Voiceless palato-alveolar affricate

Voiceless palato-alveolar affricate
t͡ʃ
Image
IPA number	103 (134)
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	t​͡​ʃ
Unicode (hex)	U+0074 U+0361 U+0283
X-SAMPA	tS
Kirshenbaum	tS
Sound

The voiceless palato-alveolar affricate or domed postalveolar affricate is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨t͡ʃ⟩ or ⟨t͜ʃ⟩ (formerly ⟨ʧ⟩), or in broad transcription ⟨c⟩. It is familiar to English speakers as the "ch" sound in "chip".

Historically, this sound often derives from a former voiceless velar plosive /k/ (as in English, Slavic languages and Romance languages), or a voiceless dental plosive by way of palatalization, especially next to a front vowel.

Features

Features of the voiceless domed postalveolar 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 palato-alveolar, that is, domed (partially palatalized) postalveolar, which means it is articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the front of the tongue bunched up ("domed") at the 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.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Transcription

The International Phonetic Alphabet uses two symbols together to represent this sound: tʃ. They may be joined with a tiebar (t͡ʃ), and the t may sometimes be given the "retracted" diacritic (t̠ʃ). Formerly a ligature (ʧ) was used. Other phonetic transcriptions used include:^{[citation needed]}

• c
• ç
• ć
• č
• ch
• cs
• cz
• tc (older Americanist transcription)
• tš
• tsch
• tx

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Adyghe		кӀалэ	[tʃalɛ]	'boy'
Albanian		çelur	[t͡ʃɛluɾ]	'open'
Aleut	Atkan dialect	chamĝul	[t͡ʃɑmʁul]	'to wash'
Amharic		አንቺ	[ant͡ʃi]	'you' f. sg.
Arabic	Central Palestinian	مكتبة	[ˈmat͡ʃt̪abɐ]	'library'	corresponds to [k] in Standard Arabic and other varieties. See Arabic phonology
	Jordanian	كتاب	[t͡ʃiˈt̪aːb]	'book'
	Iraqi
Armenian		ճնճղուկ	[tʃəntʃʁuk]	'sparrow'	See Armenian phonology
Azeri		Əkinçi	[ækint͡ʃi]	'the ploughman'
Bengali		চশমা	[t͡ʃɔʃma]	'spectacles'	Contrasts with aspirated form. See Bengali phonology
Basque		txalupa	[t͡ʃalupa]	'boat'
Choctaw		hakchioma	[hakt͡ʃioma]	'tobacco'
Coptic	Bohairic dialect	ϭⲟϩ	[t͡ʃoh]	'touch'
Czech		morče	[mo̞rt͡ʃɛ]	'guinea pig'	See Czech phonology
English		bleach	[bliːt͡ʃ]	'bleach'	See English phonology
Esperanto		ĉar	[t͡ʃar]	'because'	See Esperanto phonology
Faroese		tjørn	[t͡ʃɶtn]	'lake'
French		caoutchouc	[kaut͡ʃu]	'rubber'	Relatively rare; occurs mostly in loanwords
Georgian		ჩიხი	[t͡ʃixi]	'impasse'
German		Tschinelle	[t͡ʃiˈnɛlə]	'cymbal'	See German phonology
Hebrew		צ'כיה	[t͡ʃɛxja]	'Czech Republic'	See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindi		चाय	[t͡ʃɑːj]	'tea'	Contrasts with aspirated form. See Hindi-Urdu phonology
Haitian Creole		match	[mat͡ʃ]	'sports match'
Hungarian		gyümölcslé	[ɟymølt͡ʃleː]	'(fruit) juice'	See Hungarian phonology
Italian		ciao	[t͡ʃao]	'ciao'	See Italian phonology
K'iche'		K'iche'	[kʼit͡ʃeʔ]	K'iche''	Contrasts with ejective form
Malay		cuci	[t͡ʃut͡ʃi]	'wash'
Maltese		bliċ	[blit͡ʃ]	'bleach'
Norwegian		kjøkken	[t͡ʃøkːen]	'kitchen'	Only in some dialects, see Norwegian phonology
Nunggubuyu		[t͡ʃaɾo]		'needle'
Persian		چوب	[t͡ʃʰuːb]	'wood'	See Persian phonology
Portuguese	Brazilian	presidente	[pɾeziˈdẽt͡ʃi]	'president'	Allophone of /t/. See Portuguese phonology
Romanian		cer	[t͡ʃe̞r]	'sky'	See Romanian phonology
Rotuman		joni	[ˈt͡ʃɔni]	'to flee'
Scottish Gaelic		slàinte	[slaːnt͡ʃə]	'health'	See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Serbo-Croatian		чоколада/čokoláda	[t͡ʃɔkɔˈlaːda]	'chocolate'	See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Spanish		chafar	[t͡ʃaˈfaɾ]	'to flatten'	See Spanish phonology
Swahili		jicho	[ʄit͡ʃo]	'eye'
Tlingit		jinkaat	[ˈt͡ʃiŋkʰaːtʰ]	'ten'
Turkish		uçak	[ut͡ʃäk]	'airplane'	See Turkish phonology
Ubykh		[t͡ʃəbʒəja]		'pepper'	See Ubykh phonology
Ukrainian		чотири	[t͡ʃo̞ˈtɪrɪ]	'four'	See Ukrainian phonology
Urdu		چاۓ	[t͡ʃɑːj]	'tea'	Contrasts with aspirated form. See Hindi-Urdu phonology
West Frisian		tsjerke	[t͡ʃɛrkǝ]	'church'
Central Alaskan Yup'ik		nacaq	[ˈnat͡ʃaq]	'parka hood'
Zapotec	Tilquiapan	chane	[t͡ʃanɘ]

Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Polish, Catalan, and Thai have a voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate /t͡ɕ/; this is technically postalveolar but it is less precise to use /t͡ʃ/.

Bibliography

• Barbosa, Plínio A.; Albano, Eleonora C. (2004), "Brazilian Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (2): 227–232, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001756 
• Blevin, Juliette (1994), "The Bimoraic Foot in Rotuman Phonology and Morphology", Oceanic Linguistics 33 (2): 491–516, doi:10.2307/3623138, JSTOR 3623138 
• Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell 
• Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma.; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 255–259, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001373 
• Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquiapan Zapotec", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 38 (1): 107–114 
• Rogers, Derek; d'Arcangeli, Luciana (2004), "Italian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (1): 117–121, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001628 
• Shosted, Ryan K.; Vakhtang, Chikovani (2006), "Standard Georgian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 36 (2): 255–264, doi:10.1017/S0025100306002659 
• Watson, Janet (2002), The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic, New York: Oxford University Press 

See also

• List of phonetics topics