Northeast Caucasian language

Northeast Caucasian languages

The Northeast Caucasian languages constitute a language family spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, northern Azerbaijan, and in northeastern Georgia, as well as in diaspora populations in Russia, Turkey, and the Middle East...

 of Dagestan

Dagestan

The Republic of Dagestan is a federal subject of Russia, located in the North Caucasus region. Its capital and the largest city is Makhachkala, located at the center of Dagestan on the Caspian Sea...

, has four velar lateral fricatives which are voiceless: plain [ʟ̝̊], labialized

Labialisation

Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve the lips, they are called rounded.The most common...

 [ʟ̝̊ʷ], fortis

Fortis and lenis

In linguistics, fortis and lenis are terms generally used to refer to groups of consonants that are produced with greater and lesser energy, respectively, such as in energy applied, articulation, etc....

 [ʟ̝̊ː], and labialized fortis [ʟ̝̊ːʷ]. Although clearly fricatives

Fricative consonant

Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...

, these are further forward than velar

Velar consonant

Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....

s in most languages, and might better be called prevelar. Archi also has a voiced fricative

Voiced velar lateral fricative

The voiced velar lateral fricative is a very rare speech sound that can be found in Archi, a Northeast Caucasian language of Dagestan, in which it is clearly a fricative, although further forward than velars in most languages, and might better be called prevelar...

, as well as a voiceless

Voiceless velar lateral affricate

The voiceless velar lateral affricate is an uncommon speech sound found as a phoneme in the Caucasus and as an allophone in several languages of eastern and southern Africa....

 and several ejective

Ejective velar lateral affricate

The velar 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 ....

 lateral velar affricates, but no alveolar

Alveolar consonant

Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...

 lateral fricatives or affricates.

In New Guinea, the Melpa

Melpa language

Melpa is a Papuan language spoken by about 130,000 people predominantly in Mount Hagen and the surrounding district of Western Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea....

 and Nii languages have a voiceless velar lateral fricative, which they write with a double-bar L l. This sound also appears in syllable coda

Syllable coda

In phonology, a syllable coda comprises the consonant sounds of a syllable that follow the nucleus, which is usually a vowel. The combination of a nucleus and a coda is called a rime. Some syllables consist only of a nucleus with no coda...

 position as an allophone

Allophone

In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...

 of the voiced velar lateral fricative

Voiced velar lateral fricative

The voiced velar lateral fricative is a very rare speech sound that can be found in Archi, a Northeast Caucasian language of Dagestan, in which it is clearly a fricative, although further forward than velars in most languages, and might better be called prevelar...

 in Kuman

Kuman language (New Guinea)

Kuman is a language of Simbu Province, Papua New Guinea. , it was spoken by about 80,000 people, 10,000 of which were monolinguals. In 2000 the number of speakers increased to 115,000.-References:...

.

The IPA

International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...

 has no separate symbol for these sounds, but it can be transcribed as a devoiced raised velar lateral approximant, [ʟ̝̊], in which the devoicing ring diacritic is placed above the letter to avoid clashing with the raising diacritic

Diacritic

A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...

. Furthermore, the "belt" of the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative

Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative

The voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar fricatives is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is K...

 on the symbol of the corresponding lateral approximant forms the basis for occasional ad hoc symbols for the other voiceless lateral fricatives:



Indeed, SIL International

SIL International

SIL International is a U.S.-based, worldwide, Christian non-profit organization, whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to expand linguistic knowledge, promote literacy, translate the Christian Bible into local languages,...

 has added these symbols to the Private Use Areas of their Charis

Charis SIL

Charis SIL is a glyphic serif typeface developed by SIL International. It is based on Bitstream Charter, one of the first fonts designed for laser printers...

 and Doulos

Doulos SIL

Doulos SIL is a serif typeface developed by SIL International, very similar to Times or Times New Roman. Unlike Times New Roman, Doulos only has a single face, Regular...

fonts, as U+F268 ().