A voiceless palatal fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . It is the non-sibilant equivalent of the voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative. Palatal fricatives are relatively rare phonemes, and only 5% of the world's languages have as a phoneme. The sound further occurs as an allophone of (e.g. in German or Greek), or, in other languages, of in the vicinity of front vowels.
Features
thumb|right|Voiceless palatal fricative (ç)|class=skin-invert-image
Features of a voiceless palatal fricative:
Occurrence
Palatal
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="2" | Language !! Word !! IPA !! Meaning !! Notes
|-
| colspan="2" | Blackfoot || / || || 'Seven' || Allophone of .
|-
| rowspan="2" | Chinese || Taizhou dialect || || || 'to play' || Corresponds to alveolo-palatal in other Wu dialects.
|-
|Meixian dialect
|
|
|'fragrant'
||Corresponds to palatalized fricative in romanised as "hi-" or "hy-" Hakka dialect writing.
|-
| Danish || Standard || || || 'splash' || May be alveolo-palatal instead. Before , aspiration of is realized as devoicing and fortition of . Note, however, that the sequence is normally realized as an affricate . See Danish phonology
|-
| Dutch || Standard Northern || || || 'crib' || Allophone of before for some speakers. See Dutch phonology
|-
| rowspan="3" | English || Australian || rowspan="2" | hue || rowspan="2" | || rowspan="2" | 'hue' || rowspan="2" | Phonetic realization of the sequence . See Australian English phonology and English phonology
|-
| British
|-
| Norwegian || Urban East || || || 'core' || Often alveolo-palatal instead; younger speakers in Bergen, Stavanger and Oslo merge it with . See Norwegian phonology
|-
| rowspan="2" |Pashto || Ghilji dialect || rowspan="2" | || rowspan="2" | ||rowspan="2"| 'foot' || rowspan="2" |See Pashto phonology
|-
| Wardak dialect
|-
| Romanian|| Standard || || || 'Rohia' || Allophone of before . Typically transcribed with [hʲ]. See Romanian phonology
|-
| Russian || Standard || / || || 'hard' || Possible emphatic realization of . See Russian phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Scottish Gaelic || || || 'horses' || Slender allophone of . See Scottish Gaelic phonology and orthography
|-
| colspan=2| Sicilian || || || 'river' || Evolved from the Latin nexus. Realized as when preceded by a consonant. See Sicilian phonology
|-
| Spanish || Chilean || || || 'woman' || Allophone of before front vowels. See Spanish phonology
|-
| colspan=2| Turkish || || || 'intellect' || Allophone of . indicating the voiceless homologue of the voiced palatal approximant. The IPA also had a dedicated symbol , an h with palatal hook, for the similar palatalized hʲ sound, but that is now obsolete. In the Finno-Ugric transcription, it is transcribed , a small capital j.
The palatal approximant can in many cases be considered the semivocalic equivalent of the voiceless variant of the close front unrounded vowel . The sound is essentially an Australian English (as in year) pronounced strictly without vibration of the vocal cords.
Features
Occurrence
It is found as a phoneme in Jalapa Mazatec and Washo as well as in Kildin Sami.
{| class="wikitable"
!Language
!
!Word
!IPA
!Meaning
!Notes
|-
|Breton
|Bothoa dialect
| colspan="3" |
|Contrasts voiceless , plain voiced and nasal voiced approximants.
|-
| rowspan="1" |Chinese
|Standard
| /
|
|'ticket'
|Common allophony of after aspirated consonants. Normally transcribed as . See Standard Chinese phonology
|-
| rowspan="2" |English
|Australian
| rowspan="2" |huge
|
| rowspan="2" |'huge'
|H-dropping, also allophone of . See Australian English phonology
|-
|New Zealand
|
|H-dropping, also allophone of , also can be [] instead. See New Zealand English phonology
|-
| colspan="2" |Jalapa Mazatec
| colspan="3" |
|Contrasts voiceless , plain voiced and glottalized voiced approximants.
|-
| colspan="2" |Japanese
| / hi
|
|'day'
|Colloquial, Allophone of
|-
| colspan="2" |Scottish Gaelic
|
|
|'outside' (directional)
|Allophone of and . See Scottish Gaelic phonology
|-
| colspan="2" |Thai
| colspan="3" rowspan="2" |
|Allophone of .
|-
|Tibetan
|Khams
|Phonemic
|-
| colspan="2" |Washo
|
|
|'he's hunting'
|Contrasts voiceless and voiced approximants.
|-
| colspan="2" |Koyukon (Denaakk'e)
| colspan="3" |
|Contrasts voiceless and voiced approximants.
|}
See also
- Index of phonetics articles