Voiceless palatal affricate

Voiceless palatal affricate
c͡ç
c͜ç
IPA number	107 (138)
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	c​͡​ç
Unicode (hex)	U+0063 U+0361 U+00E7
Sound
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The voiceless palatal affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨c͡ç⟩. The voiceless palatal affricate occurs in such languages as Hungarian and Skolt Sami, among others. The consonant is quite rare; it is mostly absent from Europe (with the Uralic languages and Albanian being exceptions). It usually occurs with its voiced counterpart, the voiced palatal affricate.

There is also a voiceless post-palatal affricate (also called pre-velar, fronted velar etc.) in some languages.

Features

Features of the voiceless palatal affricate:

• 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. It is not a sibilant.

• Its place of articulation is palatal, which means it is articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised to the hard 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
Dutch[1]		bakje	[ˈbɑc̠͡ç̠ə]	'a container (dim.)'	Post-palatal; phonetic realization of the sequence /kj/.[1] See Dutch phonology
Hungarian		tyúk	[c͡çuːk]	'hen'	See Hungarian phonology
Kaingang[2]		[c͡çɔi̯ɟ]		'cranefly'	Possible word-initial realization of /ç/.[3]
Lushootseed		ɬičáʔa	[ɬic͡çaʁˀa]	'nets'
Norwegian	Central dialects[4]	ikkje	[ic͡çə]	'not'	See Norwegian phonology
	Western dialects[4]
Skolt Sami		sääˊmǩiõll	[sʲaamc͡çiɘl]	'Skolt Sami'

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

References

1. Collins & Mees (2003), pp. 155, 193.
2. Jolkesky (2009), pp. 676, 681.
3. Jolkesky (2009), p. 681.
4. Skjekkeland (1997), pp. 96–100.

Bibliography

• Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (2003), The Phonetics of English and Dutch, Fifth Revised Edition (PDF), ISBN 9004103406
• Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2009), "Fonologia e prosódia do Kaingáng falado em Cacique Doble", Anais do SETA (Campinas: Editora do IEL-UNICAMP) 3: 675–685
• Skjekkeland, Martin (1997), Dei norske dialektane: Tradisjonelle særdrag i jamføring med skriftmåla (in Norwegian), Høyskoleforlaget (Norwegian Academic Press)