The voiced alveolar affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is (previously ) , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is dz. The voiced alveolar affricate occurs in such languages as Greek, Slovene, Czech, Polish, Slovak and Albanian, Hungarian (see Hungarian dz), among many others.

Features of this consonant:

• 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 alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
• Its phonation type is voiced, which means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the center 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.

Occurs in

• Telugu—In old and modern Telugu, the letter 'j' is pronounced as an alveolar affricate when followed by a non-frontal vowel. This sound is not found in other dravidian languages;
• Most Slavic languages, where it is almost always written as dz.
• Italian, written as z or zz. Note that Italian z may also represent a voiceless alveolar affricate; the rules of pronunciation of z may vary across regional accents.
• Albanian, written as x.

Linguistics

Znělá alveolární afrikáta | Consonne affriquée alvéolaire voisée | Consoană africată alveolară sonoră