Voiceless retroflex affricate

The voiceless retroflex affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound are [ʈ͡ʂ], sometimes simplified to [tʂ], and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ts\. The voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate occurs in such languages as Mandarin Chinese (zh and aspirated ch), Polish (cz), and Northwest Caucasian languages.

Features

Features of the voiceless retroflex affricate:

• Its manner of articulation is sibilant affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the airflow entirely, then directing it through a groove in the tongue and over the sharp edge of the teeth, causing high-frequency turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is retroflex, which prototypically means it is articulated with the tip of the tongue curled up, but more generally means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized.
• Its phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibration of the vocal cords.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.