Voiceless retroflex affricate

The voiceless retroflex sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʈ͡ʂ⟩, sometimes simplified to ⟨tʂ⟩,[1] and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ⟨ts`⟩.

Voiceless retroflex affricate
ʈʂ
tʂ
IPA Number	105 (136)
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʈ​͡​ʂ
Unicode (hex)	U+0288 U+0361 U+0282
X-SAMPA	ts`
Image
Audio sample
source · help

The affricate occurs in a number of languages:

• Asturian: Speakers of the western dialects of this language use it instead of the voiced palatal fricative, writing ḷḷ instead of ll.
• Slavic languages: Polish, Belarusian, Old Czech, Serbo-Croatian; some speakers of Russian may use it instead of the voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate.
• a number of Northwest Caucasian languages have retroflex affricates that contrast in secondary articulations like labialization.
• Mandarin and other Sinitic languages.

Features

Features of the voiceless retroflex 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 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 subapical 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

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Adyghe		чъыгы	[t͡ʂəɣə]	'tree'
Asturian	Some dialects[2][3]	ḷḷobu	[ʈ͡ʂoβu]	'wolf'	Corresponds to standard /ʎ/.
Belarusian		пачатак	[paʈ͡ʂatak]	'the beginning'	Laminal. See Belarusian phonology
Chinese	Mandarin[4]	中文 / Zhōngwén	[ʈ͡ʂʊŋ˥ u̯ən˧˥]	'Chinese language'	Contrasts with aspirated form. See Mandarin phonology
Khanty	Eastern dialects	ҷӓңҷ	[ʈ͡ʂaɳʈ͡ʂ]	'knee'	Corresponds to a voiceless retroflex fricative /ʂ/ in the northern dialects.
	Southern dialects
Northern Qiang		zhes	[ʈ͡ʂəs]	'day before yesterday'	Contrasts with aspirated and voiced forms.
Polish	Standard[5][6]	czas	[ˈʈ͡ʂäs̪]	'time'	Laminal. Transcribed /t͡ʃ/ by most Polish scholars. See Polish phonology
	Southeastern Cuyavian dialects[7]	cena	[ˈʈ͡ʂɛn̪ä]	'price'	Some speakers. It is a result of hypercorrecting the more popular merger of /ʈ͡ʂ/ and /t͡s/ into [t͡s].
	Suwałki dialect[8]
Quechua	Cajamarca–Cañaris	chupa	[ʈ͡ʂupə]	'tail'
Russian	Regions adjacent to Belarus	кирпич	[kɪrˈpɪt͡ʂ]	'brick'
Serbo-Croatian[9]		чеп / čep	[ʈ͡ʂe̞p]	'cork'	Laminal. It may be palato-alveolar instead, depending on the dialect. See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Slovak[10]		čakať	[ˈʈ͡ʂäkäc̟]	'to wait'	Laminal.
Torwali[11]		ڇووو	[ʈ͡ʂuwu]	'to sew'	Contrasts with aspirated form.
Yi		ꍈ / zha	[ʈ͡ʂa˧]	'a bit'	Contrasts with aspirated form.

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

Notes

1. Unlike the palato-alveolar and alveolar affricates, there is no obsolete ligature.
2. (in Asturian) Normes ortográfiques, Academia de la Llingua Asturiana Archived 2013-03-23 at the Wayback Machine Page 14
3. García Arias (2003:34)
4. Ladefoged & Wu (1984:?)
5. Jassem (2003:103)
6. Hamann (2004:65)
7. "Gwary polskie - Gwara regionu". Gwarypolskie.uw.edu.pl. Archived from the original on 2013-11-13. Retrieved 2013-11-13.
8. "Gwary polskie - Szadzenie". Gwarypolskie.uw.edu.pl. Archived from the original on 2013-11-13. Retrieved 2013-11-13.
9. Landau et al. (1999), p. 67.
10. Hanulíková & Hamann (2010), p. 374.
11. Lunsford (2001), pp. 16–20.

References

• García Arias, Xosé Lluis (2003), Gramática Histórica de la Lengua Asturiana, Oviedo: Academia de la Llingua Asturiana, pp. 34–36, ISBN 84-8168-341-8
• Hamann, Silke (2004), "Retroflex fricatives in Slavic languages" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (1): 53–67, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001604, archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-04-14, retrieved 2015-04-09
• Hanulíková, Adriana; Hamann, Silke (2010), "Slovak" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 40 (3): 373–378, doi:10.1017/S0025100310000162
• Jassem, Wiktor (2003), "Polish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (1): 103–107, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001191
• Ladefoged, Peter; Wu, Zongji (1984), "Places of Articulation: An Investigation of Pekingese Fricatives and Affricates", Journal of Phonetics, 11: 267–278
• 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
• Landau, Ernestina; Lončarića, Mijo; Horga, Damir; Škarić, Ivo (1999), "Croatian", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 66–69, ISBN 978-0-521-65236-0

External links

• List of languages with [ʈʂ] on PHOIBLE