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Voiceless palatal fricative

Consonantal sound represented by ⟨ç⟩ in IPA

Summary

Consonantal sound represented by ⟨ç⟩ in IPA

Field	Value
ipa symbol	ç
ipa number	138
decimal1	231
x-sampa	C
braille	235
braille2	c
imagefile	IPA Unicode 0x00E7.svg

|x-sampa=C

A voiceless palatal fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . It is the non-sibilant equivalent of the voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative. Palatal fricatives are relatively rare phonemes, and only 5% of the world's languages have as a phoneme. The sound further occurs as an allophone of (e.g. in German or Greek), or, in other languages, of in the vicinity of front vowels.

Features

Voiceless palatal fricative (ç)

Features of a voiceless palatal fricative:

Occurrence

Palatal

Language	Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Blackfoot	ᖱᑊᖽᒧᐧᖿ / bla		'Seven'	Allophone of .
Chinese	Taizhou dialect	嬉		'to play'
Meixian dialect	香		'fragrant'		Corresponds to palatalized fricative in romanised as "hi-" or "hy-" Hakka dialect writing.
Danish	Standard	pjaske		'splash'
Dutch	Standard Northern	wiegje		'crib'
English	Australian	hue		'hue'
British
Scouse	like		'like'	Allophone of ; ranges from palatal to uvular, depending on the preceding vowel. See English phonology
Estonian	vihm		'rain'	Allophone of . See Estonian phonology
Finnish	vihko		'notebook'	Allophone of . See Finnish phonology
French	Parisian	merci		'thank you'
German	nicht		'not'	Traditionally allophone of , or vice versa, but phonemic for some speakers who have both and (
Haida	xíl		'leaf'
Hmong	White (Dawb)	/ xya		'seven'
Green (Njua)
Hungarian	kapj		'get' (imperative)	Allophone of between a voiceless obstruent and a word boundary. See Hungarian phonology
Icelandic	hérna		'here'	Allophone of near and . See Icelandic phonology
Irish	a Sheáin		'John' (voc.)	See Irish phonology
Japanese	日 / ja		'day'	Allophone of before and . See Japanese phonology
Kabyle	ḵtil		'to measure'
Korean	힘 / ko		'strength'	Allophone of word-initially before and . See Korean phonology
Minangkabau	Mukomuko	''loy'''h'''''		'loose'
Moksha	шалхка		'nose'
Muniche		'plant stalk'	last=Michael	first=Lev	title=18 Muniche	date=2023-01-16	work=Language Isolates II: Kanoé to Yurakaré	pages=851–892	editor-last=Epps	editor-first=Patience	url=https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110432732-005/html	access-date=2025-09-17	publisher=De Gruyter	doi=10.1515/9783110432732-005	isbn=978-3-11-043273-2	last2=Farmer	first2=Stephanie	last3=Finley	first3=Gregory	last4=Acosta	first4=Karina Sullón	last5=Beier	first5=Christine	last6=Icahuate	first6=Alexandra Chanchari	last7=Baneo	first7=Donalia Icahuate	last8=Saita	first8=Melchor Sinti	editor2-last=Michael	editor2-first=Lev	url-access=subscription }}
Norwegian	Urban East	kjerne		'core'
Pashto	Ghilji dialect	{{script/Arabic	پښه}}		'foot'
Wardak dialect
Romanian	Standard	Rohia		'Rohia'
Russian	Standard	твёрдый / ru		'hard'
Scottish Gaelic	eich		'horses'	Slender allophone of . See Scottish Gaelic phonology and orthography
Sicilian	ciumi		'river'	Evolved from the Latin nexus. Realized as when preceded by a consonant. See Sicilian phonology
Spanish	Chilean	mujer		'woman'
Turkish	zihin		'intellect'	Allophone of . See Turkish phonology
Uzbek	maktab		'school'	Occurs when comes before and sounds.
Walloon	texhe		'to knit'	⟨xh⟩ spelling proper in Common Walloon, in the Feller system it would be written ⟨hy⟩
Welsh	hiaith		'language'	Occurs in words where comes before due to h-prothesis of the original word, i.e. iaith becomes ei hiaith , resulting in i → hi. See Welsh phonology

Post-palatal

There is also a voiceless post-palatal or pre-velar fricative in some languages, which is articulated slightly farther back compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical voiceless palatal fricative, though not as back as the prototypical voiceless velar fricative. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for that sound, though it can be transcribed as , (both symbols denote a retracted ) or (advanced ).

Features

Occurrence

Language	Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Belarusian	глухі / be		'deaf'	Typically transcribed in IPA with . See Belarusian phonology
Dutch	Standard Belgian	acht		'eight'
Southern accents
Greek	ψυχή / el		'soul'	See Modern Greek phonology
Limburgish	Weert dialect	ich		'I'
Lithuanian	chemija		'chemistry'	Very rare; typically transcribed in IPA with . See Lithuanian phonology
Russian	Standard	хинди / ru		'Hindi'
Spanish	mujer		'woman'	Allophone of before front vowels. See Spanish phonology
Ukrainian	алхімія / uk		'alchemy'	Typically transcribed in IPA with . See Ukrainian phonology
Uzbek	xurmo		'date palm'	Weakly fricated; occurs word-initially and pre-consonantally, otherwise it is post-velar .

Voiceless palatal approximant

| x-sampa = j_0

A voiceless palatal approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a j with a ring, indicating the voiceless homologue of the voiced palatal approximant. The IPA also had a dedicated symbol , an h with palatal hook, for the similar palatalized hʲ sound, but that is now obsolete. In the Finno-Ugric transcription, it is transcribed , a small capital j.

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

Features

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		Contrasts voiceless , plain voiced and nasal voiced approximants.
Chinese	Standard	票 / cmn		'ticket'
English	Australian	huge		'huge'
New Zealand		H-dropping, also allophone of , also can be [] instead. See New Zealand English phonology
French	pierre		'stone'	Devoiced allophone of . See French phonology
Icelandic	hérna		'here'	Dialectal, or in free variation with [ç]
Jalapa Mazatec		Contrasts voiceless , plain voiced and glottalized voiced approximants.
Japanese	日 / hi		'day'	Colloquial, Allophone of
Scottish Gaelic	a-muigh		'outside' (directional)	Allophone of and . See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Thai		Allophone of .
Tibetan	Khams	Phonemic
Washo	t'á:Yaŋi		'he's hunting'	Contrasts voiceless and voiced approximants.
Koyukon (Denaakk'e)		Contrasts voiceless and voiced approximants.

Notes

References

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References

Wells, John C. (2009-01-29). "A huge query". John Wells's phonetic blog.
Michael, Lev. (2023-01-16). "18 Muniche". De Gruyter.
[http://etd.fcla.edu/UF/UFE0006662/baker_g.pdf Palatal phenomena in Spanish phonology] {{Webarchive. link. (2021-11-23 Page 113)
{{Harvcoltxt. Göksel. Kerslake. 2005
Blankenship, Barbara. (1993). "Phonetic structures of Khonoma Angami". Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area.
Iosad, Pavel. (2013). "Representation and variation in substance-free phonology: A case study in Celtic".
(2007). "Illustrations of the IPA: Australian English". Journal of the International Phonetic Association 37.
(2019). "English sound inventory (UZ)". Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
(2007). "Illustrations of the IPA: New Zealand English". Journal of the International Phonetic Association 37.
Einarsson, Stefan. (1949). "Icelandic". Johns Hopkins Press.
Haugen, Einar. (1958). "The Phonemics of Modern Icelandic". Language.
(2019). "Icelandic sound inventory (SPA)". Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
"PHOIBLE 2.0 -".
"PHOIBLE 2.0 - Consonant j̥".
"Final devoicing or Why does naoidh sound like Nɯiç?".
Abramson 1962; Kruatrachue 1960; Noss 1954; Noss 1964
Chirkova 2014

Wikipedia Source

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