Everything about Liquid Consonants totally explained
Liquid consonants, or
liquids, are
approximant consonants that are not classified as
semivowels (glides) because they don't correspond phonetically to specific
vowels (in the way that, for example, the initial [j] in English
yes corresponds to [i]).
The class of liquids can be divided into
lateral liquids and
rhotics.
Obstruent laterals, which are mainly found in
indigenous languages of
North America and include such sounds as the
voiceless alveolar lateral fricative ([ɬ]), the
voiced alveolar lateral fricative ([ɮ], and the
affricates [tɬ], [tɬʼ], and [dɮ], are sometimes thought of as liquids but don't have their high
sonority. Nor can
obstruent laterals be used in the same way as
sonorant laterals in the languages where they occur.
Typical liquids in
English are the sounds /l/ and /ɹ/. In most other European languages the letter r represents an alveolar trill, which is its value in the
IPA. In
French,
German and
Danish, the letter r represents a
uvular trill pronounced far back in the throat ([ʁ])—this may also be a uvular approximant.
Some European languages, such as
Italian and
Serbo-Croatian, have more than two liquid phonemes. These languages typically have the set /l/ /ʎ/ /r/, though some (like
Russian) have /lʲ/, /ɫ/, /r/ (Russian also has /rʲ/).
Elsewhere in the world, two liquids of the types mentioned above remains the most common attribute of a language's consonant inventory, except in North America and
Australia. In North America, a majority of languages don't have rhotics at all and there's a wide variety of
lateral sounds - though most are
obstruent laterals rather than liquids. Most indigenous Australian languages are very rich in liquids, with some having as many as seven distinct liquids. These typically include dental, alveolar, retroflex and palatal laterals, and as many as three rhotics. This richness in liquid consonants in a sense compensates for the small vowel inventories and lack of fricatives of Aboriginal languages.
Some African languages also contrast two rhotics, usually a trill and a flap.
On the other side, there are many indigenous languages with no liquids in the
Amazon Basin and eastern North America, and also a few in Asia and Africa. Polynesian languages typically have only one liquid, which may be either a lateral or a rhotic.
Further Information
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