Voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate

The voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represent this sound are ⟨t͡ɕ⟩, ⟨t͜ɕ⟩, ⟨c͡ɕ⟩ and ⟨c͜ɕ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are t_s\ and c_s\, though transcribing the stop component with ⟨c⟩ (c in X-SAMPA) is rare. The tie bar may be omitted, yielding ⟨tɕ⟩ or ⟨cɕ⟩ in the IPA and ts\ or cs\ in X-SAMPA. This affricate has a dedicated symbol U+02A8 ʨ LATIN SMALL LETTER TC DIGRAPH WITH CURL, which has been retired by the International Phonetic Association but is still used.

Voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate
tɕ
ʨ
cɕ
IPA number	215
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʨ
Unicode (hex)	U+02A8
X-SAMPA	t_s\
Image

Neither [t] nor [c] are a completely narrow transcription of the stop component, which can be narrowly transcribed as [t̠ʲ] (retracted and palatalized [t]) or [c̟] (advanced [c]). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are t_-' or t_-_j and c_+, respectively. There is also a dedicated symbol ⟨ȶ⟩, which is not a part of the IPA. Therefore, narrow transcriptions of the voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant affricate include [t̠ʲɕ], [c̟ɕ] and [ȶɕ].

It occurs in languages such as Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Serbo-Croatian or Russian, and is the sibilant equivalent of the voiceless palatal affricate. U+107AB 𐞫 MODIFIER LETTER SMALL TC DIGRAPH WITH CURL is a superscript IPA letter.^[1]

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.
• 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
Burmese		ကျ	[tɕäʔ]	'fall'
Catalan[2]	All dialects	fletxa	[ˈfɫet͡ɕə]	'arrow'	See Catalan phonology
	Valencian	xec	[ˈt͡ɕek]	'cheque'
Chinese	Cantonese	豬 / Yale: jyū / Jyutping: zyu¹	[t͡ɕyː˥]ⓘ	'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	[peɪ˨˩ t͡ɕiŋ˥]ⓘ	'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
Chuvash		чипер/çiper	[t͡ɕi'p̬ɛr]	'cute'
Danish[3]		tjener	[ˈt͡ɕeːnɐ]	'servant'	Normal realization of the sequence /tj/.[3] See Danish phonology
Dutch		gaatjes	[ɣaːtɕəs]ⓘ	'little holes'
Dzongkha		ཆུ / chuu	[t͡ɕuː]	'water'
Irish	Some dialects[4][5][6]	tír	[t͡ɕiːɾʲ]	'country'	Realization of the palatalized alveolar stop /tʲ/ in dialects such as Erris, Teelin and Tourmakeady.[4][5][6] See Irish phonology
Japanese		知人/chijin	[t͡ɕiʑĩɴ]	'acquaintance'	See Japanese phonology
Karen	S'gaw Karen	ကၠိ	[tɕó]	'school'
	Eastern Pwo	ကျုင်း	[tɕə́ɯɴ]	'to be lazy'
	Western Pwo	ကၠုၧၪ့	[tɕə̀]	'to be lazy'
Korean	South	제비/jebi	[t͡ɕebi]	'swallow'	See Korean phonology
Marathi		चिंच/çinç	[t͡ɕint̪͡sə]	'tamarind'	Contrasts with aspirated form. Allophone of [tʃ]. See Marathi phonology
Okinawan		'ucinaaguci	[ʔut͡ɕinaːɡut͡ɕi]	'Okinawan language'	Merged with [ts].
Polish[7]		ćma	[t͡ɕmä]ⓘ	'moth'	See Polish phonology
Romanian	Banat dialect[8]	frate	[ˈfrat͡ɕe]	'brother'	One of the most distinct phonological features of the Banat dialect: allophone of /t/ before front vowels. Corresponds to [t] in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology
Russian		чуть/čuť	[t͡ɕʉtʲ]	'barely'	See Russian phonology
Sema[9]		akichi	[à̠kìt͡ɕì]	'mouth'	Possible allophone of /t͡ʃ/ before /i, e/; can be realized as [t͡ʃ] instead.[9]
Serbo-Croatian[10]		лећа/leća	[lět͡ɕä]	'lentils'	Merges into /t͡ʃ/ in dialects that do not distinguish /ʈ͡ʂ/ from /t͡ɕ/.
Slovene	Dialects with tʼ–č distinction (such as Resian)	teči	[ˈt̪ɛ̀ːt͡ɕì]	'con artist'	In Standard Slovene obsolete. See Slovene phonology
Sorbian	Lower[11]	šćit	[ɕt͡ɕit̪]	'protection'
Swedish	Finland	kjol	[t͡ɕuːl]	'skirt'	See Swedish phonology
Thai[12]		จาน/čán	[t͡ɕaːn]	'dish'	Contrasts with aspirated form.
Urarina[13]		katsa	[kat͡ɕá]	'man'
Uzbek[14]		chumoli	[ˈt͡ɕumɔˌlɪ]	'ant'
Vietnamese		cha	[t͡ɕa]	'father'	See Vietnamese phonology
Xumi[15][16]		[t͡ɕɐ˦]		'star'
Yi		ꏢ/ji	[t͡ɕi˧]	'sour'	Contrasts aspirated and unaspirated forms

See also

• Index of phonetics articles