Voiceless velar lateral affricate

The voiceless velar lateral affricate is a relatively uncommon speech sound found as a phoneme in the Caucasus and as an allophone in several languages of eastern and southern Africa. In strict IPA, it needs to be transcribed with diacritics, but a proper letter exists in extIPA: ⟨k͜𝼄⟩.

Archi, a Northeast Caucasian language of Dagestan, has two such affricates, plain [k𝼄] and labialized [k𝼄ʷ], though they are further forward than velars in most languages, and might better be called prevelar. Archi also has ejective variants of its lateral affricates, several voiceless lateral fricatives, and a voiced lateral fricative at the same place of articulation, but no alveolar lateral fricatives or affricates.

In Hiw, a language spoken in Vanuatu, the lateral affricate occurs as an allophone of /g͡ʟ/, a prestopped velar lateral.

Zulu and Xhosa have a voiceless lateral affricate as an allophone of their voiceless velar affricate. Hadza has an ejective velar lateral affricate as an allophone of its velar ejective affricate. Indeed, in Hadza this [k͜𝼄ʼ] contrasts with a palatal lateral ejective affricate, [c͜𝼆ʼ]. ǁXegwi is reported to have contrasted velar /k͜𝼄/ from alveolar /t͜ɬ/.