Voiceless postalveolar fricative

This article is about the palato-alveolar consonant. For the retroflex consonant, see Voiceless retroflex fricative. For the alveolo-palatal consonant, see Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative.

A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term voiceless postalveolar fricative only for the sound [ ʃ ], but it also describes the voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant fricative [ɹ̠̊˔], for which there are significant perceptual differences.

Voiceless palato-alveolar fricative

Voiceless postalveolar fricative
ʃ
IPA Number	134
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʃ
Unicode (hex)	U+0283
X-SAMPA	S
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A voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or voiceless domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in many languages, including English. In English, it is usually spelled ⟨sh⟩, as in ship.

Postalveolar fricative [ʃ, ʒ]

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ ʃ ⟩, the letter esh introduced by Isaac Pitman (not to be confused with the integral symbol ⟨∫⟩). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is S.

An alternative symbol is ⟨š⟩, an s with a caron or háček, which is used in the Americanist phonetic notation and the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet, as well as in the scientific and ISO 9 transliterations of Cyrillic. It originated with the Czech orthography of Jan Hus and was adopted in Gaj's Latin alphabet and other Latin alphabets of Slavic languages. It also features in the orthographies of many Baltic, Finno-Samic, North American and African languages.

Features

Features of the voiceless palato-alveolar 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 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.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Adyghe		шыд/šëd	[ʃəd]	'donkey'
Albanian		shtëpi	[ʃtəˈpi]	'house'
Arabic	Modern Standard	šams/شَمْس		'sun'	See Arabic phonology
Armenian	Eastern	շուն/šun		'dog'
Aromanian		shi	[ʃi]	'and'
Asturian		xera	[ˈʃeɾa]	'work'
Azerbaijani		şeir	[ʃeiɾ]	'poem'
Assyrian		ܫܒܬܐ šebta	[ʃεbta]	'Saturday'
Bashkir		биш / biş		'five'
Basque		kaixo	[kajʃ̺o]	'hello'
Breton		chadenn	[ˈʃadɛ̃n]	'chain'
Bulgarian		юнашки/junaški	[juˈnaʃki]	'heroically'	See Bulgarian phonology
Chechen		шура / ‘’Š ura	['ʃurə]	'milk'
Chuvash		шурă/şura	['ʃurə]	'white'
Czech		kaše	[ˈkaʃɛ]	'mash'	See Czech phonology
Dutch		sjabloon		'template'	May be [sʲ] or [ɕ] instead. See Dutch phonology
English		sheep		'sheep'	See English phonology
Esperanto		ŝelko	[ˈʃelko]	'suspenders'	See Esperanto phonology
Estonian		šaakal	[ˈʃɑːkːɑl]	'jackal'	Occurs only in loanwords. See Estonian phonology
Faroese		sjúkrahús	[ʃʉukrahʉus]	'hospital'	See Faroese phonology
French		cher		'expensive'	See French phonology
Finnish		šekki	[ʃekːi]	'check'	Occurs only in loanwords. See Finnish phonology
Galician		viaxe	[ˈbjaʃe]	'trip'	See Galician phonology
Georgian		შარი/šari	[ˈʃɑɾi]	'quibbling'
German	Standard	schön	[ʃøːn]	'beautiful'	Laminal or apico-laminal and strongly labialized. See Standard German phonology
Globasa		xanti	[ʃäntʰi]	'peace'
Greek	Cypriot	ασσιήμια/aššimnia	[ɐˈʃːimɲɐ]	'ugliness'	Contrasts with /ʃ/ and /ʒː/
	Pontic	ςςον/šon	[ʃo̞n]	'snow'
Hebrew		šalom/שָׁלוֹם		'peace'	See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindi		शक/šak	[ʃək]	'doubt'	See Hindustani phonology
Hungarian		segítség	[ˈʃɛɡiːt͡ʃːeːɡ]	'help'	See Hungarian phonology
Ilocano		siák	[ʃak]	'I'
Irish		sí	[ʃiː]	'she'	See Irish phonology
Italian	Marked accents of Emilia-Romagna	sali	[ˈʃäːli]	'you go up'	Apical non-labialized; may be [s̺ʲ] or [ʂ] instead. It corresponds to [s] in standard Italian. See Italian phonology
	Standard	fasce	[ˈfäʃːe]	'bands'	See Italian phonology
Kabardian		шыд/šed	[ʃɛd]	'donkey'	Contrasts with a labialized form
Kabyle		ciwer	[ʃiwər]	'to consult'
Kashubian		nasz	[naʃ]	'our'	See Kashubian language
Kannada	Colloquial	ಶಾಟ	ʃ āta	'pubic hair'	See Kannada
Kazakh		шаш / şaş	[ʃаʃ]	'hair'
Kurdish		şev	[ʃɛv]	'night'	See Kurdish phonology
Latvian		šalle	[ˈʃalːe]	'scarf'	See Latvian phonology
Limburgish	Maastrichtian	sjat	[ʃɑ̽t]	'darling'	Laminal post-alveolar with an unclear amount of palatalization.
Lingala		shakú	[ʃakú]	'grey parrot'
Lithuanian		šarvas	[ˈʃɐrˑvɐs]	'armor'	See Lithuanian phonology
Macedonian		што/što	[ʃtɔ]	'what'	See Macedonian phonology
Malay		syarikat	[ʃarikat]	'company'
Maltese		x′jismek?	[ˈʃjɪsmɛk]	'what is your name?'
Marathi		शब्द/šabde	[ˈʃəbd̪ə]	'word'	See Marathi phonology
Mayan	Yucatec	ko'ox	[koʔoʃ]	'let's go'
Mopan		kax	[kɑːʃ]	'chicken'
Mutsun		raṭmašte	[ɾɑʈmɑʃtɛ]	'having acne'
Neapolitan		scugnizzo	[ʃkuˈɲːitt͡sə]	'urchin'
Occitan	Auvergnat	maissant	[meˈʃɔ̃]	'bad'	See Occitan phonology
	Gascon	maishant	[maˈʃan]
	Limousin	son	[ʃũ]	'his'
Persian		šah/شاه	[ʃɒːh]	'king'	See Persian phonology
Polish	Gmina Istebna	siano	[ˈʃän̪ɔ]	'hay'	/ʂ/ and /ɕ/ merge into [ʃ] in these dialects. In standard Polish, /ʃ/ is commonly used to transcribe what actually is a laminal voiceless retroflex sibilant
	Lubawa dialect
	Malbork dialect
	Ostróda dialect
	Warmia dialect
Portuguese		xamã	[ʃɐˈmɐ̃]	'shaman'	Also described as alveolo-palatal [ɕ]. See Portuguese phonology
Punjabi		ਸ਼ੇਰ/šer	[ʃeːɾ]	'lion'
Romani		deš	[deʃ]	'ten'
Romanian		șefi	[ʃefʲ]	'bosses'	See Romanian phonology
Russian		шум/šum	[ʃum]	'noise'
Sahaptin		šíš	[ʃiʃ]	'mush'
Scottish Gaelic		seinn	[ʃeiɲ]	'sing'	See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Serbo-Croatian		škola	[ʃkôːla]	'school'	See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Silesian	Gmina Istebna				These dialects merge /ʂ/ and /ɕ/ into [ʃ]
	Jablunkov
Slovak		šál	[ʃaːl]	'scarf'	See Slovak phonology
Slovene		šola	[ˈʃóːlà]	'school'	See Slovene phonology
Somali		shan	[ʃan]	'five'	See Somali phonology
Spanish
	New Mexican	echador		'boastful'	Corresponds to [t͡ʃ] in other dialects. See Spanish phonology
	Northern Mexico
	Cuban
	Panamanian	chocolate	[ʃokoˈlate]	'chocolate'
	Southern Andalusia
	Chilean
	Rioplatense	ayer	[aˈʃeɾ]	'yesterday'	May be voiced [ʒ] instead. See Spanish phonology and yeísmo
Swahili		shule	[ʃule]	'school'
Tagalog		siya	[ʃa]	'he/she'	See Tagalog phonology
Toda		[pɔʃ]		'language'	Contrasts /θ s̪ s̠ ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ/.
Tunica		šíhkali	[ˈʃihkali]	'stone'
Turkish		güneş	[ɟyˈne̞ʃ]	'sun'	See Turkish phonology
Ukrainian		шахи/šahy	['ʃɑxɪ]	'chess'	See Ukrainian phonology
Urdu		şukriá/شکریہ	[ʃʊkˈriːaː]	'thank you'	See Hindustani phonology
Uyghur		şähär/شەھەر	[ʃæhær]	'city'
Uzbek		bosh/baş	[bɒʃ]	'head'
Walloon		texhou	[tɛʃu]	'knit fabric'
Welsh	Standard	siarad	[ˈʃɑːrad]	'speak'	See Welsh phonology
	Southern dialects	mis	[miːʃ]	'month'
West Frisian		sjippe	[ˈʃɪpə]	'soap'	See West Frisian phonology
Western Lombard	Canzés	fescia	[feʃa]	'nuisance'
Yiddish		visnešaftleche/וויסנשאַפֿטלעכע	[vɪsn̩ʃaftləχə]	'scientific'	See Yiddish phonology
Yoruba		ṣí	[ʃi]	'open'
Zapotec	Tilquiapan	xana	[ʃana]	'how?'

In various languages, including English and French, it may have simultaneous labialization, i.e. [ʃʷ], although this is usually not transcribed.

Classical Latin did not have [ʃ], though it does occur in most Romance languages. For example, ⟨ch⟩ in French chanteur "singer" is pronounced /ʃ/. Chanteur is descended from Latin cantare, where ⟨c⟩ was pronounced /k/. The ⟨sc⟩ in Latin scientia "science" was pronounced /sk/, but has shifted to /ʃ/ in Italian scienza.

Similarly, Proto-Germanic had neither [ʃ] nor [ʂ], yet many of its descendants do. In most cases, this [ʃ] or [ʂ] descends from a Proto-Germanic /sk/. For instance, Proto-Germanic *skipą ("hollow object, water-borne vessel larger than a boat") was pronounced /ˈski.pɑ̃/. The English word "ship" /ʃɪp/ has been pronounced without the /sk/ the longest, the word being descended from Old English "scip" /ʃip/, which already also had the [ʃ], though the Old English spelling etymologically indicated that the old /sk/ had once been present.

This change took longer to catch on in West Germanic languages other than Old English, though it eventually did. The second West Germanic language to undergo this sound shift was Old High German. In fact, it has been argued that Old High German's /sk/ was actually already [s̠k], because a single [s] had already shifted to [s̠]. Furthermore, by Middle High German, that /s̠k/ had shifted to [ʃ]. After High German, the shift most likely then occurred in Low Saxon. After Low Saxon, Middle Dutch began the shift, but it stopped shifting once it reached /sx/, and has kept that pronunciation since. Then, most likely through influence from German and Low Saxon, North Frisian experienced the shift.

Then, Swedish quite swiftly underwent the shift, which resulted in the very uncommon [ɧ] phoneme, which, aside from Swedish, is only used in Colognian, a variety of High German, though not as a replacement for the standard High German /ʃ/ but a coronalized /ç/. However, the exact realization of Swedish /ɧ/ varies considerably among dialects; for instance, in Northern dialects it tends to be realized as [ʂ]. See sj-sound for more details. Finally, the last to undergo the shift was Norwegian, in which the result of the shift was [ʃ].

The sound in Russian denoted by ⟨ш⟩ is commonly transcribed as a palato-alveolar fricative but is actually an apical retroflex fricative.

Voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant fricative

Voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant fricative
ɹ̠̊˔
ɹ̝̊˗
IPA Number	151 414 402B 429
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
X-SAMPA	r\_-_0_r

Voiceless postalveolar approximant
ɹ̠̊

The voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant fricative is a consonantal sound. As the International Phonetic Alphabet does not have separate symbols for the post-alveolar consonants (the same symbol is used for all coronal places of articulation that are not palatalized), this sound is usually transcribed ⟨ɹ̠̊˔⟩ (retracted constricted voiceless [ɹ]). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r\_-_0_r.

Some scholars also posit the voiceless postalveolar approximant distinct from the fricative. The approximant may be represented in the IPA as ⟨ɹ̠̊⟩.

Features

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence. However, it does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.
• 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.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Bengali	Some pronunciations	আবার	[ˈäbäɹ̠̊]	'again'	Apical; possible allophone of /ɹ/ in the syllable coda. See Bengali phonology
English	Received Pronunciation	crew	[kɹ̠̊˔ʊu̯]	'crew'	Only partially devoiced. It is a realization of /r/ after the word-initial fortis plosives /p, k/, unless they are preceded by /s/ within the same syllable. See English phonology

See also

• Index of phonetics articles
• Voiced postalveolar fricative
• Cedilla
• Shibboleth

References

• Khan, Sameer ud Dowla (2010), "Bengali (Bangladeshi Standard)" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 40 (2): 221–225, doi:10.1017/S0025100310000071
• Canepari, Luciano (1992), Il MªPi – Manuale di pronuncia italiana [Handbook of Italian Pronunciation] (in Italian), Bologna: Zanichelli, ISBN 88-08-24624-8
• Cotton, Eleanor Greet; Sharp, John (1988), Spanish in the Americas, Georgetown University Press, ISBN 978-0-87840-094-2
• Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 25 (2): 90–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005223, S2CID 249414876
• Dąbrowska, Anna (2004), Język polski, Wrocław: wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie, ISBN 83-7384-063-X
• Dubisz, Stanisław; Karaś, Halina; Kolis, Nijola (1995), Dialekty i gwary polskie (in Polish), Warsaw: Wiedza Powszechna, ISBN 83-2140989-X
• Danyenko, Andrii; Vakulenko, Serhii (1995), Ukrainian, Lincom Europa, ISBN 9783929075083
• Dum-Tragut, Jasmine (2009), Armenian: Modern Eastern Armenian, Amsterdam: John Benjamins
• Fougeron, Cecile; Smith, Caroline L (1993), "French", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 23 (2): 73–76, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004874, S2CID 249404451
• Guimarães, Daniela (2004), Seqüências de (Sibilante + Africada Alveopalatal) no Português Falado em Belo Horizonte (PDF), Belo Horizonte: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-04-07, retrieved 2014-12-06
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• ———; Aarts, Flor (1999), "The dialect of Maastricht" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 29 (2), University of Nijmegen, Centre for Language Studies: 155–166, doi:10.1017/S0025100300006526, S2CID 145782045
• Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (2nd ed.), Blackwell
• Mangold, Max (2005) [First published 1962], Das Aussprachewörterbuch (6th ed.), Mannheim: Dudenverlag, ISBN 978-3-411-04066-7
• Mateus, Maria Helena; d'Andrade, Ernesto (2000), The Phonology of Portuguese, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-823581-X
• Medina, Flávio (2010), Análise Acústica de Sequências de Fricativas Seguidas de [i] Produzidas por Japoneses Aprendizes de Português Brasileiro (PDF), Anais do IX Encontro do CELSUL Palhoça, SC, Palhoça: Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina, archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-23, retrieved 2014-12-06
• Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquiapan Zapotec", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 38 (1): 107–14, doi:10.1017/S0025100308003344
• Roach, Peter (2004), "British English: Received Pronunciation", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (2): 239–45, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001768
• Rogers, Derek; d'Arcangeli, Luciana (2004), "Italian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (1): 117–21, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001628
• Shosted, Ryan K; Chikovani, Vakhtang (2006), "Standard Georgian" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 36 (2): 255–64, doi:10.1017/S0025100306002659
• Silva, Thaïs Cristófaro (2003), Fonética e Fonologia do Português: Roteiro de Estudos e Guia de Exercícios (7th ed.), São Paulo: Contexto, ISBN 85-7244-102-6
• Thelwall, Robin (1990), "Arabic", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 20 (2): 37–41, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004266, S2CID 243640727

External links

• List of languages with [ʃ] on PHOIBLE