Voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant

The voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) that represents this sound is ⟨ʑ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is z\.

Features

alveolo-palatal sibilant fricatives [ɕ, ʑ]

Features of the voiced alveolo-palatal 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 alveolo-palatal. This means that:
  • Its place of articulation is postalveolar, meaning that the tongue contacts the roof of the mouth in the area behind the alveolar ridge (the gum line).
  • Its tongue shape is laminal, meaning that it is the tongue blade that contacts the roof of the mouth.
  • It is heavily palatalized, meaning that the middle of the tongue is bowed and raised towards the hard palate.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• 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
Abkhaz		ажьа	[aˈʑa]	'hare'	See Abkhaz phonology
Adyghe		жьау	[ʑaːw]	'shadow'
Catalan	Eastern and Majorcan	ajut	[əˈʑut]	'help' (n.)	See Catalan phonology
Chinese	Jiangshan dialect of Wu	十	[ʑyœʔ]	'ten'
	Southern Min	今仔日/kin-á-ji̍t	[kɪn˧a˥ʑɪt˥]	'today'
Japanese		火事/kaji	[kaʑi]	'fire'	Found in free variation with [d͡ʑ] between vowels. See Japanese phonology
Kabardian		жьэ	[ʑa]	'mouth'
Lower Sorbian		źasety	[ʑäs̪ɛt̪ɨ]	'tenth'
Luxembourgish		héijen	[ˈhəi̯ʑɵ̞n]	'high'	Allophone of /ʁ/ after phonologically front vowels; some speakers merge it with [ʒ]. Occurs only in a few words. See Luxembourgish phonology
Pashto	Wazirwola dialect	ميږ‎	[miʑ]	'we'
Polish		źrebię	<phonos file="Pl-źrebię.ogg">[ˈʑrɛbjɛw̃]</phonos>	'foal'	Also denoted by the digraph ⟨zi⟩. See Polish phonology
Portuguese	Brazilian	magia	[mɐˈʑi.ɐ]	'magic', 'sorcery'	Allophonic variation of /ʒ/. Contrasts with other sibilants only in onset. Argued both to be laminal [ʒ], and generally produced "in the middle of the hard palate", same of fellow alveolo-palatal [l̠ʲ] and [n̠ʲ], and further palatalized than Italian post-alveolars. Found in coda mainly before fricative, coronal and palatalized consonants in Brazil. See Portuguese phonology
	European (?)	rasgos dóem	[ˈʀaʑguʑ ˈdɔẽj]	'[these] rips hurt'
	Carioca
	Many Brazilian dialects	eles, desde sempre	[ˈeɫiʑ ˈdeʑdʑi̥ ˈsẽpɾi̥]	'they, since ever'
	Some speakers		[ˈelɪz ˈdeɪ̯ʑːɪ ˈsẽpɾɪ]
Romanian	Transylvanian dialects	geană	[ʑanə]	'eyelash'	Realized as [d͡ʒ] in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology
Russian		езжу	[ˈjeʑːʊ]	'I drive'	Most speakers. Usually written ⟨жж⟩ or ⟨зж⟩. See Russian phonology
Sema		aji	[à̠ʑì]	'blood'	Possible allophone of /ʒ/ before /i, e/; can be realized as [d͡ʑ ~ ʒ ~ d͡ʒ] instead.
Serbo-Croatian	Croatian	пуж ħе / puž će	[pûːʑ t͡ɕe̞]	'the snail will'	Allophone of /ʒ/ before /t͡ɕ, d͡ʑ/. See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Uzbek
Xumi	Upper	[Hʑɜ]		'beer, wine'
Yi		ꑳ/yi	[ʑi˧]	'tobacco'

See also

• Index of phonetics articles