A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
al sound used in some
spoken language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
s. The
International Phonetic Association
The International Phonetic Association (IPA; French: ', ''API'') is an organization that promotes the scientific study of phonetics and the various practical applications of that science. The IPA's major contribution to phonetics is the Interna ...
uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound
, but it also describes the
voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant fricative , for which there are significant perceptual differences.
Voiceless palato-alveolar fricative
A voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or voiceless domed postalveolar fricative is a type of
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
al sound used in many
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
s, including English. In English, it is usually spelled , as in ''ship''.
![Palatoalveolar fricative](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Palatoalveolar_fricative.svg)
The symbol in the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...
that represents this sound is , the letter
esh introduced by
Isaac Pitman
Sir Isaac Pitman (4 January 1813 – 22 January 1897) was a teacher of the :English language who developed the most widely used system of shorthand, known now as Pitman shorthand. He first proposed this in ''Stenographic Soundhand'' in 183 ...
(not to be confused with the
integral symbol
The integral symbol:
: (Unicode), \displaystyle \int (LaTeX)
is used to denote integrals and antiderivatives in mathematics, especially in calculus.
History
The notation was introduced by the German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in 1 ...
). The equivalent
X-SAMPA
The Extended Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (X-SAMPA) is a variant of SAMPA developed in 1995 by John C. Wells, professor of phonetics at University College London. It is designed to unify the individual language SAMPA alphabets, a ...
symbol is
S
.
An alternative symbol is , an ''s'' with a
caron
A caron (), háček or haček (, or ; plural ''háčeks'' or ''háčky'') also known as a hachek, wedge, check, kvačica, strešica, mäkčeň, varnelė, inverted circumflex, inverted hat, flying bird, inverted chevron, is a diacritic mark ( ...
or ''háček'', which is used in the
Americanist phonetic notation
Americanist phonetic notation, also known as the North American Phonetic Alphabet (NAPA), the Americanist Phonetic Alphabet or the American Phonetic Alphabet (APA), is a system of phonetic notation originally developed by European and American ...
and the
Uralic Phonetic Alphabet
The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) or Finno-Ugric transcription system is a phonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for the transcription and reconstruction of Uralic languages. It was first published in 1901 by Eemil Nes ...
, as well as in the
scientific
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
and
ISO 9
ISO 9 is an international standard establishing a system for the transliteration into Latin characters of Cyrillic characters constituting the alphabets of many Slavic and non-Slavic languages.
Published on February 23, 1995 by the Internatio ...
transliterations of Cyrillic. It originated with the
Czech orthography
Czech orthography is a system of rules for proper formal writing (orthography) in Czech. The earliest form of separate Latin script specifically designed to suit Czech was devised by Czech theologian and church reformist Jan Hus, the namesake of ...
of
Jan Hus
Jan Hus (; ; 1370 – 6 July 1415), sometimes anglicized as John Hus or John Huss, and referred to in historical texts as ''Iohannes Hus'' or ''Johannes Huss'', was a Czech theologian and philosopher who became a Church reformer and the insp ...
and was adopted in
Gaj's Latin alphabet
Gaj's Latin alphabet ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Gajeva latinica, separator=" / ", Гајева латиница}, ), also known as ( sh-Cyrl, абецеда, ) or ( sh-Cyrl, гајица, link=no, ), is the form of the Latin script used for writing Serb ...
and other Latin alphabets of Slavic languages. It also features in the orthographies of many
Baltic
Baltic may refer to:
Peoples and languages
* Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian
*Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originati ...
,
Finno-Samic, North American and
African languages
The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families:
* Niger–Congo or perhaps Atlantic–Congo languages (includes Bantu and non-Bantu, and possibly Mande and others) are spoken in West, Central, Southeast and Souther ...
.
Features
Features of the voiceless palato-alveolar fricative:
Occurrence
In various languages, including English and French, it may have simultaneous
labialization
Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve ...
, i.e. , although this is usually not transcribed.
Classical Latin
Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later periods ...
did not have , though it does occur in most
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
. For example, in French "singer" is pronounced . is descended from Latin , where was pronounced . The in Latin "science" was pronounced , but has shifted to in Italian .
Similarly,
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...
had neither nor , yet many of its descendants do. In most cases, this or descends from a Proto-Germanic . For instance, Proto-Germanic *skipą ("hollow object, water-borne vessel larger than a boat") was pronounced . The English word "ship" has been pronounced without the the longest, the word being descended from
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
"" , which already also had the , though the Old English spelling etymologically indicated that the old had once been present.
This change took longer to catch on in West Germanic languages other than Old English, though it eventually did. The second West Germanic language to undergo this sound shift was
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
. In fact, it has been argued that Old High German's was actually already , because a single had already shifted to . Furthermore, by
Middle High German
Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. Hig ...
, that had shifted to . 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 , 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 phoneme, which, aside from Swedish, is only used in
Colognian
Colognian or Kölsch (; natively ''Kölsch Platt'') is a small set of very closely related dialects, or variants, of the Ripuarian group of dialects of the Central German group. These dialects are spoken in the area covered by the Archdiocese ...
, a variety of High German, though not as a replacement for the standard High German but a coronalized . However, the exact realization of Swedish varies considerably among dialects; for instance, in Northern dialects it tends to be realized as . See
sj-sound
The ''sj''-sound ( sv, sj-ljudet ) is a voiceless fricative phoneme found in most dialects of the sound system of Swedish. It has a variety of realisations, whose precise phonetic characterisation is a matter of debate, but which usually featur ...
for more details. Finally, the last to undergo the shift was Norwegian, in which the result of the shift was .
The sound in
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
denoted by is commonly transcribed as a palato-alveolar fricative but is actually an
apical retroflex fricative.
Voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant fricative
The voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant fricative is a consonantal sound. As the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...
does not have separate symbols for the post-alveolar consonants (the same symbol is used for all
coronal places of articulation that are not
palatalized), this sound is usually transcribed (
retracted constricted voiceless ). The equivalent
X-SAMPA
The Extended Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (X-SAMPA) is a variant of SAMPA developed in 1995 by John C. Wells, professor of phonetics at University College London. It is designed to unify the individual language SAMPA alphabets, a ...
symbol is
r\_-_0_r
.
Some scholars also posit the voiceless postalveolar approximant distinct from the fricative. The approximant may be represented in the IPA as .
Features
However, it does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.
*Its
place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...
is
postalveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge.
Occurrence
See also
*
Index of phonetics articles
*
Voiced postalveolar fricative
A voiced postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses term ''voiced postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound , but it also describes the voiced postalveolar ...
*
Cedilla
Notes
References
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External links
*
{{IPA navigation
Postalveolar consonants
Fricative consonants
Pulmonic consonants
Voiceless oral consonants
Central consonants
Labial–coronal consonants