Voiceless dental and alveolar lateral fricatives

A 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 lateral fricatives is [ɬ]. The symbol [ɬ] is called "belted l" and is distinct from "l with tilde", [ɫ], which transcribes a different sound – the velarized (or pharynɡealized) alveolar lateral approximant, often called "dark L".

A voiceless alveolar lateral approximant is transcribed in IPA as ⟨l̥⟩. In Sino-Tibetan languages, Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996) argue that Burmese and Standard Tibetan have voiceless lateral approximants [l̥] and Li Fang-Kuei & William Baxter contrast apophonically the voiceless alveolar lateral approximant from its voiced counterpart in the reconstruction of Old Chinese. A voiceless dental or alveolar lateral approximant is found as an allophone of its voiced counterpart in British English and Philadelphia English after voiceless coronal and labial stops, and it is velarized before back vowels; the allophone of /l/ after /k/ is most commonly as a voiceless velar lateral approximant. See English phonology.