The voiced palatal affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represent this sound are ⟨ɟ͡ʝ⟩ and ⟨ɟ͜ʝ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J\_j\. The tie bar may be omitted, yielding ⟨ɟʝ⟩ in the IPA and J\j\ in X-SAMPA.

This sound is the non-sibilant equivalent of the voiced alveolo-palatal affricate.

It occurs in languages such as Albanian, and Skolt Sami, among others. The voiced palatal affricate is quite rare; it is mostly absent from Europe as a phoneme (it occurs as an allophone in most Spanish dialects), with the aforementioned Uralic languages and Albanian being exceptions. It usually occurs with its voiceless counterpart, the voiceless palatal affricate.

Features

Features of the voiced palatal affricate:

• Its manner of articulation is affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the airflow entirely, then allowing air flow through a constricted channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence. It is not a sibilant.
• Its place of articulation is palatal, which means it is articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised to the hard palate.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence