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Delateralization is a replacement of a lateral consonant by a median consonant.

Arguably, the best known example of this sound change is yeísmo, which occurs in many Spanish and some Galician dialects.

In accents with yeísmo, the palatal lateral approximant /ʎ/ merges with the palatal approximant /ʝ/ which, phonetically, can be an affricate [ɟ͡ʝ] (word-initially and after /n/), an approximant [ʝ̞] (in other environments) or a fricative [ʝ] (in the same environments as the approximant, but only in careful speech).

In Romanian, the palatal lateral approximant /ʎ/ merged with /j/ centuries ago. The same happened to the historic palatal nasal /ɲ/, although that is an example of lenition.

In French, ⟨il⟩ (except in the word "il" [il]) and ⟨ill⟩ (usually followed by -e; exceptions include ville [vil]) are usually pronounced [ij]. It generally occurs word- or morpheme-finally. For example, travail "work" (noun) [tʁavaj], travaillait "(he/she/it) used to work" [tʁavaje], gentille "kind" feminine singular [ʒɑ̃tij].

Furthermore, when a French word ending in -al is pluralized, rather than becoming -als, it becomes -aux. For example, un animal spécial "a special animal" > des animaux spéciaux "(some) special animals".

In some accents, when [l] appears word-finally, or after a vowel and before a consonant, it can become [w]. For example, little [ˈlɪ.tʰl̩] > [ˈlɪ.tʰw̩], bell [bɛl] > [bɛw], help [hɛlp] > [hɛwpʰ].

The Polish letter Ł represents the sound [w]. The orthography is evidence of an original lateral.

Another known example of delateralization is the sound change that happened to the Arabic ḍād, which, historically, was a lateral consonant, either a pharyngealized voiced alveolar lateral fricative [ɮˤ]^ⓘ or a similar affricated sound [d͡ɮˤ] or [dˡˤ].^[1][2] The affricated form is suggested by loans of ḍ into Akkadian as ld or lṭ and into Malaysian as dl.^[3] However, some linguists, such as the French orientalist André Roman supposes that the letter was actually a pharyngealized voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant [ʑˤ], similar to the Polish ź, which is not a lateral sound.^[1][2][4]

In modern Arabic, there are three possible realizations of this sound, all of which are central:^[3]

• Pharyngealized voiced alveolar stop [dˤ]^ⓘ
• Pharyngealized voiced dental stop [d̪ˤ]
• Velarized voiced dental stop [d̪ˠ].

The Mochica language, around the 18th and 19th centuries, shifted the lateral sounds [l] and [𝼆] to [x] and [ç].^[5]