In
phoneticsPhonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds , and their physiological production, auditory perception, and neurophysiological status.Phonetics was studied as early as 2500 years ago in...
,
alveolo-palatal (or
alveopalatal)
consonantIn articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx...
s are
palatalizedPalatalization or palatalisation generally refers to two phenomena:*As a process or the result of a process, the effect that front vowels and the palatal approximant frequently have on consonants;...
postalveolarPostalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate .Among the fricatives and affricates, a subtype called...
fricatives, articulated with the blade of the
tongueThe tongue is a muscle on the floor of the mouth that manipulates food for chewing and swallowing . It is the primary organ of taste, as much of the upper surface of the tongue is covered in papillae and taste buds. A secondary function of the tongue is speech, in which the organ assists...
behind the
alveolar ridgeAn alveolar ridge is one of the two jaw ridges either on the roof of the mouth between the upper teeth and the hard palate or on the bottom of the mouth behind the lower teeth. The alveolar ridges contain the sockets of the teeth.They can be felt with the tongue in the area right above the top...
, and the body of the tongue raised toward the
palateThe palate is the roof of the mouth in humans and vertebrate animals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. The palate is divided into two parts, the anterior bony hard palate, and the posterior fleshy soft palate or velum...
. They are similar to palato-alveolar and
retroflexIn phonetics, retroflex consonants are consonant sounds used in some languages. The tongue articulates with the roof of the oral cavity behind the alveolar ridge, and may even be curled back to touch the palate: that is, they are articulated in the postalveolar to palatal region of the...
fricatives, but are
laminalA laminal consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, which is the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue on the top. This contrasts with apical consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the tongue apex only...
rather than
apicalAn apical consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the apex of the tongue . This contrasts with laminal consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the blade of the tongue .This is not a very common distinction, and typically applied only to fricatives...
or
sub-apicalA sub-apical consonant is a consonant made by contact with the underside of the tip of the tongue. The only common sub-apical articulations are in the postalveolar to palatal region; these are called "retroflex"....
as the retroflex fricatives are, and are more fully palatalized than the "domed" palato-alveolar fricatives are.
Alveolo-palatal sibilants can be found in the
Chinese languageChinese or the Sinitic language is a language family consisting of languages mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
s such as Mandarin, Hakka, and Wu, as well as other languages of the
East AsianEast Asian languages describe two notional groupings of languages in East and Southeast Asia:* Languages which have been greatly influenced by Classical Chinese and the Chinese writing system, in particular Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese .* The larger grouping of languages including the...
sprachbundA Sprachbund , from the German word for “language union”, also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads, is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact. They may be genetically unrelated,...
, such as
Japaneseis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family. There are a number of proposed relationships with other languages, but none have gained general acceptance...
and
KoreanKorean is the official language of North Korea and South Korea. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. It was formerly written using Hanja, borrowed Chinese characters pronounced in the Korean...
. Alveolo-palatal sibilants are also a feature of many
Slavic languagesThe Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
, such as
PolishPolish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions...
,
RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
, and
SerbianSerbian is a South Slavic language, spoken chiefly in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and in the Serbian diaspora...
, and of
North Caucasian languagesNorth Caucasian languages is a blanket term for two language phyla spoken chiefly in the north Caucasus and Turkey: the Northwest Caucasian family and the Northeast Caucasian family North Caucasian languages (sometimes called simply Caucasic as opposed to Kartvelian, and to avoid confusion with...
, such as
AbkhazAbkhaz is a Northwest Caucasian language spoken mainly by the Abkhaz people. It is the official language of Abkhazia, where around 100,000 people speak it. Furthermore, it is spoken by thousands of members of the Abkhazian diaspora in Turkey, Georgia's autonomous republic of Adjara, Syria, Jordan...
and
UbykhUbykh or Ubyx is a language of the Northwestern Caucasian group, spoken by the Ubykh people up until the early 1990s.The word is derived from , its name in the Abdzakh Adyghe language...
.
KinnauriKinnauri, also known as Kanauri, Kanor, Koonawur, or Kunawar is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the Kinnaur district of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh by approximately 78,000 native speakers.-Consonants:...
uses an alveolo-palatal nasal. The alveolo-palatal consonants in the
International Phonetic AlphabetThe International Phonetic Alphabet
["The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...]
are:
| IPA |
Description |
Example |
| Language |
Orthography |
IPA |
Meaning |
 |
Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricativeThe voiceless alveolo-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 , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is s\.-Features:...
|
Mandarin |
小 (xiǎo) |
] |
small |
 |
Voiced alveolo-palatal fricative The voiced alveolo-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 , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is z\...
|
Polish Polish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions...
|
zioło |
] |
herb |
| |
Voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate The voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , alternatively but unofficially , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ts\...
|
SerbianSerbian is a South Slavic language, spoken chiefly in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and in the Serbian diaspora...
|
кућа (kuća) |
] |
house |
| |
Voiced alveolo-palatal affricate The voiced alveolo-palatal affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound are , alternatively but unofficially , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is dz\.-Features:Features of the voiced...
|
Japaneseis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family. There are a number of proposed relationships with other languages, but none have gained general acceptance...
|
地震 (jishin) |
] |
earthquakeAn earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes are recorded with a seismometer, also known as a seismograph...
|
Note: The table displays only sibilants. In
sinologicalSinology in general use is the study of China and things related to China, but, especially in the American academic context, refers more strictly to the study of classical language and literature, and the philological approach...
circles symbols for alveolo-palatal stops ,
nasalsA nasal consonant is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the lips or tongue...
, and liquids are used, but they often represent simple palatal or palatalized consonants, and thus are not recognized by the IPA. The "palatal" consonants of several Indigenous Australian languages are also sometimes judged closer to alveolo-palatal in their articulation.
See also
- Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative
The voiceless alveolo-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 , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is
s\.-Features:...
- Voiced alveolo-palatal fricative
The voiced alveolo-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 , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is z\...
- Place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact, where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an active articulator and a passive articulator...
- List of phonetics topics