Voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant

Voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant
ʃ
IPA number	134
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʃ
Unicode (hex)	U+0283
X-SAMPA	S
Kirshenbaum	S
Braille
Image
Sound

The voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or voiceless domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, including English. In English, it is usually represented in writing with ⟨sh⟩, as in ship.

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʃ⟩, the letter esh introduced by Isaac Pitman (not to be confused with the integral sign ⟨∫⟩). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is S.

An alternative symbol is ⟨š⟩, an s with a háček, which is used in the Americanist phonetic notation and the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet, as well as in the scientific and ISO 9 transliterations of Cyrillic. It originated with the Czech alphabet of Jan Hus and was adopted in Gaj's Latin alphabet and other Latin alphabets of Slavic languages. It also features in the orthographies of many Baltic, Finno-Lappic, North American and African languages.

Features

Features of the voiceless palato-alveolar fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is sibilant fricative, which means it is generally produced by channeling air flow along a groove in the back of the tongue up to the place of articulation, at which point it is focused against the sharp edge of the nearly clenched 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.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Adyghe		шыд	[ʃəd]	'donkey'
Albanian		shtëpi	[ʃtəˈpi]	'house'
Arabic	Standard	شمس	[ʃæms]	'sun'	See Arabic phonology
Armenian	Eastern	շուն	[ʃun]	'dog'
Asturian		xera	[ʃe.ɾa]	'work'
Azerbaijani		şeir	[ʃeiɾ]	'poem'
Basque		kaixo	[kajʃ̺o]	'hello'
Berber	Kabyle	ciwer	[ʃiwər]	'to consult'
Breton		chadenn	[ˈʃa.dɛ̃n]	'chain'
Bulgarian		юнашки	[joˈnaʃki]	'heroically'
Czech		kaše	[ˈkaʃɛ]	'mash'	See Czech phonology
Dutch		sjabloon	[ʃäˈbloːn]	'template'	May be [sʲ] or [ɕ] instead. See Dutch phonology
English		sheep	[ʃiːp]	'sheep'	See English phonology
Esperanto		ŝelko	[ˈʃelko]	'suspenders'	See Esperanto phonology
Faroese		sjúkrahús	[ʃʉukrahʉus]	'hospital'
French		cher	[ʃɛʁ]	'expensive'	See French phonology
Finnish		ŝekki	[ʃekːi]	'check'	See Finnish phonology
Galician		viaxe	[ˈbjaʃe]	'way'
Georgian		შარი	[ˈʃɑɾi]	'quibbling'
German		schön	[ʃøːn]	'beautiful'	See German phonology
Greek	Cypriot	ασ̌σ̌ήμια	[ɐˈʃːimɲɐ]	'ugliness'	Contrasts with /ʃ/ and /ʒː/.
Hebrew		שלום	[ʃaˈlom]	'peace'	See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindi		शक	[ʃək]	'doubt'	See Hindi-Urdu phonology
Hungarian		segítség	[ˈʃɛɡiːt͡ʃːeːɡ]	'help'	See Hungarian phonology
Ilokano		siák	[ʃak]	'I'
Irish		sí	[ʃiː]	'she'	See Irish phonology
Italian		fasce	[ˈfaʃʃe]	'bands'	See Italian phonology
Kabardian		шыд	[ʃɛd]	'donkey'	Contrasts with a labialized form
Latvian		šalle	[ˈʃalːe]	'scarf'
Lingala		shakú	[ʃakú]	'Afrikan gray parrot'
Lithuanian		šarvas	[ˈʃɐrˑvɐs]	'armor'
Macedonian		што	[ʃtɔ]	'what'	See Macedonian phonology
Malay		syarikat	[ʃarikat]	'company'
Maltese		x'ismek	[ʃismek]	'what is your name?'
Marathi		शब्द	[ˈʃəbˈd̪ə]	'word'	See Marathi phonology
Norwegian [citation needed]	Bokmål	sky	[ʃyː]	'cloud'	See Norwegian phonology
	Nynorsk	sjukehus	[ˈʃʉːkeˈhʉːs]	'hospital'
Occitan	Auvergnat	maissant	[meˈʃɔ̃]	'bad'	See Occitan phonology
	Gascon	maishant	[maˈʃan]	'bad'
	Limousin	son	[ʃũ]	'his'
Persian		شاه	[ʃɒːh]	'king'	See Persian phonology
Portuguese	European	caixa	[ˈkajʃɐ]	'box'	See Portuguese phonology
	Brazilian	choque	[ˈʃɔki]	'(one is) in shock'
Romani	Vlax	deš	[deʃ]	'ten'
Romanian		șefi	[ʃefʲ]	'bosses'	See Romanian phonology
Sahaptin		šíš	[ʃiʃ]	'mush'
Scottish Gaelic		seinn	[ʃeiɲ]	'sing'	See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Serbo-Croatian		шума / šuma	[ˈʃûma]	'forest'	Also described as [ʂ]. See Serbo-Croatian phonology.
Slovene		šóla	[ʃola]	'school'
Somali		shan	[ʃan]	'five'	See Somali phonology
Spanish	Northern Mexico	echador	[e̞ʃaˈðo̞r]	'boastful'	Corresponds to [tʃ] in other dialects. See Spanish phonology
Swahili		kushoto	[kuʃoto]	'trees'
Swedish		vars	[vɑːʃ]	'whose'	Allophone of [ʂ], mainly in northern dialects. See Swedish phonology
Tagalog		siya	[ʃa]	'he she'	See Tagalog phonology
Toda		[pɔʃ]		'language'
Tunica		šíhkali	[ˈʃihkali]	'stone'
Turkish		güneş	[ɟyˈne̞ʃ]	'sun'	See Turkish phonology
Ukrainian		шахи	[ˈʃɑxɪ]	'chess'	See Ukrainian phonology
Urdu		شکریہ	[ʃʊkˈriːaː]	'thank you'	See Hindi-Urdu phonology
Uyghur		شەھەر	[ʃæhær]	'city'
Welsh	Standard	siarad	[ˈʃɑːrad]	'speak'	See Welsh phonology
	Southern dialects	mis	[miːʃ]	'month'
West Frisian		sjippe	[ˈʃɪpǝ]	'soap'
Western Lombard	Canzés	fescia	[feʃa]	'nuisance'
Yiddish		וויסנשאַפֿטלעכע	[vɪsn̩ʃaftləxə]	'scientific'	See Yiddish phonology
Yorùbá		ṣi	[ʃi]	'open'
Zapotec	Tilquiapan	xana	[ʃana]	'how?'
Zhuang		cib	[ʃǐp]	'ten'

In various languages, including English and French, it may have simultaneous lip rounding, i.e. [ʃʷ], although this is usually not transcribed.

Classical Latin did not have [ʃ], though it does occur in most of today's Latin–descended languages. For example, ⟨ch⟩ in French chanteur "singer" is pronounced /ʃ/. "chanteur" is descended from Latin cantare, where ⟨c⟩ was pronounced /k/. ⟨sc⟩ in Latin scientia "science" was pronounced /sk/, but has shifted to /ʃ/ in Italian scienza.

The sound in Russian denoted by ⟨ш⟩ is commonly transcribed as a palato-alveolar fricative but is actually a laminal retroflex fricative.

See also

• Index of phonetics articles
• Cedilla

Bibliography

• Cotton, Eleanor Greet; Sharp, John (1988), Spanish in the Americas, Georgetown University Press, ISBN 978-0-87840-094-2 
• Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 25 (2): 90–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005223 
• Dum-Tragut, Jasmine (2009), Armenian: Modern Eastern Armenian, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company 
• Fougeron, Cecile; Smith, Caroline L (1993), "French", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 23 (2): 73–76, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004874 
• Gussenhoven, Carlos (1992), "Dutch", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 22 (2): 45–47, doi:10.1017/S002510030000459X 
• Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell 
• Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquiapan Zapotec", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 38 (1): 107–114, doi:10.1017/S0025100308003344 
• Rogers, Derek; d'Arcangeli, Luciana (2004), "Italian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (1): 117–121, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001628 
• Shosted, Ryan K.; Chikovani, Vakhtang (2006), "Standard Georgian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 36 (2): 255–264, doi:10.1017/S0025100306002659 
• Thelwall, Robin (1990), "Arabic", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 20 (2): 37–41, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004266