Voiceless palatal approximant

The voiceless palatal approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. Some scholars posit it distinct from the fricative. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ j̊ ⟩, a j with a ring indicating the voiceless homologue of the voiced palatal approximant, or ⟨ç˕⟩, a c with cedilla with a lowering diacritic after it, which indicates a weaker or lowered version of the voiceless palatal fricative. The IPA also had a dedicated symbol ⟨ꞕ⟩, an h with palatal hook, which also represented a palatalized h sound, but that is now obsolete. In the Finno-Ugric transcription, it is transcribed ⟨ᴊ⟩, a small capital j.

Voiceless palatal approximant
j̊
ç˕
ꞕ
ᴊ
IPA number	153 402A
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	j​̊
Unicode (hex)	U+006A U+030A
X-SAMPA	j_0
Image

The palatal approximant can in many cases be considered the semivocalic equivalent of the voiceless variant of the close front unrounded vowel [i̥]. The sound is essentially an Australian English ⟨y⟩ (as in year) pronounced strictly without vibration of the vocal cords.

Features

• Its manner of articulation is approximant, which means it is produced by narrowing the vocal tract at the place of articulation, but not enough to produce a turbulent airstream.
• Its place of articulation is palatal, which means it is articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised to 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 that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• 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

It is found as a phoneme in Jalapa Mazatec and Washo as well as in Kildin Sami.

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Breton	Bothoa dialect	[example needed]			Contrasts voiceless /j̊/, plain voiced /j/ and nasal voiced /ȷ̃/ approximants.[1]
Chinese	Standard	票 / piào	[pj̊äʊ̯˥˩]	'ticket'	Common allophony of /j/ after aspirated consonants. Normally transcribed as [pʰj]. See Standard Chinese phonology
English	Australian	huge	[j̊ʉːdʒ]	'huge'	H-dropping, also allophone of /j/. See Australian English phonology[2][3]
	New Zealand		[j̊i̠(ːʷ)dʒ]		H-dropping, also allophone of /j/, also can be [ç] instead. See New Zealand English phonology[4][3]
French		pierre	[pj̊ʲɛːʀ̝̊]ⓘ	'stone'	Devoice allophone of /j/. See French phonology[5]
Icelandic		hérna	[ˈj̊ɛ(ɾ)tnä]	'here'	Dialectal, or in free variation with [ç][6][7][8][9][10]
Jalapa Mazatec[11]		[example needed]			Contrasts voiceless /j̊/, plain voiced /j/ and glottalized voiced /ȷ̃/ approximants.[11]
Japanese		日 / hi	[j̊i]	'day'	Colloquial, Allophone of /j/[12][13][14]
Scottish Gaelic[15]		a-muigh	[əˈmuj̊]	'outside' (directional)	Allophone of /j/ and /ʝ/. See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Thai		[example needed]			Allophone of /j/.[16]
Tibetan	Khams				Phonemic[17]
Washo		t'á:Yaŋi	[ˈtʼaːj̊aŋi]	'he's hunting'	Contrasts voiceless /j̊/ and voiced /j/ approximants.
Koyukon (Denaakk'e)		[example needed]			Contrasts voiceless /j̊/ and voiced /j/ approximants.