Voiceless palatal fricative

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IPA – number	138
IPA – text	ç
IPA – image
Entity	ç
X-SAMPA	C
Kirshenbaum	C
Sound sample (help·info)

The voiceless palatal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ç, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is C. The symbol ç is the letter c with a cedilla, as used to spell French words like façade, although the sound represented by the letter ç in either French or English orthography is not a voiceless palatal fricative, but simply [s], the voiceless alveolar fricative.

Contents 1 Features 2 In English 3 In other languages 3.1 Norwegian 3.2 German 3.3 Irish 3.4 Scottish Gaelic 3.5 Spanish 3.6 Azeri 4 See also

[edit] Features

Features of the voiceless palatal fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is palatal which means it is articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised against the hard palate.
• Its phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

[edit] In English

In some dialects of English, the sequence /hj/ is sometimes realized as the voiceless palatal fricative, via coalescence, a type of assimilation. For example, human (/ˈhjumən/ might be realized as [ˈçjumən]). However, there are no minimal pairs for /hj/ and /ç/, so the voiceless palatal fricative is not a separate phoneme in English.

[edit] In other languages

Palatal fricatives are rare phonemes and only 5% of the world's languages have/ç/ as a phoneme (Ladefoged & Maddieson, 1996).

[edit] Norwegian

In Norwegian language, the sound /ç/ is written "kj" for the most part; in words like kjekk "handsome", kjær "dear" and kjøkken "kitchen" (i.e. before the vowels /e/, /æ/ and /ø/). Before the vowels /i/ and /y/ it is just written with a "k", such as in words like kino "cinema", kirke "church", kyss "kiss" and kyst "coast". In some words it's written "tj", like tjern "tarn", tjue "twenty" and tjære "tar".

In standard Norwegian the sound /ç/ can just stand in the beginning of words (never in the middle or the end) - and it can not stand before the vowels "a", "o", "u" and "å". In Norwegian dialects, and Nynorsk, it can also stand in the middle of words - such as in words like rekkje "line", ikkje "not", lykkje "paddock", lækjar "doctor" and søkja "seek".

[edit] German

German features the sound in words like ich [ɪç] "I" and is often referred to as ich-Laut and is generally an allophone of the /x/ when it follows a front vowel. [ç] can be found in a few words where [x] would be expected, such as Frauchen [ˈfraʊçən] "diminutive of woman", and so is marginally phonemic. See German phonology.

[edit] Irish

In Irish [ç] is written "ch" and it is used when it follows "e", "i" or when it is followed by "e" , "i". It is called "slender ch" as opposed to its allophone "broad ch" [x] next to "a", "o", "u" or "ae". Formerly it was written "ċ" ("c" with dot) in Gaelic typefaces. It is used particularly at the beginning of words due to initial consonant mutation of the letter "c" [k].

[edit] Scottish Gaelic

In Scots Gaelic, [ç] is written "ch" when it follows and is followed by a slender vowel (i or e). It is called "slender ch" as opposed to its allophone "broad ch" [x] next to "a", "o" or "u". It appears in words such as oidhche (night).

[edit] Spanish

In Caribbean Spanish, [ç] is often the realization of the letter "s" in "is" words such as 'listo' [liçto]. Note that this is not a separate phoneme from other post-vocalic pronunciations of 's' in the dialect, normally [h]. This is essentially the same phenomenon as described in English above.

[edit] Azeri

In many dialects of Azeri, the letter k is pronounced as [ç] when it is found in the coda position and/or is preceded by a voiceless-consonant syllable (as in çörək [ʧœ'ræç] - "bread"; [sæç'sæn] - "eighty"). It is generally accepted as an allophone of [k] although some linguists argue that it qualifies for being accepted as a separate phoneme in Standard Azeri.

[edit] See also

• List of phonetics topics

Consonants (List, table)	See also: IPA, Vowels
Pulmonics Bilabial Lab'den. Dental Alveolar Postalv. Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn. Epiglottal Glottal Non-pulmonics and other symbols Nasals m ɱ n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ Clicks  ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ Plosives p b • • t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Implo­­sives  ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ ʛ Fricatives ɸ β f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Ejec­­tives  pʼ tʼ kʼ qʼ sʼ Approximants β̞ ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ Other laterals  ɺ ɫ Trills ʙ r • ʀ • Co-articulated approximants  ʍ w ɥ Flaps & Taps ѵ̟ ѵ ɾ ɽ • Co-articulated fricatives  ɕ ʑ ɧ Lat. Fricatives ɬ ɮ • • • Affricates  ʦ ʣ ʧ ʤ Lat. Appr'mants l ɭ ʎ ʟ Co-articulated stops  k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m
This page contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help] Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged impossible.