The topic of Voiceless postalveolar fricative is of utmost importance today, as it has a significant impact on various areas of daily life. From its influence on the economy to its role in society, Voiceless postalveolar fricative is a topic that does not go unnoticed. Throughout history, it has been the subject of debate and analysis, and its relevance remains valid today. In this article, we will explore the different facets of Voiceless postalveolar fricative and its importance in today's world.
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 , but it also describes the voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant fricative , for which there are significant perceptual differences.
Voiceless postalveolar fricative | |||
---|---|---|---|
ʃ | |||
IPA Number | 134 | ||
Audio sample | |||
Encoding | |||
Entity (decimal) | ʃ | ||
Unicode (hex) | U+0283 | ||
X-SAMPA | S | ||
Braille | |||
|
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.
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 of the voiceless palato-alveolar fricative:
Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adyghe | шыд | 'donkey' | |||
Albanian | shtëpi | 'house' | |||
Arabic | Modern Standard | شَمْس | ⓘ | 'sun' | See Arabic phonology |
Armenian | Eastern | շուն | ⓘ | 'dog' | |
Aromanian | shi | 'and' | |||
Asturian | xera | 'work' | |||
Azerbaijani | şeir | 'poem' | |||
Assyrian | ܫܒܬܐ šebta | 'Saturday' | |||
Bashkir | биш / biš | ⓘ | 'five' | ||
Basque | kaixo | 'hello' | |||
Breton | chadenn | 'chain' | |||
Bulgarian | юнашки | 'heroically' | See Bulgarian phonology | ||
Chechen | шура / şura | 'milk' | |||
Chuvash | шурă | 'white' | |||
Czech | kaše | 'mash' | See Czech phonology | ||
Dutch | sjabloon | ⓘ | 'template' | May be or [ɕ] instead. See Dutch phonology | |
English | sheep | ⓘ | 'sheep' | See English phonology | |
Esperanto | ŝelko | 'suspenders' | See Esperanto phonology | ||
Estonian | šaakal | 'jackal' | Occurs only in loanwords. See Estonian phonology | ||
Faroese | sjúkrahús | 'hospital' | See Faroese phonology | ||
French | cher | ⓘ | 'expensive' | See French phonology | |
Finnish | šekki | 'check' | Occurs only in loanwords. See Finnish phonology | ||
Galician | viaxe | 'trip' | See Galician phonology | ||
Georgian | შარი | 'quibbling' | |||
German | Standard | schön | 'beautiful' | Laminal or apico-laminal and strongly labialized. See Standard German phonology | |
Globasa | xanti | 'peace' | |||
Greek | Cypriot | ασσιήμια | 'ugliness' | Contrasts with /ʃ/ and /ʒː/ | |
Pontic | ςςον | 'snow' | |||
Hebrew | שָׁלוֹם | ⓘ | 'peace' | See Modern Hebrew phonology | |
Hindi | शक | 'doubt' | See Hindustani phonology | ||
Hungarian | segítség | 'help' | See Hungarian phonology | ||
Ilocano | siák | 'I' | |||
Irish | sí | 'she' | See Irish phonology | ||
Italian | Marked accents of Emilia-Romagna | sali | 'you go up' | Apical non-labialized; may be [s̺ʲ] or [ʂ] instead. It corresponds to [s] in standard Italian. See Italian phonology | |
Standard | fasce | 'bands' | See Italian phonology | ||
Kabardian | шыд | 'donkey' | Contrasts with a labialized form | ||
Kabyle | ciwer | 'to consult' | |||
Kashubian | nasz | 'our' | See Kashubian language | ||
Kannada | Colloquial | ಶಾಟ | ʃ āta | 'pubic hair' | See Kannada |
Kazakh | шаш / şaş | 'hair' | |||
Kurdish | şev | 'night' | See Kurdish phonology | ||
Latvian | šalle | 'scarf' | See Latvian phonology | ||
Limburgish | Maastrichtian | sjat | 'darling' | Laminal post-alveolar with an unclear amount of palatalization. | |
Lingala | shakú | 'grey parrot' | |||
Lithuanian | šarvas | 'armor' | See Lithuanian phonology | ||
Macedonian | што | 'what' | See Macedonian phonology | ||
Malay | syarikat | 'company' | |||
Maltese | x′jismek? | 'what is your name?' | |||
Marathi | शब्द | 'word' | See Marathi phonology | ||
Mayan | Yucatec | ko'ox | 'let's go' | ||
Mopan | kax | 'chicken' | |||
Mutsun | raṭmašte | 'having acne' | |||
Neapolitan | scugnizzo | 'urchin' | |||
Occitan | Auvergnat | maissant | 'bad' | See Occitan phonology | |
Gascon | maishant | ||||
Limousin | son | 'his' | |||
Persian | شاه | 'king' | See Persian phonology | ||
Polish | Gmina Istebna | siano | 'hay' | /ʂ/ and /ɕ/ merge into 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 | 'shaman' | Also described as alveolo-palatal [ɕ]. See Portuguese phonology | ||
Punjabi | ਸ਼ੇਰ | 'lion' | |||
Romani | deš | 'ten' | |||
Romanian | șefi | 'bosses' | See Romanian phonology | ||
Russian | шум | 'noise' | |||
Sahaptin | šíš | 'mush' | |||
Scottish Gaelic | seinn | 'sing' | See Scottish Gaelic phonology | ||
Serbo-Croatian | škola | 'school' | See Serbo-Croatian phonology | ||
Silesian | Gmina Istebna | [example needed] | These dialects merge /ʂ/ and /ɕ/ into | ||
Jablunkov | [example needed] | ||||
Slovak | šál | 'scarf' | See Slovak phonology | ||
Slovene | šola | 'school' | See Slovene phonology | ||
Somali | shan | 'five' | See Somali phonology | ||
Spanish | |||||
New Mexican | echador | ⓘ | 'boastful' | Corresponds to in other dialects. See Spanish phonology | |
Northern Mexico | |||||
Cuban | |||||
Panamanian | chocolate | 'chocolate' | |||
Southern Andalusia | |||||
Chilean | |||||
Rioplatense | ayer | 'yesterday' | May be voiced [ʒ] instead. See Spanish phonology and yeísmo | ||
Swahili | shule | 'school' | |||
Tagalog | siya | 'he/she' | See Tagalog phonology | ||
Toda | 'language' | Contrasts /θ s̪ s̠ ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ/. | |||
Tunica | šíhkali | 'stone' | |||
Turkish | güneş | 'sun' | See Turkish phonology | ||
Ukrainian | шахи | 'chess' | See Ukrainian phonology | ||
Urdu | شکریہ | 'thank you' | See Hindustani phonology | ||
Uyghur | شەھەر | 'city' | |||
Uzbek | bosh | 'head' | |||
Walloon | texhou | 'knit fabric' | |||
Welsh | Standard | siarad | 'speak' | See Welsh phonology | |
Southern dialects | mis | 'month' | |||
West Frisian | sjippe | 'soap' | See West Frisian phonology | ||
Western Lombard | Canzés | fescia | 'nuisance' | ||
Yiddish | וויסנשאַפֿטלעכע | 'scientific' | See Yiddish phonology | ||
Yorùbá | ṣí | 'open' | |||
Zapotec | Tilquiapan | xana | 'how?' |
In various languages, including English and French, it may have simultaneous labialization, i.e. , although this is usually not transcribed.
Classical Latin did not have , 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 nor [ʂ], yet many of its descendants do. In most cases, this or 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 , 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 , because a single [s] had already shifted to [s̠]. Furthermore, by Middle High German, that /s̠k/ had shifted to . 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 .
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 | |
---|---|
ɹ̠̊˔ | |
ɹ̝̊˗ | |
IPA Number | 151 414 402B 429 |
Audio sample | |
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 ). 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⟩.
Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bengali | Some pronunciations | আবার | 'again' | Apical; possible allophone of /ɹ/ in the syllable coda. See Bengali phonology | |
English | Received Pronunciation | crew | '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 |