Does /Ĩ/ *really* exist in Southwestern Mandarin? 成都话方言词典 (1987) lists a bunch of words under the IPA initial /Ĩ/.

Southwestern Mandarin doesn't seem to actually have this initial according to most other resources who put all the /Ĩ/ listed words under the initial /n/.

For example 成都话方言词典 lists 路 as /Ĩu/ (ignoring tones for now) whereas most other resources list it as /nu/. The /Ĩu/ IPA results in a 'pinyin' of lu while the /nu/ IPA gives a pinyin of nu.

I can't find anything to back up 成都话方言词典's usage of /Ĩ/, regardless, my real question is:


Does /Ĩ/ really exist in Southwestern Mandarin?
Yes they use /l/.
People from the Southwest sometimes can not distinguish /n/ and /l/ very well.
For example,  牛奶 [milk], in standard mandarin it should be [niu2 nai3]; however, people from the southwest usually say [liu12 lai4]; even if when they are trying to speak mandarin, they prounance like [liu2 lai3].