Voiced retroflex affricate

The voiced retroflex sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨d̠͡ʐ ⟩, ⟨ʣ̢⟩ sometimes simplified to ⟨dʐ ⟩ or ⟨ꭦ ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is dz`. Its apical variant is ⟨ɖ̺͡ʐ̺ ⟩ and laminal variant ⟨ɖ̻͡ʐ̻ ⟩. It occurs in such languages as Polish (the laminal affricate dż) and Northwest Caucasian languages (apical).

Voiced retroflex affricate
ɖʐ
ꭦ
ʣ̢
IPA number	106 (137)
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɖ​͡​ʐ
Unicode (hex)	U+0256 U+0361 U+0290
X-SAMPA	dz`
Image

Features

Features of the voiced retroflex 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 retroflex, which prototypically means it is articulated subapical (with the tip of the tongue curled up)^{[citation needed]}, but more generally, it means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized. That is, besides the prototypical subapical articulation, the tongue contact can be apical (pointed) or laminal (flat).
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• 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.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Asturian	Some dialects	ḷḷuna	['ɖ͡ʐunä]	'moon'	Corresponds to /ʎ/ in other dialects. See Che Vaqueira
Belarusian		джаз	[ɖ͡ʐas]	'jazz'	Laminal. See Belarusian phonology
Chinese	Wu	长	[ɖ͡ʐaŋ]	'to grow'	Only found in a few Wu dialects.
	Some Mandarin speakers	广州	[kwaŋ˨˩ ɖ͡ʐoʊ˥˥]	'Guangzhou'
Khowar[1]		ݮـنـݮـیر	[ɖ͡ʐanɖ͡ʐer]	'chain'	-
Polish	Standard[2][3]	dżem	[ɖ͡ʐɛm]ⓘ	'jam'	Laminal; it's transcribed /d͡ʒ/ by most Polish scholars. See Polish phonology
	Southeastern Cuyavian dialects[4]	dzwon	[ɖ͡ʐvɔn̪]	'bell'	Some speakers. It's a result of hypercorrecting the more popular merger of /ɖ͡ʐ/ and /d͡z/ into [d͡z].
	Suwałki dialect[5]
Northern Qiang		vvdhe	[ʁɖ͡ʐə]	'star'
Serbo-Croatian[6][7]		џеп/džep	[ɖ͡ʐê̞p]	'pocket'	Apical. It may be palato-alveolar instead, depending on the dialect. See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Slovak[8]		džús	[ɖ͡ʐu̞ːs]	'juice'	Laminal.
Torwali[9]		حؕـىگ	[ɖ͡ʐiɡ̥]	'long'	Contrasts with a palatal affricate.
Yi		ꎐ / rry	[ɖ͡ʐɪ˧]	'tooth'

Voiced retroflex non-sibilant affricate

Voiced retroflex non-sibilant affricate
d̠͡ɻ̝

Features

• Its manner of articulation is affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the airflow entirely, then allowing air flow through a constricted channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is retroflex, which prototypically means it is articulated subapical (with the tip of the tongue curled up), but more generally, it means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized. That is, besides the prototypical subapical articulation, the tongue can be apical (pointed) or, in some fricatives, laminal (flat).
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• 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.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Malagasy[10]		[example needed]			Also described as regular plosives, trilled affricates and sibilant affricates.

See also

• Index of phonetics articles