Voiceless postalveolar fricative

IPA number	134
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X-SAMPA	S
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The voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or domed postalveolar fricative (IPA [ʃ]) is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages.

The sound occurs in many languages and, as in English, Italian and French, where it may have simultaneous lip rounding ([ʃʷ]), although this is rarely indicated.

Symbol

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 sign ∫), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is S. An alternative symbol used in some older and American linguistic literature is š, an s with háček, originating with the Czech alphabet of Jan Hus (also used in Gaj's Latin alphabet as well as scientific and ISO 9 transliterations of Cyrillic).

Features

Features of the voiceless postalveolar fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is sibilant fricative, which means it is produced by directing air flow through a groove in the tongue at the place of articulation and directing it over the sharp edge of the 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 front of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue bunched up ("domed") at the palate.
• Its phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations 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.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Albanian		shtëpi	[ʃtəpi]	'house'
Arabic	Standard	شمس	[ʃams]	'sun'	See Arabic phonology
Armenian		քաշ	[kaʃ]	'weight'
Basque		kaixo	[kaiʃo]	'hello'
Bulgarian		юнашки	[junaʃki]	'heroically'
Croatian		šuma	[ʃûma]	'forest'
Czech		kaše	[kaʃɛ]	'mash'	See Czech phonology
Dutch		sjabloon	[ʃabloːn]	'template'	May be [sʲ] instead. See Dutch phonology
English		sheep	[ʃiːp]	'sheep'	See English phonology
Esperanto		ŝelko	[ʃelko]	'suspenders'	See Esperanto phonology
Faroese		sjúkrahús	[ʃʉukrahʉus]	'hospital'
French		cher	[ʃɛʁ]	'dear, expensive'	See French phonology
Galician		viaxe	[bjaʃe]	'way'
Georgian		შარი	[ˈʃɑɾi]	'quibbling'
German		schraffieren	[ʃʁaˈfiːʁən]	'to shade'	See German phonology
Hebrew		שלום	[ʃalom]	'peace'	See Hebrew phonology
Hungarian		segítség	[ʃɛgiːtʃeːg]	'help'	See Hungarian phonology
Ilokano		siák	[ʃak]	'I'
Irish		sí	[ʃiː]	'she'	See Irish phonology
Italian		fasce	[ˈfaʃʃe]	'bands'	See Italian phonology
Kabardian		шыд	[ʃɛd]	'donkey'	Contrasts with a labialized form
Kabyle		ciwer	[ʃiwər]	'to consult'
Latvian		šalle	[ˈʃalle]	'scarf'
Lingala		shakú	[ʃakú]	'Afrikan gray parrot'
Lithuanian		šarvas	[ˈʃarvas]	'armor'
Maltese		x'ismek	[ʃismek]	'what is your name?'
Norwegian	Bokmål	sky	[ʃyː]	'cloud'	See Norwegian phonology
	Nynorsk	sjukehuset	[ˈʃʉːkeˈhʉːse]	'hospital'
Occitan	Auvergnat	maissant	[meˈʃɔ̃]	'bad'
	Limousin	son	[ʃũ]	'his'
	Gascon	maishant	[maˈʃan]	'bad'
Portuguese		cheirar	[ʃeiˈɾaɾ]	'to smell'	See Portuguese phonology
Romani	Vlax	deš	[deʃ]	'ten'
Romanian		şefi	[ʃefʲ]	'bosses'	See Romanian phonology
Scottish Gaelic		seinn	[ʃeiɲ]	'sing'
Serbian		двориште/dvorište	[ˈdʋɔriʃtɛ]	'courtyard'
Slovenian		šóla	[ʃola]	'school'
Somali		shan	[ʃan]	'five'	See Somali phonology
Spanish	Andalusian Spanish	chico	[ˈʃiko̞]	'boy'
	Chilean Spanish	chileno	[ʃi'le̞no̞]	'Chilean'
Swahili		kushoto	[kuʃoto]	'trees'
Tagalog		silya	[ˈʃiljɐ]	'chair'
Tunica		šíhkali	[ˈʃihkali]	'stone'
Turkish		güneş	[gyˈneʃ]	'sun'	See Turkish phonology
Urdu		شکریہ	[ʃʊkriːaː]	'thank you'	See Hindi-Urdu phonology
Welsh	Standard	siarad	[ˈʃɑrad]	'speak'
	Southern dialects	mis	[miːʃ]	'month'
Zhuang		cib	[ʃǐp]	'ten'
Western Lombard	Canzés	fescia	[feʃa]	'nuisance'

The sound in Russian denoted by <ш> is commonly transcribed as a postalveolar fricative but is actually a laminal retroflex fricative.

See also

• List of phonetics topics

Bibliography

• Template:Harvard reference
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