The voiceless retroflex sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages.
The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʂ⟩ which is a Latin letter s combined with a retroflex hook. Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA letter is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook to the bottom of ⟨s⟩ (the letter used for the corresponding alveolar consonant). A distinction can be made between laminal, apical, and sub-apical articulations. Only one language, Toda, appears to have more than one voiceless retroflex sibilant, and it distinguishes subapical palatal from apical postalveolar retroflex sibilants; that is, both the tongue articulation and the place of contact on the roof of the mouth are different.
Voiceless retroflex fricative | |||
---|---|---|---|
ʂ | |||
IPA Number | 136 | ||
Audio sample | |||
Encoding | |||
Entity (decimal) | ʂ | ||
Unicode (hex) | U+0282 | ||
X-SAMPA | s` | ||
Braille | |||
|
Some scholars also posit the voiceless retroflex approximant distinct from the fricative. The approximant may be represented in the IPA as ⟨ɻ̊⟩.
Features of the voiceless retroflex fricative:
In the following transcriptions, diacritics may be used to distinguish between apical [ʂ̺] and laminal [ʂ̻].
The commonality of [ʂ] cross-linguistically is 6% in a phonological analysis of 2155 languages.
Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Abkhaz | амш/amš | [amʂ] | 'day' | See Abkhaz phonology | |
Adyghe | пшъашъэ/pşáşa | ⓘ | 'girl' | Laminal. | |
Chinese | Mandarin | 石/shí | [ʂ̺ɻ̩˧˥] | 'stone' | Apical. See Mandarin phonology |
Emilian-Romagnol | Romagnol | sé | [ˈʂĕ] | 'yes' | Apical; may be [s̺ʲ] or [ʃ] instead. |
Faroese | fýrs | [fʊʂ] | 'eighty' | ||
bert | [pɛɻ̊ʈ] | 'only' | Devoiced approximant allophone of /r/. See Faroese phonology | ||
Hindustani | Hindi | कष्ट/këšṭ | [ˈkəʂʈ] | 'trouble' | See Hindi phonology |
Kannada | ಕಷ್ಟ/kašṭa | [kɐʂʈɐ] | 'difficult' | Only in loanwords. See Kannada phonology. | |
Kazakh | шағын, şağın | [ʂɑɣɯn] | 'small, compact' | See Kazakh phonology | |
Khanty | Most northern dialects | шаш/šaš | [ʂɑʂ] | 'knee' | Corresponds to a voiceless retroflex affricate /ʈ͡ʂ/ in the southern and eastern dialects. |
Lower Sorbian | glažk | [ˈɡläʂk] | 'glass' | ||
Malayalam | കഷ്ടം/kaštam | [kɐʂʈɐm] | 'difficult' | Only occurs in loanwords. See Malayalam phonology | |
Mapudungun | trukur | [ʈ͡ʂʊ̝ˈkʊʂ] | 'fog' | Possible allophone of /ʐ/ in post-nuclear position. | |
Marathi | ऋषी/rši | [r̩ʂiː] | 'sage' | See Marathi phonology | |
Nepali | षष्ठी/šóšṭhī | [sʌʂʈʰi] | 'Shashthi (day)' | Allophone of /s/ in neighbourhood of retroflex consonants. See Nepali phonology | |
Norwegian | norsk | [nɔʂk] | 'Norwegian' | Allophone of the sequence /ɾs/ in many dialects, including Urban East Norwegian. See Norwegian phonology | |
Oʼodham | Cuk-Ṣon | [tʃʊk ʂɔn] | Tucson | ||
Pashto | Southern dialect | ښودل/šodël | [ʂodəl] | 'to show' | |
Polish | Standard | szum | ⓘ | 'rustle' | After voiceless consonants it is also represented by ⟨rz⟩. When written so, it can be instead pronounced as the voiceless raised alveolar non-sonorant trill by few speakers. It is transcribed /ʃ/ by most Polish scholars. See Polish phonology |
Southeastern Cuyavian dialects | schowali | [ʂxɔˈväli] | 'they hid' | Some speakers. It's a result of hypercorrecting the more popular merger of /ʂ/ and /s/ into [s] (see szadzenie). | |
Suwałki dialect | |||||
Romanian | Moldavian dialects | șură | ['ʂurə] | 'barn' | Apical. See Romanian phonology |
Transylvanian dialects | |||||
Russian | шут/šut | [ʂut̪] | 'jester' | See Russian phonology | |
Serbo-Croatian | шал / šal | [ʂȃ̠l] | 'scarf' | Typically transcribed as /ʃ/. See Serbo-Croatian phonology | |
Slovak | šatka | [ˈʂätkä] | 'kerchief' | ||
Swedish | fors | [fɔʂ] | 'rapids' | Allophone of the sequence /rs/ in many dialects, including Central Standard Swedish. See Swedish phonology | |
Tamil | கஷ்டம்/kaštam | [kɐʂʈɐm] | 'difficult' | Only occurs in loanwords, often replaced with /s/. See Tamil phonology | |
Telugu | కష్టం/kaštam | Only occurs in loanwords. See Telugu phonology | |||
Toda | [pɔʂ] | '(clan name)' | Subapical, contrasts /θ s̪ s̠ ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ/. | ||
Torwali | šeš/ݜیݜ | [ʂeʂ] | 'thin rope' | ||
Ubykh | [ʂ̺a] | 'head' | See Ubykh phonology | ||
Ukrainian | шахи/šaxy | [ˈʂɑxɪ] | 'chess' | See Ukrainian phonology | |
Upper Sorbian | Some dialects | [example needed] | — | — | Used in dialects spoken in villages north of Hoyerswerda; corresponds to [ʃ] in standard language. |
Vietnamese | Southern dialects | sữa | [ʂɨə˧ˀ˥] | 'milk' | See Vietnamese phonology |
Yi | ꏂ/shy | [ʂ̺ɹ̩˧] | 'gold' | ||
Yurok | segep | [ʂɛɣep] | 'coyote' | ||
Zapotec | Tilquiapan | [example needed] | — | — | Allophone of /ʃ/ before [a] and [u]. |
Voiceless retroflex non-sibilant fricative | |
---|---|
ɻ̝̊ | |
ɻ̊˔ | |
ʈ˕ | |
IPA Number | 152 402B 429 |
Encoding | |
X-SAMPA | r\`_0_r |
Voiceless retroflex approximant | |
---|---|
ɻ̊ | |
IPA Number | 152 402A |
Encoding | |
X-SAMPA | r\`_0 |
Features of the voiceless retroflex non-sibilant fricative:
Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Angami | ɻ̥ə³ | [ɻ̥ə˨] | 'to plan' | Contrasts with /ɻ/ | |
Chokri | [təɻ̥ɨ˥˧] | 'sew' | In free variation with /χ/; contrasts with /ɻ/ | ||
Ormuri | Kaniguram dialect | suř | [suɻ̝̊] | 'red' | Usually corresponds to /ʃ/ in the Logar dialect |
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