Voiceless palato-alveolar affricate

Voiceless palato-alveolar affricate
t͡ʃ
t͜ʃ
ʧ
t̠ʲʃ
IPA number	103 134
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	t​͡​ʃ
Unicode (hex)	U+0074 U+0361 U+0283
X-SAMPA	tS or t_r_jS
Kirshenbaum	tS
Image
Sound
source · help

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

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

Some scholars use the symbol /t͡ʃ/ to transcribe the laminal variant of the voiceless retroflex affricate. In such cases, the voiceless palato-alveolar affricate is transcribed /t͡ʃʲ/.

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.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Adyghe		чэмы	[t͡ʃamə]	'cow'	Some dialects contrast labialized and non-labialized forms.
Albanian		çelur	[t͡ʃɛluɾ]	'open'
Aleut	Atkan dialect	chamĝul	[t͡ʃɑmʁul]	'to wash'
Amharic		አንቺ	[ant͡ʃi]	'you'
Arabic[1]	Central Palestinian	مكتبة	[ˈmat͡ʃt̪abɐ]	'library'	Corresponds to [k] in Standard Arabic and other varieties. See Arabic phonology
	Iraqi	كتاب	[t͡ʃiˈt̪aːb]	'book'
	Jordanian
Armenian	Eastern[2]	ճնճղուկ	[t͡ʃənt͡ʃʁuk]	'sparrow'
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic		chmah	[t͡ʃmaː]	'how many?'	Used in the Urmia and Nochiya dialects. Corresponds to [k] in other varieties.
Azeri		Əkinçi	[ækint͡ʃi]	'the ploughman'
Bengali		চশমা	[t͡ʃɔʃma]	'spectacles'	Contrasts with aspirated form. See Bengali phonology
Basque		txalupa	[t͡ʃalupa]	'boat'
Bulgarian		чучулига	[t͡ʃut͡ʃuˈliɡɐ]	'lark'	See Bulgarian phonology
Central Alaskan Yup'ik		nacaq	[ˈnat͡ʃaq]	'parka hood'
Choctaw		hakchioma	[hakt͡ʃioma]	'tobacco'
Coptic	Bohairic dialect	ϭⲟϩ	[t͡ʃoh]	'touch'
Czech		morče	[ˈmo̞rt͡ʃɛ]	'guinea pig'	See Czech phonology
English		leach	[ˈliːt͡ʃ]	'leach'	See English phonology
Esperanto		ĉar	[t͡ʃar]	'because'	See Esperanto phonology
Faroese		gera	[t͡ʃeːɹa]	'to do'	Contrasts with aspirated form. See Faroese phonology
French	Standard	caoutchouc	[kaut͡ʃu]	'rubber'	Relatively rare; occurs mostly in loanwords. See French phonology
	Acadian	tiens	[t͡ʃɛ̃]	'(I/you) keep'	Allophone of /k/ and /tj/ before a front vowel.
Galician		cheio	[ˈt͡ʃejo]	'full'	Galician-Portuguese /t͡ʃ/ is conserved in Galician and merged with /ʃ/ in most Portuguese dialects. See Galician phonology
Georgian[3]		ჩიხი	[t͡ʃixi]	'impasse'
German	Standard[4]	Tschinelle	[t͡ʃʷiˈnɛlə]	'cymbal'	Laminal or apico-laminal and strongly labialized.[4] See Standard German phonology
Greek	Cypriot	τζ̌αι	[t͡ʃe̞]	'and'	Contrasts with /t͡ʃʰː/ and prenasalised [d͡ʒ].
Hebrew		תשובה	[t͡ʃuˈva]	'answer'	See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindustani		चाय چاۓ	[t͡ʃɑːj]	'tea'	Contrasts with aspirated form. See Hindustani phonology
Haitian Creole		match	[mat͡ʃ]	'sports match'
Hungarian		gyümölcslé	[ˈɟymølt͡ʃleː]	'juice'	See Hungarian phonology
Italian[5]		ciao	[ˈt͡ʃaːo]	'ciao'	See Italian phonology
K'iche'		K'iche'	[kʼiˈt͡ʃeʔ]	'K'iche''	Contrasts with ejective form
Kabardian		чэнж	[t͡ʃanʒ]	'shallow'
Kashubian[6]
Macedonian		чека	[t͡ʃɛka]	'wait'	See Macedonian phonology
Malay		cuci	[t͡ʃut͡ʃi]	'wash'
Maltese		bliċ	[blit͡ʃ]	'bleach'
Marathi		चहा	[t͡ʃəhɑː]	'tea'	See Marathi phonology
Nahuatl		āyōtōchtli	[aːjoːˈtoːt͡ʃt͡ɬi]	'armadillo'
Norwegian	Some dialects	kjøkken	[t͡ʃøkːen]	'kitchen'	See Norwegian phonology
Nunggubuyu[7]		[t͡ʃaɾo]		'needle'
Occitan		chuc	[ˈt͡ʃyk]	'juice'	See Occitan phonology
Persian		چوب	[t͡ʃʰuːb]	'wood'	See Persian phonology
Polish	Gmina Istebna	ciemny	[ˈt͡ʃɛmn̪ɘ]	'dark'	/ʈ͡ʂ/ and /t͡ɕ/ merge into [t͡ʃ] in these dialects. In standard Polish, /t͡ʃ/ is commonly used to transcribe what actually is a laminal voiceless retroflex affricate.
	Lubawa dialect[8]
	Malbork dialect[8]
	Ostróda dialect[8]
	Warmia dialect[8]
Portuguese	Most Brazilian dialects[9]	presente	[pɾe̞ˈzẽ̞t͡ʃi]	'present'	Allophone of /t/ before /i, ĩ/ (including when [i, ĩ, j] is not actually produced) and other instances of [i] (e.g. epenthesis), marginal sound otherwise. See Portuguese phonology
	Most dialects	tchau	[ˈt͡ʃaw]	'bye'	In Standard European Portuguese it occurs only in recent loanwords.
Punjabi		ਚੌਲ	[t͡ʃɔːl]	'rice'
Romanian		cer	[t͡ʃe̞r]	'sky'	See Romanian phonology
Rotuman[10]		joni	[ˈt͡ʃɔni]	'to flee'
Scottish Gaelic		slàinte	[ˈslaːnt͡ʃə]	'health'	See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Serbo-Croatian	Some speakers	čokoláda чоколада	[t͡ʃo̞ko̞ˈɫǎ̠ːd̪a̠]	'chocolate'	In varieties that distinguish /t͡ʃ/ from /t͡ɕ/ it may be laminal retroflex instead. See Serbo-Croatian phonology
	Bosnian	Ловћен Lovćen	[ɫǒ̞ʋt͡ʃe̞n]	'Lovćen'	Most Croatian and some Bosnian speakers merge /t͡ʃ/ and /t͡ɕ/, either to [t͡ʃ] or to laminal [ʈ͡ʂ].
	Croatian
Silesian	Gmina Istebna[11]				These dialects merge /ʈ͡ʂ/ and /t͡ɕ/ into [t͡ʃ].
	Jablunkov[11]
Spanish[12]		chocolate	[t͡ʃo̞ko̞ˈlät̪e̞]	'chocolate'	See Spanish phonology
Swahili		jicho	[ʄit͡ʃo]	'eye'
Swedish	Finland	tjugo	[t͡ʃʉːɡʉ]	'twenty'	See Swedish phonology
	Some rural Swedish dialects	kärlek	[t͡ʃæːɭeːk]	'love'
Tlingit		jinkaat	[ˈt͡ʃiŋkʰaːtʰ]	'ten'
Turkish		çim	[t͡ʃim]	'sward'	See Turkish phonology
Ubykh		Çəbƹəja	[t͡ʃəbʒəja]	'pepper'	See Ubykh phonology
Ukrainian		чотири	[t͡ʃo̞ˈtɪrɪ]	'four'	See Ukrainian phonology
Zapotec	Tilquiapan[13]	chane	[t͡ʃanɘ]

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

Voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant affricate

Voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant affricate
t̠͡ɹ̠̊˔
t̠͜ɹ̠̊˔
t̠ɹ̠̊˔
Sound
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Features

• Its manner of articulation is affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the airflow entirely, then allowing air flow through a constricted channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is postalveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge.

• 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
English	General American[14][15]	tree	[t̠͡ɹ̠̊˔ʷiː]	'tree'	Phonetic realization of the sequence /tr/; less commonly alveolar [t͡ɹ̝̊].[14] See English phonology
	Received Pronunciation[14][15]

Notes

1. Watson (2002:17)
2. Dum-Tragut (2009:13)
3. Shosted & Chikovani (2006:255)
4. Mangold (2005:51-52)
5. Rogers & d'Arcangeli (2004:117)
6. Jerzy Treder. "Fonetyka i fonologia".
7. Ladefoged (2005:158)
8. Dubisz, Karaś & Kolis (1995:62)
9. Barbosa & Albano (2004:228)
10. Blevins (1994:492)
11. Dąbrowska (2004:?)
12. Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté (2003:255)
13. Merrill (2008:108)
14. Gimson (2014), pp. 177, 186–188 and 192.
15. Wells (2008).

Bibliography

• Barbosa, Plínio A.; Albano, Eleonora C. (2004), "Brazilian Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (2): 227–232, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001756
• Blevins, Juliette (1994), "The Bimoraic Foot in Rotuman Phonology and Morphology", Oceanic Linguistics, 33 (2): 491–516, doi:10.2307/3623138, JSTOR 3623138
• Dąbrowska, Anna (2004), Język polski, Wrocław: wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie, ISBN 83-7384-063-X
• Dubisz, Stanisław; Karaś, Halina; Kolis, Nijola (1995), Dialekty i gwary polskie, Warsaw: Wiedza Powszechna, ISBN 83-2140989-X
• Dum-Tragut, Jasmine (2009), Armenian: Modern Eastern Armenian, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company
• Gimson, Alfred Charles (2014), Cruttenden, Alan, ed., Gimson's Pronunciation of English (8th ed.), Routledge, ISBN 9781444183092
• Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell
• Mangold, Max (2005), Das Aussprachewörterbuch, Duden, ISBN 978-3411040667
• 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" (PDF), 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
• Watson, Janet (2002), The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic, New York: Oxford University Press
• Wells, John C. (2008), Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.), Longman, ISBN 9781405881180