Voiceless retroflex sibilant

Voiceless retroflex sibilant
ʂ
IPA number	136
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʂ
Unicode (hex)	U+0282
X-SAMPA	s`
Kirshenbaum	s.
Braille
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Sound
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The voiceless retroflex sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʂ⟩. Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA letter is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook to the bottom of the ess (the letter used for the corresponding alveolar consonant). A distinction can be made between laminal, apical, and sub-apical articulations. Only one language, Toda, appears to have more than one voiceless retroflex sibilant, and it distinguishes subapical palatal from apical postalveolar retroflex sibilants; that is, both the tongue articulation and the place of contact on the roof of the mouth are different.

Some scholars transcribe the laminal variant of this sound as /ʃ/, even though it is not palatalized. In such cases the voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant is transcribed /ʃʲ/.

Features

Features of the voiceless retroflex 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 retroflex, which prototypically means it is articulated subapical (with the tip of the tongue curled up), but more generally, it means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized. That is, besides the prototypical sub-apical articulation, the tongue contact can be apical (pointed) or laminal (flat).

• 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

In the following transcriptions, diacritics may be used to distinguish between apical [ʂ̺] and laminal [ʂ̻].

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Abkhaz		амш	[amʂ]	'day'	See Abkhaz phonology
Adyghe		пшъашъэ	[pʂ̻aːʂ̻a]	'girl'	Laminal.
Chinese	Mandarin	石/shí	[ʂ̻ɻ̩˧˥]	'stone'	Laminal. See Mandarin phonology
Faroese		fýrs	[fʊʂ]	'eighty'
Hindustani	Hindi	ऋषि	[rɪʂi]	'sage'
Italian	Marked accents of Emilia-Romagna[1]	sali	[ˈʂäːli]	'you go up'	Apical;[1] may be [s̺ʲ] or [ʃ] instead.[1] It corresponds to [s] in standard Italian. See Italian phonology
Khanty	Most northern dialects	шаш	[ʂɑʂ]	'knee'	Corresponds to a voiceless retroflex affricate /ʈ͡ʂ/ in the southern and eastern dialects.
Malayalam		കഷ്ടി	[kəʂʈi]	'scarce'
Mapudungun[2]		trukur	[ʈ͡ʂʊ̝ˈkʊʂ]	'fog'	Possible allophone of /ʐ/ in post-nuclear position.[2]
Marathi		ऋषि	[ruʂi]	'sage'
Norwegian		forsamling	[fɔˈʂɑmːlɪŋ]	'gathering'	Allophone of the sequence /ɾs/ in many dialects, including Standard Eastern Norwegian. See Norwegian phonology
Pashto	Southern dialect	ښودل	[ʂ̺odəl]	'to show'
Polish	Standard[3]	szum	[ʂ̻um]	'rustle'	After voiceless consonants it is also represented by ⟨rz⟩. When written so, it can be instead pronounced as the voiceless raised alveolar non-sonorant trill by few speakers.[4] It is transcribed /ʃ/ by most Polish scholars. See Polish phonology
	Southeastern Cuyavian dialects[5]	schowali	[ʂxɔˈväli]	'they hid'	Some speakers. It's a result of hypercorrecting the more popular merger of /ʂ/ and /s/ into [s].
	Suwałki dialect[6]
Romanian	Moldavian dialects[7]	șură	[ʂurə]	'barn'	Apical.[7] See Romanian phonology
	Transylvanian dialects[7]
Russian[3]		шут	[ʂut̪]	'jester'	See Russian phonology
Sanskrit		ऋषि	[r̩ʂi]	'sage'
Serbo-Croatian		шума / šuma	[ʂûmä]	'forest'	Laminal. It may be palato-alveolar instead, depending on the dialect. See Serbo-Croatian phonology.
Slovak[8]		šatka	[ˈʂatka]	'kerchief'
Sorbian	Lower[9][10]	glažk	[ˈɡläʂk]	'glass'
	Some Upper Sorbian dialects[11][12]				Used in dialects spoken in villages north of Hoyerswerda; corresponds to [ʃ] in standard language.[9] See Upper Sorbian phonology
Swedish		fors	[fɔʂ]	'rapids'	Allophone of the sequence /rs/ in many dialects, including Central Standard Swedish. See Swedish phonology
Tamil		கஷ்டம்	[kəʂʈəm]	'difficult'
Telugu		కష్టం	[kʌʂʈəm]	'difficult'
Toda[13]		[pɔʂ]		(clan name)	Subapical
Torwali[14]		?	[ʂeʂ]	'thin rope'
Ubykh		[ʂ̺a]		'head'	See Ubykh phonology
Vietnamese	Southern dialects[15]	sữa	[ʂɨə˧ˀ˥]	'milk'	See Vietnamese phonology
Yi		ꏂ/shy	[ʂ̺ɿ̄˧]	'gold'
Zapotec	Tilquiapan[16]		—	—	Allophone of /ʃ/ before [a] and [u].

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

References

1. Canepari (1992), p. 73.
2. Sadowsky et al. (2013), p. 90.
3. Hamann (2004:65)
4. http://www.gwarypolskie.uw.edu.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=218&Itemid=58
5. http://www.gwarypolskie.uw.edu.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=862&Itemid=17
6. http://www.gwarypolskie.uw.edu.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=79&Itemid=58
7. Pop (1938), p. 31.
8. Hanulíková & Hamann (2010:374)
9. Šewc-Schuster (1984:40–41)
10. Zygis (2003:180–181, 190–191)
11. Šewc-Schuster (1984:41)
12. Zygis (2003:180)
13. Ladefoged (2005:168)
14. Lunsford (2001:16–20)
15. Thompson (1959:458–461)
16. Merrill (2008:109)

Bibliography

• Canepari, Luciano (1992), Il MªPi – Manuale di pronuncia italiana [Handbook of Italian Pronunciation] (in Italian), Bologna: Zanichelli, ISBN 88-08-24624-8
• Hamann, Silke (2004), "Retroflex fricatives in Slavic languages" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (1): 53–67, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001604
• Hanulíková, Adriana; Hamann, Silke (2010), "Slovak" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association 40 (3): 373–378, doi:10.1017/S0025100310000162
• Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (2nd ed.), Blackwell
• Lunsford, Wayne A. (2001), "An overview of linguistic structures in Torwali, a language of Northern Pakistan" (PDF), M.A. thesis, University of Texas at Arlington
• Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquiapan Zapotec" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association 38 (1): 107–114, doi:10.1017/S0025100308003344
• Pop, Sever (1938), Micul Atlas Linguistic Român, Muzeul Limbii Române Cluj
• Sadowsky, Scott; Painequeo, Héctor; Salamanca, Gastón; Avelino, Heriberto (2013), "Mapudungun", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 43 (1): 87–96, doi:10.1017/S0025100312000369
• Šewc-Schuster, Hinc (1984), Gramatika hornjo-serbskeje rěče, Budyšin: Ludowe nakładnistwo Domowina
• Thompson, Laurence (1959), "Saigon phonemics", Language 35 (3): 454–476, doi:10.2307/411232, JSTOR 411232
• Zygis, Marzena (2003), "Phonetic and Phonological Aspects of Slavic Sibilant Fricatives" (PDF), ZAS Papers in Linguistics 3: 175–213