Voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate

Voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate
t͡ɕ
t͜ɕ
IPA Number	215
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʨ
Unicode (hex)	U+02A8
X-SAMPA	ts\
Image

The voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨t͡ɕ⟩ (formerly ⟨ʨ⟩). The voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant affricate occurs in languages such as Mandarin Chinese and Serbo-Croatian.

Features

Features of the voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate:

• Its manner of articulation is sibilant affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the air flow entirely, then directing it with the tongue to the sharp edge of the teeth, causing high-frequency turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is alveolo-palatal. This means that:
  • Its place of articulation is postalveolar, meaning that the tongue contacts the roof of the mouth in the area behind the alveolar ridge (the gum line).
  • Its tongue shape is laminal, meaning that it is the tongue blade that contacts the roof of the mouth.
  • It is heavily palatalized, meaning that the middle of the tongue is bowed and raised towards the hard palate.
• Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Adyghe	Abzakh	чъыгы	<phonos file="Chagha.ogg">[t͡ɕəɣə]</phonos>	'tree'
	Shapsug
Catalan	All dialects	fletxa	[ˈfɫet͡ɕə]	'arrow'	See Catalan phonology
	Valencian	xec	[ˈt͡ɕek]	'cheque'
Chinese	Cantonese	豬/zyu1	[tɕyː˥]	'pig'	Contrasts with aspirated form. Allophone of /t͡s/, usually in front of the front high vowels /iː/, /ɪ/, /yː/. See Cantonese phonology
	Mandarin	北京/Běijīng	<phonos file="Zh-Beijing.ogg">[peɪ˨˩ t͡ɕiŋ˥]</phonos>	'Beijing'	Contrasts with aspirated form. Pronounced by some speakers as a palatalized dental. In complementary distribution with [t͡s], [k], and [ʈ͡ʂ] series. See Standard Chinese phonology
Danish		tjener	[ˈt͡ɕe̝ːnɐ]	'servant'	Normal realization of the sequence /tj/. See Danish phonology
Japanese		知人/chijin	[t͡ɕid͡ʑĩɴ]	'acquaintance'	See Japanese phonology
Korean		집/jip	[t͡ɕip̚]	'house'	See Korean phonology
Norwegian		tjern	[t͡ɕæɳ]	'pond'	See Norwegian phonology
Polish		ćma	<phonos file="Pl-ćma-2.ogg">[t͡ɕmä]</phonos>	'moth'	See Polish phonology
Romanian	Banat dialect	frate	[frat͡ɕe]	'brother'	One of the most distinct phonological features of the Banat dialect. Corresponds to [t] in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology
Russian		чуть	[t͡ɕʉtʲ]	'barely'	See Russian phonology
Sema		akichi	[à̠kìt͡ɕì]	'mouth'	Possible allophone of /t͡ʃ/ before /i, e/; can be realized as [t͡ʃ] instead.
Serbo-Croatian		Ловћен / Lovćen	[ɫǒ̞ʋt͡ɕe̞n]	'Lovćen'	Merges with /t͡ʃ/ in most Croatian and some Bosnian accents. See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Sorbian	Lower	šćit	[ɕt͡ɕit̪]	'protection'
Swedish	Finland	kjol	[t͡ɕuːl]	'skirt'	See Swedish phonology
Thai		ฉัน	[tɕʰǎn]	'I'
Uzbek
Vietnamese		cha	[t͡ɕa]	'father'	See Vietnamese phonology
Xumi	Lower	[Ht͡ɕɐ]		'star'
	Upper	[Ht͡ɕɜ]
Yi		ꏢ/ji	[t͡ɕi˧]	'sour'	Contrasts aspirated and unaspirated forms

See also

• Index of phonetics articles