Voiceless palatal fricative

The 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 , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is C. The symbol ç is the letter c with a cedilla, as used to spell French words like façade, although the sound represented by the letter ç in either French or English orthography is not a voiceless palatal fricative, but simply , the voiceless alveolar fricative.

Features

Features of the voiceless palatal fricative:

Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
Its place of articulation is palatal which means it is articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised against the hard 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.

In English

In some dialects of English, the sequence is sometimes realized as the voiceless palatal fricative, via coalescence, a type of assimilation. For example, human ( might be realized as ). However, there are no minimal pairs for and , so the voiceless palatal fricative is not a separate phoneme in English.

In other languages

Norwegian

In Norwegian language, the sound /ç/ in written "kj" for the most time, in words like kjøkken "kichen", it is sometimes also written as "ki", in words like kirke "church".

German

German features the sound in words like ich "I" and is often referred to as ich-Laut and is generally an allophone of the /x/ when it follows a front vowel. can be found in a few words where would be expected, such as Frauchen "diminutive of woman", and so is marginally phonemic. See German phonology.

Irish

In Irish is written "ch" and it is used when it follows "e", "i" or when it is followed by "e" , "i". It is called "slender ch" as opposed to its allophone "broad ch" next to "a", "o", "u" or "ae". Formerly it was written "ċ" ("c" with dot) in Gaelic typefaces. It is used particularly at the beginning of words due to initial consonant mutation of the letter "c" .

Scottish Gaelic

In Scots Gaelic, is written "ch" and it appears in words such as oidhche (night).

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