Talk:Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative

German

I would like to avoid original research here as much as possible, but there is an interesting phenomenon I think should be noted. In German language classes in the US (and presumably other English speaking countries as well), Standard German pronunciation is taught. Therefore ich-Laut is [ç]. I have observed (as have my German teachers and a few Germans I have spoken to about the matter) that many English speakers, particularly those with little or no formal training in German, pronounce ich-Laut as [ʃ]. When I have noticed it myself and asked the speakers where they learned German, they have said that they learned a few German phrases from Germans from the south of Germany. Unfortunately, this has been only on two occasions and both were before I was aware of the distinct pronunication in the Rhineland dialect, so I didn't ask for more specific location. I went ahead and qualified the statement about English speakers having difficulty discerning [ɕ] from [ʃ] or [ç] with this example from German, but it could probably use some peer review. Also, if anyone knows of a good reference about acquisition of German as a second language by English speakers or studies of German with an English/American accent, this would be very helpful. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 13:13, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Almost all the learners of German I have ever met (from the UK or France) pronounce the ich-Laut as /ʃ/. If challenged, they try to blame it on regional German, but the real reason is obviously that /ç/ is hard to pronounce, and /ʃ/ sounds vaguely similar; so they just substitute it. — Chameleon 15:12, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

It all sounds like unverfiable speculation to me and probably confuses more than it helps. I seriously doubt the vast majority of native English speakers ever manage produce an acceptable [ç] or [ɕ]. I think we should simply skip the "In English" section when there are neither phonemes nor naturally occuring allophones of a particular sound. We'll probably just wind up with people thinking that it's pronounced [ʃ] and never be the wiser.

Time to get bold...

Peter ^Isotalo 22:59, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I have no problem with [ç] or [ɕ], and yet the ich I heard in Dresden sounded closer to English [ʃ] than to either of those (though I must admit that I didn't listen terribly carefully). East Germans, in both Dresden and Berlin, have told me that this is a regional pronunciation. I don't know that it truly was [ʃ], and of course it's a long way from the Rhineland, but maybe that's what some of these people are talking about. kwami 00:31, 2005 July 26 (UTC)

Well it really shouldn't be that hard though, right? Since most North American English speakers pronounce <he> like [çi:] instead of just the underlying [hi:] so we actually have this sound, I guess we just don't realize it? MorrowSol 18:43, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I was born in Saarland (South West Germany) and so I never knew what was the difference between ch (in Standart German [ç]) and sch (in Standart German [ʃ]), until I moved to Northern Germany, as in Saarland both were pronounced equally. By the way, many Germans from Saarland and Palatinate still confuse it, when they try to speak Standart German; the most popular example might be former chancellor Helmut Kohl, who pronounces every sch as [ç], thinking this would be Standart German. 84.132.225.231 18:18, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

It's not really "thinking", I'd rather call it overcompensation. It's because these western dialects don't distinguish between "ich" and "isch". Goethe, e.g., rhymed "ch" with "sch", but I can't think of an example off the top of my head. (Purportedly, this is why his last words "Mehr Licht!" were actually meant as a complaint about his bed, which he didn't get to finish: "Mer liegt so schlecht!".) For this reason, our comment about the Rhineland is not correct as it stands; at least it needs to mention that people there pronounce "sch" in the same way. Moreover, I'm not even sure that they really pronounce [ɕ] - my impression was rather that it's /ʃ/. (Either way, the two are hard to distinguish for a German since there is no phonemic difference.) I'll mark it with {{fact}} and ask on de:Diskussion:Stimmloser alveolopalataler Frikativ about it. — Sebastian 02:07, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't really know German except for a few words/phrases, but I listen to Rammstein a lot and Till's /ç/ does sound an awful lot like /ɕ~ʃ/. Just thought you should know.Cameron Nedland 19:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I'm deaf but I've never noticed that - in fact, I'm quite sure that Till does NOT have the merger and uses an actual [ç] for standard /ç/. I'm not sure whether this is his native pronunciation or just a learned standard pronunciation - not that it really matters either way. Sol505000 (talk) 21:43, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

[1] There - [ɪç vɪl]. Non-sibilant, medio-palatal. Unmistakable. And if I'm wrong about this, then at BEST he says [ɪɕ vɪl], with a non-labialized alveolo-palatal sibilant. He absolutely does not have a merger with /ʃ/ which to him and most Germans has little to no palatalization and features a noticeable labialization (which, if increased, would make /ʃ/ sound like [ɸ]).

This makes me wonder whether [ɕ] (an actual Polish ⟨ś⟩ without any labialization) for /ç/ is actually non-standard. After all, the fricative variant of Swedish /j/ is invariably transcribed with ⟨ʝ⟩, even though [ʑ] also exists as its allophone - but in transcription, the two are never distinguished. Furthermore, Urban East Norwegian /ç/ is "often alveolo-palatal", per Kristoffersen (2000). So the fact that the sign ⟨ç⟩ is used in transcriptions of German doesn't mean that the fricative can only be mediopalatal. We need serious research (unless it's already been done and I'm not aware of it) into the phonetic nature of German /ç/ and /ʃ/ as they are pronounced by speakers considered to speak Standard German (meaning: non-regional German Standard German). Recasens would be perfect for the job, no? Sol505000 (talk) 14:35, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Mandarin

I've tried to fix the representation of Pinyin x. This dorso-palatal monstrosity is far from a simple [ɕ]. It is a coarticulation of two fricatives, one that varies (between different idio- or perhaps dialects, I don't know) between [ç] and the midpoint between [ç] and [x], and another that varies between [ɕ] and perhaps [sʲ]. In addition, it has a [j]-like offglide, like many dorso-palatal consonants (for example Italian gn and gl). So I suspect the most correct IPA representation could be [çɕj͡] with the tie bar extending over all three.

I have also forced Internet Explorer to use Arial Unicode MS to display the characters that would otherwise be shown as squares (both in the article and this page). The trick is to write

{ { I P A |   } }

around the symbols (or around the [] or //).

Apart from that I have added the American example. It goes without saying that I'd appreciate it if a native speaker elaborated that!

Addition 15:43: I have added Polish, the poster child for [ɕ]. I will try to add Belorussian next. Does someone know whether Italian sci is [ɕ] in at least some dialects?

David Marjanović david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at 15:23 CET-summertime 2005/9/10

Where are you getting this? First of all, doubly articulated fricatives are not known to occur in any language. They have been claimed several times, but always turn out to be something else when investigated.

I don't know how else to explain how it sounds. Do you have Skype?

(And for that matter I doubt that the sounds in question occur in any other language... x seems to exist in one Swedish dialect as a realization of /ɧ/, but here I'm judging merely from written descriptions in Wikipedia.)

Secondly, Ladefoged made palatograms and several other measurements of [ɕ] from three Mandarin speakers.

Maybe they didn't come from the same region as the speakers on the tapes of the Chinese textbooks I've used, and as at least some of the Chinese I've heard speak in Vienna's subway, and on TV... or they simply weren't speaking pure Pǔtōnghuà. "Mandarin" is a rather loose term.

Third, the occlusion in Mandarin q is coronal, not dorsal, even in the third speaker.

Difficult to explain how this could sound like what I hear.

That is, it should be transcribed as a [t] with some diacritic. Ladefoged has [t̠]. [c] would mean that the tip/blade of the tongue was not used.

Indeed not. The tip of the tongue touches the lower alveoli in x, q and j. This is even mentioned in writing in one of my textbooks (otherwise they're all not very exact on phonetics).

Fourth, the tie bar needs to go between the segments, not after them.

Sorry, I made it so that it looks convincing in Arial Unicode MS, which is known to have a bug there.

Also, the [j] should be outside the tie bar; it is physically impossible to pronounce it within (unlike a double fricative, which is merely very difficult). kwami 18:57, 2005 September 10 (UTC)

In addition to being simultaneous [ç] and [ɕ], it has a [j]-like offglide like French gn, which I would write [ɲj] with a tie-bar (and feel bad about it because the j probably needs some sophisticated diacritic). So the transcription of x should contain two tie-bars, one above the other and spanning over both the first tie-bar and the j.

P.S. If an American pronounced estimate with a [ɕ], I would think they had a speach defect. It would sound like a lithp. kwami 19:11, 2005 September 10 (UTC)

It's not a true [ɕ], it's somewhere between that and [ʃ]. You know how Bush says "misundreshtmate", don't you?

David 00:18 CET-summertime 2005/9/27

It's not a lisp at all. A lisp would be the tl in Nahuatl. It's an apical s. It's found in Spanish (that's why people claim the Spanish lisp), Greek and Dutch. --2.245.215.41 (talk) 14:01, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Sound file accuracy

I have reason to believe that the sound that is pronounced in the ogg file (sound sample) approaches a Voiceless postalveolar fricative consonant, rather than a Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative. It would be greatly appreciated if a phonetician would look over this article.Danielsavoiu 11:32, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, the sound file is garbage. Who will corect that? The correct pronunciation can be found here: [2]https://haakonkrohn.com/ipa/index.html#current 82.77.245.21 (talk) 11:08, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

The sound file is the same as used on the page for Voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant. It is not the correct file for this page.

Russian: щ sound

The current article reads: In Russian, щ represents /ɕɕ/ or /ɕtɕ/ which I think is very vague and inexact. AFAICS modern Russian does not anymore use the /ɕtɕ/ variant at all - please prove me wrong: /ɕɕ/ everywhere - with one exception: to the vegetable soup, Germans say Borschtsch (Russian Борщ), using the older transliteration. -andy 80.129.116.55 00:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

As a native speaker I must admit: it's really so: only /ɕɕ/ everywhere. Even in Борщ. --Koryakov Yuri 22:38, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

As a non-native I was taught /ɕtɕ/ (transcribed 'shch', as though it were Polish 'szcz'), only to find that native Russian-speakers always corrected me, saying it should be /ɕɕ/ - the classic example being the 'other Russian soup' щи - not 'shchi' but 'shhi'.213.127.210.95 (talk) 21:53, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it's a classic Polish (maybe not only Polish) mispronunciation of Russian /ɕː/. Sol505000 (talk) 21:25, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Dutch?

What about Dutch, folks? They do not pronounce an "ordinary" s either! It resembles the /ɕ/ a lot! Look at the pronunciation of this town: 's-Hertogenbosch. The Dutchman who pronunces this in the audio sample does NOT pronunce the s as normal s in English, but something in-between! Or doesn't he? -andy 80.129.116.55 00:31, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

It's an apical s. --2.245.215.41 (talk) 14:02, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I live in Holland, and I sometimes think the Dutch 's' sound resembles the 'lisping' sound made by people with badly fitting false teeth!213.127.210.95 (talk) 21:58, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Dutch /s/ is not lisped, but retracted. Mr KEBAB (talk) 15:25, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Correct, Dutch S is retracted, causing English speakers to think it sounds rather like the initial sound of ship or else of huge. Nothing wrong with retracted S, classic Latin had it as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:C82A:B6A7:96B0:E84F (talk) 12:46, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Huge? I'm sorry but it sounds nothing like the retracted sibilant found in Dutch (or Danish, European Spanish, etc.). The initial consonant of English huge is much more back than that, being a lot like the voiceless soft g (well, actually ch, judging by the most common spelling of the sound) found in southern dialects of Dutch.

Nobody said that there was anything wrong with it. Actually, the retracted nature of Dutch alveolar sibilants receives relatively little comments from laymen (as far as I know anyway), who mostly comment on the hard G, the voiceless uvular fricative (which is very funny because it's found in French as an allophone of /r/, and French is hardly ever described as harshly/unpleasant sounding, quite the opposite actually). Sol505000 (talk) 21:26, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Japanese

I have just listened to the example in infobox and to Japanese example below in the list and must say they are different sounds. Japanese "shi" sounds quite like Russian si/си [sʲi] not like schchi/щи [ɕɕi], that is it's rather a palatalized "s" than real alveolo-palatal. Isn't it? --Koryakov Yuri 22:36, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

co-articulated

The consonant template lists this as a co-articulated fricative, but I can hardly find any information concerning its co-articulated nature. I actually think it seems to be a coarticulation between /s/ and ʂ/ʃ, but perhaps this is marred from the perspective of the Singapore Mandarin dialect, so any opinions? Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 07:29, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

It's essentially a palatalized [ʃ]. Co-articulation does not necessarily refer to two fricativ articulations. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 22:17, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Does one not find the sound in initial position in human?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#Phonology —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.134.221.29 (talk • contribs)

I'm sorry but I'm confused by the title... "in human?" What does this mean? If it occurs in human languages in initial position? And what do you mean by "initial position", anyway? The syllable onset? Beginning of a word? If either, then how about the name of the city Xi'an in China spoken out in Mandarin? mike4ty4 (talk) 09:25, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

My guess is that the question is if the first sound of the English word human isn't a voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative. No, it's not. For quite a few people, the first sound of human is a voiceless palatal approximant or a voiceless palatal fricative. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:24, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Listening to the first album of Björk in America, Debut (Human Behavior = youtube. com/watch?v=urrbhgC8PB0), all of the sounds she does at /hj/ sound very clearly like a strong carioca accent, or a strong carioca-postalveolar-sibilant-merging-like European Portuguese accent (I just can't fully tell the voice of it, don't know if what she says in the place of "human" sounds like xuman or juman, way more like the latter but not as voiced as my /ʒ/ ~ K/z/, perhaps a Germanic thing).

That is, our sounds are somewhat in-between but perceptibly distant from English, French and German sh/sch, as well German ich-Laut, and she's closer to the Portuguese x/ch/coda s or j/g/voiced coda s of my speech (that is pretty Vernacular Brazilian when colloquial and pretty General Brazilian when not) than even a Japanese shi/ji.

It is not a native speaker (ohhhh!), so it doesn't matter much. Hearing to a humorous video on Swedish phonology, /ɕ/ is really the sound of Björk's 1993 speech (but [fully?] voiceless instead), most Brazilian x/ch and our carioca and Portuguese coda /s/. Lguipontes (talk) 06:22, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Removal of Korean Stress Mark [ɕid͡ʑaŋ]

I have removed the stress mark found in [ɕiˈd͡ʑaŋ]. Please see: [[3]] Finitoultero (talk) 00:51, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

/ʃ/, /ɕ/, /ʂ/

Would I be wrong to say that these three phonemes are basically equal, varying only in three degrees of "retroflexation"? The first sound, /ʃ/, would be with no retroflexation at all: the tongue stays straight in the mouth. The next fricative, /ɕ/, would to be pronounced with the tongue slightly curled up and the last, /ʂ/, with the tongue in a "total retroflex" position. Wisapi (talk) 00:37, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

No. Only [ʂ] is retroflex. Take a look at postalveolar consonant and retroflex consonant. The three sounds do have a number of commonalities, but retroflexion is not one of them.

However, because ʂ is used to represent sounds that aren't necessarily true retroflexes and because retroflexes tend to resist palatalization, you could say that they differ in degrees of palatalization so that [ʂ] is the least palatalized and [ɕ] is the most palatalized. This isn't necessarily how languages categorize the three sounds, though. You might also want to check out this conversation about Polish, which seems to have all three sounds. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 00:57, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Hm, right. Your sources answered lots of questions but raised two. Firstly, if [ʂ] is not always pronounced as a true retroflex by means of palatalization, which cannot cooccur with retroflexes, than why does it turn progressively into a [ʃ] and not a [ɕ], if [ʃ] is also not palatized? Secondly, how can there be two distinct phones [ʃʲ] and [ɕ]? I know that the guy who claimed these phonemes were told apart in Polish retracted it afterwards, but whereas this was regarded as a far-fetched possibility, it wasn't still viewed as an absurdity like distinguishing two identical phonemes. Wisapi (talk) 02:02, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, [ʃ] is palatalized, just not as much as [ɕ]. [ʃʲ] and [ɕ] are phonetically identical.

The way it seems to work in Polish is that the relationship between [ʂ] and [ʃ] is the same as, say, between [m] and [mʲ]. Because Polish [ʂ] is often transcribed as [ʃ], the user used [ʃʲ] to represent what is actually [ʃ]. I've probably made it more confusing for you, haven't I? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 03:56, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, no. Thanks alot. With a little pondering on my part, you actually made yourself very clear. Wisapi (talk) 14:02, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I think the order regarding the position of the tongue is ɕ, ʃ, ʂ; ɕ being the most forward.--2.245.183.124 (talk) 19:43, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

No, it is not. ɕ is the further back. --JorisvS (talk) 22:04, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Depends on if you're tracking the position of the tongue-palate contact point or the position of the tongue tip! With some specific pronunciations of [ɕ] and [ʃ] you indeed get the front-to-back order ɕ→ʃ→ʂ for the latter. (: --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 03:15, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

what about the English word "human"? doesn't this start with /ɕu/? It is not correct to write this as /hju/ 75.80.2.185 (talk) 06:44, 29 April 2017 (UTC) Scholarchanter 29 April 2017

1. That's ç the voiceless palatal non sibilant fricative

2. /hju/ is correct and /çu/ is allophonic 2603:6080:9D03:D979:F4F5:E120:569F:E1D4 (talk) 22:26, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

incorrect illustration?

The article says articulated with the front of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, but the illustration shows the tip of the tongue close to the lower teeth. --Espoo (talk) 07:49, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Response: In Phonetics, the tongue "front" is what most people would consider to be the middle. The tongue tip is called just that- the tip. Confusing, yes, I know! For this reason sometimes the tongue "front" is called the tongue center. See this graphic: http://classes.design.ucla.edu/Spring08/150B/images/yoko_ohama/080515-4.png Larkale07 (talk) 00:06, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Sound file

The sound file of this sound and that of voiceless postalveolar fricative sound the same.

• ʃ Voiceless postalveolar fricative
  ʃ
• ɕ Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative
  ɕ

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.211.122.65 (talk • contribs)

Yes, these are similar sounds, so they should sound similar. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:52, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

What about the audio samples here? Now can you hear the difference? I think those ones are better. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 07:59, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Catalan vs Chinese

I'm a catalan native and a chinese student and even if the chinese sound [ɕ] is really an alveolo-palatal, the catalan is more correctly described as the palato-alveolar [ʃ].

This seems to be though a confusion between alveolo-palatals and palato-alveolars.

The source cited for calling the palato-alveolar [ʃ] an alveolo-palatal [ɕ] in catalan, seems to use the word alveolopalatal rather freely, as it calls others like [ ʎ] (catalan ll) and [ɲ] (catalan ny) also as alveopalatals.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_phonology#Consonants phonetic notes section where this misunderstanding is explained.

The wrong source to cite is: Recasens, Daniel; Pallarès, Maria Dolores (2001), "Coarticulation, Assimilation and Blending in Catalan Consonant Clusters", Journal of Phonetics 29 (3): 273–301

http://pagines.uab.cat/danielrecasens/sites/pagines.uab.cat.danielrecasens/files/clusters%20JPh.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.12.21.174 (talk • contribs)

You haven't explained why this is wrong. Palatals and laterals can be (and are in the case of Catalan), alveolo-palatal. The author in question, Daniel Recasens, is very thorough about showing that Catalan's postalveolar fricatives are alveolo-palatal. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 15:42, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, better late than never:

"Electropalatographic data for five speakers of Eastern Catalan reported in Recasens & Pallarès (2001: 84f.) reveal that Catalan /ʃ/ is articulated essentially at the postalveolo-prepalatal zone for all speakers and involves much dorsal contact at both sides of the palate behind the constriction. Moreover, speakers seem to be having the tongue tip down during the production of this laminal or lamino-predorsal consonant, as suggested by the fact that the two frontmost rows of electrodes of the articial palate remain completely unactivated and that the frontmost lateral contact has a V-like shape. Based on these data, we believe that Catalan /ʃ/ ought to be labeled ‘alveolopalatal’ which is consistent with the presence of other alveolopalatal consonants such as /ɲ/ and /ʎ/ in the language. Accordingly, we will use this term to refer to /ʃ, ʒ/ and to /tʃ, dʒ/ in this paper." (Recasens & Espinosa 2007:145)

"The fricative /ʃ/, on the other hand, is laminal and centroalveolar or postalveolar in Valencian, and laminal or lamino-predorsal and postalveolar or alveolopalatal in Majorcan (and thus close to Eastern Catalan /ʃ/ in the latter dialect). It appears that the tongue tip is lowered in Majorcan and may be more or less raised in Valencian." (Recasens & Espinosa 2007:167) — Lfdder (talk) 23:45, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

sjæl and kjol

The Danish sjæl and the Swedish kjol can not both be a correct example, as the initial sounds are not pronounced the same.--EvenT (talk) 20:49, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Danish phonology seems to suggest that sj would be [sɕ]. There also seems to be dialectal variation in the pronunciation of kj. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 21:04, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

In Danish it's [ɕ] for /sj/ and [tɕ] for /tj/. Peter238 (talk) 20:41, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree, the Swedish kjol is correct but Danish sjæl is not. At least not in any version I have ever heard. These are sounds that non-native speakers often have trouble distinguishing, so I suspect that's the problem here. Wikipedia's phonology articles unfortunately tend to be inconsistend and contradictory, so just copying between them is not enough or we'll just spread misconceptions. This article needs to be edited by a native Danish speaker. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.225.76.127 (talk) 14:49, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

No, it does not. Grønnum states clearly that the sounds in question are [ɕ] for /sj/ and [tɕ] for /tj/. We go by reliable, reputable sources - see WP:RS. Sol505000 (talk) 21:33, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Should be contrast with ʃ

I think there should be a mention of how this is different from [ʃ]. The sounds are just so similar, and the audience is English speakers which are familiar with [ʃ] and so often think [ɕ] and [ʃ] are the same sound. Heck, most English approximations for [ɕ] use "sh".

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some people with sibilance problems use [ɕ] for /ʃ/. — trlkly 20:39, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

The difference is that the body of the tongue is more raised than in [ʃ]. I'll add that in a moment. Peter238 (talk) 20:41, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, AND, in addition to that, there's usually little to no lip rounding on [ɕ], which adds to the overall 'softness' of the sound. Sol505000 (talk) 22:09, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

счастье

The IPA rendering of the first vowel as <æ> (which is the sound in English 'black') - [ˈɕːæsʲtʲjə] - is surely wrong, since that sound doesn't exist in standard Russian, or as far as I know in any form of Russian.213.127.210.95 (talk) 21:46, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

[æ] is indeed correct. A soft consonant in Russian affects the following vowel. This is something native speakers usually don't perceive. --Explosivo (talk) 23:42, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Portuguese

Can someone look at the sources, and tell which dialects are actually described, and whether the sources are actually reliable? AFAICS, there's no mentioning European Portuguese there, and putting it with a question mark is hardly appropriate here.

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Portuguese	Brazilian	[[[Portuguese orthography|mexendo]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[me̞ˈɕẽ̞du]	'moving'	Allophonic variation of /ʃ/. Contrasts with other sibilants only in onset. Argued both to be laminal [ʃ], and generally produced "in the middle of the hard palate", same of fellow alveolo-palatal [l̠ʲ] and [n̠ʲ], and further palatalized than Italian post-alveolars. Found in coda mainly before fricative, coronal and palatalized consonants in Brazil. See Portuguese phonology
	European (?)	[[[Portuguese orthography|mesclas]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈmɛɕklɐɕ]	'mixtures'
	Carioca
	Many Brazilian dialects	[[[Portuguese orthography|estatísticas]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[i̥ɕtaˈtɕiɕtɕikɐs]	'statistics'
	Some speakers		[i̥staˈtɕiɕːikɐs]

Mr KEBAB (talk) 23:14, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm okay with removing European Portuguese. I have seen a source for it years ago, but I've lost my hard disk / browser history ever since many times, it could have been deleted now. European Portuguese is cited in the Daniela source as the famous explanation for the palatalization ubiquitous to Rio de Janeiro speech. The dialect with which Japanese speakers have difficulty in a disagreeing source is Curitiba's, famous for its often parodized Spanish-like pronunciation of [leite quente] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and overall linguistic conservatism, it shouldn't be used as an a reference for the speech of e.g. Rio de Janeiro state where 99% of native speakers palatalize /ti/ and /di/ in all contexts, or São Paulo which the Cora Coralina source cites as the original linguistic epicenter of denti-alveolar stop palatalization. Srtª PiriLimPomPom (talk) 04:43, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, but please stick to discussing only the alveolo-palatal pronunciation, only how it is described by reliable sources. It will make our messages shorter.

- As far as the Daniela reference is concerned, all I could find on European Portuguese there is on page 21 in which EP is described as having "palatal" [ʃ, ʒ] (this can signify either alveolo-palatal or palato-alveolar pronunciation - the source doesn't say). As far as the alveolo-palatal realizations are concerned, the only reference to them on that page is in context of Carioca pronunciation.

- Are you saying that the Flavio & Medina source is unreliable? Why did you use it then? AFAICS, the source uses the term "alveolo-palatal" and the corresponding symbols only when transcribing Japanese or Portuguese spoken by non-native speakers from Japan. That clearly makes it unreliable as far as sourcing any dialect is concerned.

- I can't access the Cora Coralina source.

- Ok, now what about Leite, UFPA and Dos Santos? None of these sources seem to use the term "alveolo-palatal" at all. Mr KEBAB (talk) 14:33, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

It's not unreliable, it is only studying the production taking place in a single Brazilian dialect, taking the assumption that the postalveolar production in the Brazilian Portuguese dialect spoken in Curitiba can be thought of as the generality rather than the exception.

As for the other sources, Leite does not differentiate between the articulation of our postalveolar consonants and alveolo-palatal ones, furthering the belief that they are further palatalized than the typical European language pronunciations of [ʃ, ʒ]. The other sources are here to provide support for my transcription choices (detailing when coda /S/ is or is not palatalized).

I used Flavio & Medina to be intellectually honest about it being a controversy, due to the little attention given to the minute details of cross-dialectal production of palatalization in BP, which did not receive the same attention of Catalan's alveolo-palatal pronunciation. Srtª PiriLimPomPom (talk) 17:08, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Saying BP's consonants are palatoalveolar is as outlandish as saying they are alveolopalatal, in my humble opinion. Our pronunciation is significantly "wetter" than palatoalveolar [ʃ, ʒ] (most particularly Rio de Janeiro /ti/ and Error: {{IPA}}: missing language tag) and Brazilian phonological papers insist on calling them palatal. As far as I know, no one ever contrasted the two possibilities in major studies but Flavio & Medina's. Srtª PiriLimPomPom (talk) 04:11, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

(Sorry for the slight delay, this is the third time I'm writing this message - Firefox is pure evil :( )

Once again, please focus on what the sources say, not your subjective interpretation of them or your personal experience in general - we can't use any of that as a source on Wikipedia (see WP:OR), so you shouldn't write about that here at all (see WP:NOTAFORUM). I'm afraid that you're now leaving me no choice but to remove the off-topic parts of your message, as it makes our discussion harder to read for other users. Anyone who wishes to know what exactly has been removed should click here.

Back on topic:

- I know now that the Flavio & Medina is unreliable (as far as sourcing the alveolo-palatal realization is concerned), because the only time it refers to the alveolo-palatal pronunciation is in context of the Japanese language and the non-native pronunciation of Portuguese by Japanese students. If anything, it states that BP postalveolars are not alveolo-palatal, which is a blatant reference falsification (i.e. saying the opposite of what the source says).

- Neither Leite nor other sources (UFPA and Dos Santos, if they're like Leite) should be used here if they don't directly discuss the alveolo-palatal pronunciation. The exact transcription of the words is not a big deal I think.

- This is from Luizdl's talk page:

- Guimarães (2004) (i.e. our "Daniela" source) calls them "alveolopalatal", but I think that's not enough (but other editors may disagree).

- Silva (2003:32) is the only author that describes Portuguese postalveolars as being "pre-dorso palatal", and calls them "alveolo-palatals or postalveolars". This is the only source we could use.

I will reinstate Portuguese, using Silva (2003) as source. Mr KEBAB (talk) 14:51, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

I decided for using Guimarães (2004) in the article. Mr KEBAB (talk) 15:02, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Would it be a trouble for you to reinstate Portuguese in the tɕ and dʑ articles as well? Srtª PiriLimPomPom (talk) 15:30, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Can't remember, let me check. Will get back to you in a few days, maybe sooner. Mr KEBAB (talk) 16:09, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

@Srtª PiriLimPomPom: Sorry for not replying sooner. As far as I remember, we'd need to check the citations before we re-add Portuguese to the affricate articles. I can't do that right now, so you might want to ask someone else. Mr KEBAB (talk) 18:52, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

I think other Portuguese speakers here in Wikipedia are too cautious with the notion that our consonants are alveolo-palatal because the differences from palato-alveolars are minimal, people refer to them with the same terms (most particularly in Portuguese) and to say that we have one instead of the other is not established in the academia. (I think there's also a lot of dialectal difference in that, with accents more influenced by Japanese, Amerindian and Gallo-Italian languages being more alveolo-palatal and others more influenced by German, Spanish and standard Italian being more palato-alveolar; I'm unsure about European Portuguese and West African languages.) Srtª PiriLimPomPom (talk) 18:51, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

@Srtª PiriLimPomPom: Sorry, more OR is not helpful. We need sources. Mr KEBAB (talk) 22:07, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

@Mr KEBAB: This source demonstrates an assimilation of /stʃ/ to [sˈʃː] or [ʃˈʃː] (actually the onset of the affricate loses its stop status but does not necessarily become a sibilant) due to an increasing palatalization process. It should follow that if BP possesses [ɕ] and [ʑ], then it also possesses [ɕtɕ] and perhaps [ʑdʑ].

At the same time... "Liker et al. (2007) procuraram determinar se havia diferença no ponto de articulação entre a africada e a oclusiva alveolar intervocálica. Segundo os autores, a africada é mais recuada do que a oclusiva alveolar. Essa interpretação, entendemos nós, se deve ao uso do recurso estatístico, COG8, que leva em conta todos os pontos de contato da parte anterior do palato. A sequência de palatogramas que ilustram o artigo, se for representativa, mostra que se trata mais de diferença de área de contato do que de diferença de ponto de articulação, estando o ponto de contato da oclusiva dentro da área de contato da africada."

"... According to the autors, the affricate is further back in the mouth than the alveolar stop. ... The sequence of palatograms that illustrate this article, if representative, demonstrate that the difference is more about contact area than about a difference in point of articulation, as long as the point of contact of the stop is within the general area of contact of the affricate" which means that [Vtʃ] and [Vdʒ] have alveolar onsets while [|S|tʃ] and [|S|dʒ] have onsets further back in the mouth.

I was getting really sad and disappointed, but then suddenly, "Finalmente, podemos especular que, pelas informações palatográficas e para este locutor, a fricativa alveolar-pós-alveolar é laminar e a fricativa pós-alveolar é pré-dorsal, uma vez que, para esta última, os contatos se iniciam da 1a. linha pós-alveolar. A africada alvéolo-palatal é laminar-pré-dorsal." so they're at least saying that we have a case of [ɕtɕ] unless I'm misinterpreting it?

revistas.ufpr.br/letras/article/download/43382/28616 Srtª PiriLimPomPom (talk) 21:21, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

"Palato-alveolar sounds are normally described as having a convex (a bunched-up or domed) tongue. The front, central part of the tongue is somewhat raised compared to the tip, back and sides, which gives it a weak palatalization. (...) For alveolo-palatal sounds, the front half of the tongue is flat and raised so that it closely parallels the upper surface of the mouth, from the teeth to the hard palate. Behind that is a sudden convex bend." In this case the onset is produced in a very laminal articulation while the sibilant portion is produced in a pre-dorsal articulation which, on account of very dissimilar transition, is created by a flat tongue (a more palato-alveolar [tʃ] would be more uniform due to the convex tongue). This makes sense considering it's not a distinct consonantal set, but a less effortful way of producing laminal denti-alveolar /ti/ and /di/.

Further evidencing this is the fact that they keep mentioning an 'alveolar-post-alveolar' fricative, but a retracted laminar [s̠] as Brazilian /ʃ/ or |S| is unlikely (and unheard of in the first case), and so is a palatalized [sʲ]. This likely indicates a palato-alveolar consonant, while [actual] 'postalveolar' in this case refers to alveolo-palatal. Srtª PiriLimPomPom (talk) 21:50, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Another source mentioning the assimilation-lenition process [sti ~ ʃti] > [stʃi ~ ʃti] > [ʃtʃi] > [ʃ.ʃi] > [ʃi] http://www.revel.inf.br/files/74eaf582ace84ddf6f366f852cb05b88.pdf Srtª PiriLimPomPom (talk) 22:05, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

I saw this a few days ago. In fact I first saw the content in the article before it was correctly removed. As for the sources, these are students' manuscripts for a variety of degrees, and whereas it would be fair to presume that it is of 'academic standard' , I am not certain where they rank in terms of reliable sources. I confess that I never came across that in the relevant information here in the project pages on sources. Can anyone enlighten me? Thanks. I have my doubts about the suitability of one of the studies, as it is about Japanese people learning Portuguese. The source is no longer available online. Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 00:39, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Laminal Vs Apical

The voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant is stated to have a laminal tongue shape? I'm curious if there is an apical variant, does anyone know? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.59.159.233 (talk) 21:26, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

A constriction at both the alveolar ridge and the hard palate must inevitably involve a wide portion of the tongue, so no, I don't think there could be an apical variant. Nardog (talk) 06:05, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

An 'apical [ɕ]' is actually [ʂ], so they sound nothing like each other. Mr KEBAB (talk) 16:19, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

'Nothing like each other' is a rather big exaggeration. To a speaker of a language with just one postalveolar sibilant, any [ʃ]-like sibilant sounds like the same sound, more or less. And things get a lot more complicated when the alleged /s, z/ in the language are retracted, as in Dutch or Danish. Sol505000 (talk) 21:22, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Sjabloon in Dutch with /ɕ/ ????

This phoneme does not occur as the initial sound of sjabloon (unless the speaker happens to be chewing on taffy at the same time). In diminutives such as koninkje the kj is softened to /ɕ/. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:C82A:B6A7:96B0:E84F (talk) 12:48, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it does per The Phonetics of English and Dutch. File:Nl-sjabloon.ogg [ɕaˈbloʊn] quite clearly features an initial alveolo-palatal [ɕ]! And so do File:Nl-sjees.ogg [ɕeɪs̠], File:Nl-sjabloonachtigst.ogg [ɕaˌbloʊnˈʔɑχtəχs̠t], File:Nl-sjouwt op.ogg [ˌɕʌut ˈʔɔp], File:Nl-sjalotje.ogg [ɕaˈlɔtɕə] (this one also features the voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate [tɕ]), File:Nl-Sjoukje.ogg [ˈɕʌukjə] as well as File:Nl-sjaniem rabot.ogg [ɕaˌnim raˈbɔt]. The authors of the aforementioned book state that Dutch postalveolars are alveolo-palatal, unlike their English counterparts which are palato-alveolar. At least in the Netherlands. In Belgium, they say that they are commonly palato-alveolar. This is directly related to the realization of /s, z/ as postalveolar (retracted) in the Netherlands, and as ordinary alveolar [s, z] in Belgium: in the Netherlands, ⟨sj⟩ as well as the marginal ⟨zj⟩ (and the corresponding affricates, of course) are delabialized and further palatalized to avoid the clash with /s, z/ (the clash that actually occurs in the Amsterdam dialect, which AFAIK is much more non-standard than the local realization of the long open vowel as [ɑː]). I say "deliabialized and further palatalized" only in relation to Belgian Standard Dutch, I have no idea whether Dutch /s, z/ were historically plain alveolar sibilants (rather than being retracted) and whether /sj, zj, tj, dj/ were historically palato-alveolar, rather than alveolo-palatal. I'd bet a lot of money on that not being the case.

Zygis (2003) cited in the article discusses how the Slavic languages with alveolo-palatals tend to feature retroflex, rather than palato-alveolar ⟨š/sz, ž/ż, č/cz, dž/dż⟩. I wonder if we couldn't use her paper to change ⟨ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ⟩ to ⟨ɕ, ʑ, tɕ, dʑ⟩ in languages with retracted sibilants (Galician, European Spanish, Astur-Leonese/Mirandese, etc.) After all, retracted (a fancy name to say postalveolar) sibilants are much more dull than the ordinary dental/alveolar ones and sound a lot like the retroflexes found in Polish, especially in contact with consonants. And we already have sources to change the way we transcribe Dutch and Catalan. Danish transcriptions on Wikipedia already use ⟨ɕ, tɕ⟩. I'll make a RfC soon with all the sources I can come up with.

And koninkje features the voiceless palatal affricate (actually post-palatal), again per that book. The fricative portion of that affricate consonant sounds much more dull than [ɕ], being non-sibilant and much more back.

Interestingly, I do not hear an affricate in File:Nl-Sjoukje.ogg. It's an ordinary [kj] with little devoicing of the approximant, the way I hear it anyway. It doesn't really deserve to be called an affricate. Again, this may be region- or speaker-specific, or there may be a free variation between a slight devoicing of the approximant and a full-on affrication of the preceding stop. I don't know, really. Sol505000 (talk) 21:14, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

In Received Pronunciation

@YourAverageMax: ⟨ɕ⟩ stands for any voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative. It can be labialized, aspirated, long, short or partially voiced at the end or at the beginning. It may be weakly fricated or strongly fricated. The fact that [ɕ] in the traditional RP pronunciation of tuesday doesn't fit your idea of how [ɕ] sounds like (or should sound like, which is even worse [no offense]) doesn't mean that the sound is not correctly described as a voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative. It's probably more weakly fricated than, say, Polish or Dutch [ɕ] and probably has some voicing at the end. In the German tradition, it'd probably be transcribed [ˈtʑ̥uːzdeɪ], with ⟨ʑ̥⟩ denoting a voiceless lenis fricative. But how can it really be lenis if it is the only alveolo-palatal fricative in the dialect? For a consonant to be lenis, there has to be a fortis (fully voiceless and more strongly fricated) counterpart, no? Phonologically, it is an approximant that is phonetically devoiced and raised (=turned into a fricative) by the preceding fortis/voiceless alveolar stop. Plus, ⟨ʑ̥⟩ is not an official way to transcribe a lenis [ɕ] (rather, it's just a way of transcribing a [ʑ] without a full voicing, which may or may not be synonymous with the canonical IPA value of the symbol ⟨ɕ⟩, which denotes a fully voiceless fricative). A more standard way of transcribing that is probably [ˈtɕ̞uːzdeɪ] (with the lowering diacritic, indicating a decreased amount of friction in comparison with the canonical IPA value of the symbol ⟨ɕ⟩). But again, none of that is in the source. Sol505000 (talk) 22:24, 25 October 2021 (UTC)