Palatal fricative

A palatal fricative is a type of fricative consonant that is also a palatal consonant. The two main types of palatal fricatives are:

• voiceless palatal fricative ([ç])
• voiced palatal fricative ([ʝ])

They are produced with the friction of the dorsum of the tongue against the hard palate.^[1] In some dialects of English, [ç] acts as an allophone for /hj/,^[2][3][4] and some loanwords may start with [ʝ].^[1]

Phonemic palatal fricatives are decently rare, especially the voiced palatal fricative. They occur more often as allophones (such as in German, where [ç] is an allophone of the voiceless velar fricative after consonants and front vowels^[5]), or as alternative realizations of the voiced palatal approximant.