Editing Tap and flap consonants (section)

===Lateral taps and flaps===
Many of the languages of Africa, Asia, and the Pacific that do not distinguish [r] from [[l]] may have a lateral flap. However, it is also possible that many of these languages do not have a lateral–central contrast at all, so that even a consistently neutral articulation may be perceived as sometimes lateral {{IPA|[ɺ]}} or {{IPA|[l]}}, sometimes central {{IPA|[ɾ]}}. This has been suggested to be the case for [[Japanese language|Japanese]], for example.{{sfnp|Ladefoged|Maddieson|1996|p=243}}

The [[Iwaidja language]] of Australia has both alveolar and [[retroflex lateral flap]]s. These contrast with [[lateral approximant]]s at the same positions, as well as a retroflex tap {{IPA|[ɽ]}}, [[alveolar tap]] {{IPA|[ɾ]}}, and [[retroflex approximant]] {{IPA|[ɻ]}}. However, the flapped, or tapped, laterals in Iwaidja are distinct from 'lateral flaps' as represented by the corresponding IPA symbols (see below). These phones consist of a flap component followed by a lateral component, whereas In Iwaidja the opposite is the case. For this reason, current IPA transcriptions of these sounds by linguists working on the language consist of an alveolar lateral followed by a superscript alveolar tap and a retroflex lateral followed by a superscript retroflex tap.

A [[velar lateral tap]] may exist as an allophone in a few languages of New Guinea, according to [[Peter Ladefoged]] and [[Ian Maddieson]].

A co-articulated alveolar-linguolabial lateral tap or flap {{IPA|/ɺ͡ɺ̼/}} may exist in some varieties of [[Pirahã language|Pirahã]].<ref name="Everett 1986">{{cite book |last=Everett |first=Daniel L. |author-link=Daniel Everett |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110850819/html |title=Handbook of Amazonian Languages |date=July 1, 1986 |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton |isbn=9783110102574 |volume=1 |location=Berlin, Germany |pages=315–317 |chapter=Pirahã |doi=10.1515/9783110850819.200 |url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref name="Everett 2008">{{cite book |last=Everett |first=Daniel L. |url=https://archive.org/details/dontsleeptherear00ever |title=Don't Sleep, there are Snakes |publisher=Pantheon Books |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-375-42502-8 |pages=178–179 |url-access=registration}}</ref>