Voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant

Voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant
ʃ
IPA number	134
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʃ
Unicode (hex)	U+0283
X-SAMPA	S
Kirshenbaum	S
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Sound
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The voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant, voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or voiceless domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, including English. In English, it is usually represented in writing with ⟨sh⟩, as in ship.

palato-alveolar fricative [ʃ, ʒ]

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʃ⟩, the letter esh introduced by Isaac Pitman (not to be confused with the integral symbol ⟨∫⟩). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is S.

An alternative symbol is ⟨š⟩, an s with a háček, which is used in the Americanist phonetic notation and the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet, as well as in the scientific and ISO 9 transliterations of Cyrillic. It originated with the Czech alphabet of Jan Hus and was adopted in Gaj's Latin alphabet and other Latin alphabets of Slavic languages. It also features in the orthographies of many Baltic, Finno-Lappic, North American and African languages.

Some scholars use the symbol /ʃ/ to transcribe the laminal variant of the voiceless retroflex sibilant. In such cases, the voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant is transcribed /ʃʲ/.

Features

Features of the voiceless palato-alveolar fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is sibilant fricative, which means it is generally produced by channeling air flow along a groove in the back of the tongue up to the place of articulation, at which point it is focused against the sharp edge of the nearly clenched teeth, causing high-frequency turbulence.

• Its place of articulation is palato-alveolar, that is, domed (partially palatalized) postalveolar, which means it is articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the front of the tongue bunched up ("domed") at the 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		шыд	[ʃəd]	'donkey'
Albanian		shtëpi	[ʃtəˈpi]	'house'
Arabic	Standard[1]	شمس	[ʃæms]	'sun'	See Arabic phonology
Armenian	Eastern[2]	շուն	[ʃun]	'dog'
Asturian		xera	[ʃe.ɾa]	'work'
Azerbaijani		şeir	[ʃeiɾ]	'poem'
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic		[ʃəkla]		'picture' or 'photo'
Basque		kaixo	[kajʃ̺o]	'hello'
Berber	Kabyle	ciwer	[ʃiwər]	'to consult'
Breton		chadenn	[ˈʃa.dɛ̃n]	'chain'
Bulgarian		юнашки	[joˈnaʃki]	'heroically'
Czech		kaše	[ˈkaʃɛ]	'mash'	See Czech phonology
Dutch[3]		sjabloon	[ʃäˈbloːn]	'template'	May be [sʲ] or [ɕ] instead. See Dutch phonology
English		sheep	[ʃiːp]	'sheep'	See English phonology
Esperanto		ŝelko	[ˈʃelko]	'suspenders'	See Esperanto phonology
Faroese		sjúkrahús	[ʃʉukrahʉus]	'hospital'
French[4]		cher	[ʃɛʁ]	'expensive'	See French phonology
Finnish		šekki	[ʃekːi]	'check'	See Finnish phonology
Galician		viaxe	[ˈbjaʃe]	'trip'
Georgian[5]		შარი	[ˈʃɑɾi]	'quibbling'
German	Standard[6]	schön	[ʃʷø̈ːn]	'beautiful'	Laminal or apico-laminal[6] and strongly labialized.[6] See German phonology
Greek	Cypriot	ασ̌σ̌ήμια	[ɐˈʃːimɲɐ]	'ugliness'	Contrasts with /ʃ/ and /ʒː/
Hebrew		שלום	[ʃaˈlom]	'peace'	See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindi		शक	[ʃək]	'doubt'	See Hindustani phonology
Hungarian		segítség	[ˈʃɛɡiːt͡ʃːeːɡ]	'help'	See Hungarian phonology
Ilokano		siák	[ʃak]	'I'
Irish		sí	[ʃiː]	'she'	See Irish phonology
Italian	Marked accents of Emilia-Romagna[7]	sali	[ˈʃäːli]	'you go up'	Apical non-labialized;[7] may be [s̺ʲ] or [ʂ] instead.[7] It corresponds to [s] in standard Italian. See Italian phonology
	Standard[8]	fasce	[ˈfaʃʃe]	'bands'	See Italian phonology
Kabardian		шыд	[ʃɛd]	'donkey'	Contrasts with a labialized form
Kashubian[9]
Latvian		šalle	[ˈʃalːe]	'scarf'
Lingala		shakú	[ʃakú]	'Afrikan gray parrot'
Lithuanian		šarvas	[ˈʃɐrˑvɐs]	'armor'
Macedonian		што	[ʃtɔ]	'what'	See Macedonian phonology
Malay		syarikat	[ʃarikat]	'company'
Maltese		x'jismek	[ʃismek]	'what is your name?'
Marathi		शब्द	[ˈʃəbˈd̪ə]	'word'	See Marathi phonology
Mopan Maya		kax	[kɑːʃ]	'chicken'
Mutsun		raṭmašte	[ɾɑʈmɑʃtɛ]	'having acne, literally acne'd'
Norwegian	Bokmål	sky	[ʃyː]	'cloud'	See Norwegian phonology
	Nynorsk	sjukehus	[ˈʃʉːkeˈhʉːs]	'hospital'
Occitan	Auvergnat	maissant	[meˈʃɔ̃]	'bad'	See Occitan phonology
	Gascon	maishant	[maˈʃan]
	Limousin	son	[ʃũ]	'his'
Persian		شاه	[ʃɒːh]	'king'	See Persian phonology
Polish	Gmina Istebna	siano	[ˈʃän̪ɔ]	'hay'	/ʂ/ and /ɕ/ merge into [ʃ] in these dialects. In standard Polish, /ʃ/ is commonly used to transcribe what actually is a laminal voiceless retroflex sibilant
	Lubawa dialect[10]
	Malbork dialect[10]
	Ostróda dialect[10]
	Warmia dialect[10]
Portuguese	European[11]	caixa	[ˈkajʃɐ]	'box'	Brazilian onset /ʃ/ and coda /s ~ ʃ ~ z ~ ʒ/, and sometimes Portuguese coda /ʃ ~ ʒ/, are argued to be both laminal [ʃ],[12] and generally produced "in the middle of the hard palate" ([ɕ]),[13] same of fellow alveolo-palatal [l̠ʲ] and [n̠ʲ],[14] and further palatalized than Italian post-alveolars.[15] See Portuguese phonology
	Brazilian	choque	[ˈʃɔki]	'(one is) in shock'
Punjabi		ਸ਼ੇਰ	[ʃeːɾ]	'lion'
Romani	Vlax	deš	[deʃ]	'ten'
Romanian		șefi	[ʃefʲ]	'bosses'	See Romanian phonology
Sahaptin		šíš	[ʃiʃ]	'mush'
Scottish Gaelic		seinn	[ʃeiɲ]	'sing'	See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Serbo-Croatian		шума / šuma	[ʃûmä]	'forest'	May be laminal retroflex instead, depending on the dialect. See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Silesian	Gmina Istebna[16]				These dialects merge /ʂ/ and /ɕ/ into [ʃ]
	Jablunkov[16]
Slovene		šola	[ˈʃóːla]	'school'
Somali		shan	[ʃan]	'five'	See Somali phonology
Spanish	Northern Mexico[17]	echador	[e̞ʃaˈðo̞r]	'boastful'	Corresponds to [t͡ʃ] in other dialects. See Spanish phonology
	Southern Andalusia
	Rioplatense	ayer	[aˈʃer]	'yesterday'	Some dialects.See Spanish phonology and yeísmo
Swahili		kushoto	[kuʃoto]	'trees'
Tagalog		siya	[ʃa]	'he / she'	See Tagalog phonology
Toda[18]		[pɔʃ]		'language'
Tunica		šíhkali	[ˈʃihkali]	'stone'
Turkish		güneş	[ɟyˈne̞ʃ]	'sun'	See Turkish phonology
Ukrainian		шахи	['ʃɑxɪ]	'chess'	See Ukrainian phonology
Urdu		شکریہ	[ʃʊkˈriːaː]	'thank you'	See Hindustani phonology
Uyghur		شەھەر	[ʃæhær]	'city'
Walloon		texhou	[tɛʃu]	'knit fabric'
Welsh	Standard	siarad	[ˈʃɑːrad]	'speak'	See Welsh phonology
	Southern dialects	mis	[miːʃ]	'month'
West Frisian		sjippe	[ˈʃɪpǝ]	'soap'
Western Lombard	Canzés	fescia	[feʃa]	'nuisance'
Yiddish		וויסנשאַפֿטלעכע	[vɪsn̩ʃaftləxə]	'scientific'	See Yiddish phonology
Yorùbá		ṣi	[ʃi]	'open'
Zapotec	Tilquiapan[19]	xana	[ʃana]	'how?'
Zhuang		cib	[ʃǐp]	'ten'

In various languages, including English and French, it may have simultaneous lip rounding, i.e. [ʃʷ], although this is usually not transcribed.

Classical Latin did not have [ʃ], though it does occur in most Romance languages. For example, ⟨ch⟩ in French chanteur "singer" is pronounced /ʃ/. "chanteur" is descended from Latin cantare, where ⟨c⟩ was pronounced /k/. ⟨sc⟩ in Latin scientia "science" was pronounced /sk/, but has shifted to /ʃ/ in Italian scienza.

Similarly, Proto-Germanic had neither [ʃ] nor [ʂ], yet many of its descendants do. In most cases, this [ʃ] or [ʂ] descends from a Proto-Germanic /sk/. For instance, Proto-Germanic *skipą ("hollow object, water-borne vessel larger than a boat") was pronounced /ˈski.pɑ̃/. The English word "ship" /ʃɪp/ has been pronounced without the /sk/ the longest, the word being descended from Old English "scip" /ʃip/, which already also had the [ʃ], though the Old English spelling etymologically indicated that the old /sk/ had once been present.

This change took a good bit longer to catch on in West Germanic languages other than Old English, but it eventually did. The second West Germanic language to undergo this sound shift was Old High German. In fact, it has been argued that Old High German's /sk/ was actually already [s̠k], because a single [s] had already shifted to [s̠]. Furthermore, by Middle High German, that /s̠k/ had shifted to [ʃ]. After High German, the shift most likely then occurred in Low Saxon. After Low Saxon, Middle Dutch began the shift, but it stopped shifting once it reached /sx/, and has kept that pronunciation since. Then, most likely through influence from German and Low Saxon, North Frisian experienced the shift.

Then, Swedish quite swiftly underwent the shift, which resulted in the very uncommon [ɧ] phoneme, which, aside from Swedish, is only used in Colognian, a variety of High German, though not as a replacement for the standard High German /ʃ/ but a coronalized /ç/. However, the exact realization of Swedish /ɧ/ varies considerably among dialects; for instance, in Northern dialects it tends to be realized as [ʂ]. See sj-sound for more details. Finally, the last to undergo the shift was Norwegian, in which the result of the shift was [ʃ].

The sound in Russian denoted by ⟨ш⟩ is commonly transcribed as a palato-alveolar fricative but is actually a laminal retroflex fricative.

Voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant fricative

The voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant fricative is a consonantal sound. As the International Phonetic Alphabet does not have separate symbols for the post-alveolar consonants (the same symbol is used for all coronal places of articulation that aren't palatalized), this sound is usually transcribed ⟨ɹ̠̊˔⟩ (retracted constricted voiceless [ɹ]). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r\_-_0_r.

Features

• 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. However, it does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.
• Its place of articulation is postalveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge.

• 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

See also

• Index of phonetics articles
• Cedilla

References

Bibliography

International Phonetic Alphabet   IPA topics IPA International Phonetic Association History of the IPA Extensions to the IPA Kiel convention (1989) Journal of the IPA (JIPA) Naming conventions Phonetics Diacritics Segments Tone letter Place of articulation Manner of articulation Special topics Case variants of IPA letters Handwritten IPA Obsolete and nonstandard symbols IPA chart for English dialects Encodings SAMPA X-SAMPA Kirshenbaum TIPA Phonetic symbols in Unicode WorldBet IPA Braille   Consonants IPA pulmonic consonantschart image • audio Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Radical Glottal ↓ Manner Bilabial Labio­dental Dental Alveolar Palato­alveolar Retroflex Alveolopalatal Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Epiglottal Nasal m̥ m ɱ n̥ n ɳ̊ ɳ ɲ̊ ɲ ŋ̊ ŋ ɴ Stop p b p̪ b̪ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Sibilant fricative s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ Non-sibilant fricative ɸ β f v θ ð θ̱ ð̠ ɹ̠̊˔ ɹ̠˔ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Approximant ʋ ɹ ɻ̊ ɻ j̊ j ɰ̊ ɰ Flap or tap ⱱ̟ ⱱ ɾ̥ ɾ ɽ̊ ɽ ɢ̆ ʡ̯ Trill ʙ r̥ r ɽ͡r̥ ɽ͡r ʀ̥ ʀ ᴙ * Lateral fricative ɬ ɮ ꞎ * ʎ̥˔ ʎ̝ ʟ̝̊ ʟ̝ Lateral approximant l̥ l ɭ̊ ɭ ʎ̥ ʎ ʟ ʟ̠ Lateral flap ɺ ɺ̢ * ʎ̯ ʟ̆ Non-pulmonic consonants Clicks ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ ‼ ʞ ʘ̃ ʘ̃ˀ ʘ͡q ʘ͡qʼ Implosives ɓ̥ ɓ ɗ̥ ɗ ᶑ ʄ̊ ʄ ɠ ʛ Ejectives pʼ t̪ʼ tʼ ʈʼ cʼ kʼ qʼ fʼ θʼ sʼ ɬʼ ʃʼ ʂʼ ɕʼ xʼ χʼ tsʼ tɬʼ cʎ̝̥ʼ tʃʼ ʈʂʼ kxʼ kʟ̝̊ʼ qχʼ Affricates p̪f b̪v ts dz tθ dð tʃ dʒ tɕ dʑ ʈʂ ɖʐ tɬ dɮ cç ɟʝ cʎ̝̥ kx kʟ̝̊ ɡʟ̝ qχ Co-articulated consonants Continuants ʍ w ɥ ɧ Occlusives k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m — These tables contain phonetic symbols, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help] — Where symbols appear in pairs, left–right represent the voiceless–voiced consonants. — Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged to be impossible. — Symbols marked with an asterisk (*) are not defined in the IPA. Chart image Pulmonics Non-pulmonics Affricates Co-articulated   Vowels Front Near-​front Central Near-​back Back Close •iy •ɨʉ •ɯu •ɪʏ •ɪ̈ʊ̈ ʊ •eø •ɘɵ •ɤo •e̞ø̞ •əɵ̞ •ɤ̞o̞ •ɛœ •ɜɞ •ʌɔ •æ ɐ •aɶ •äɒ̈ •ɑɒ Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open IPA help • chart •  chart with audio • view