Voiced retroflex fricative
ʐ
IPA Number	137
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʐ
Unicode (hex)	U+0290
X-SAMPA	z`
Braille
Image

The voiced 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 ⟨ʐ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is z`. Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA symbol is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of a z (the letter used for the corresponding alveolar consonant).

Features

Schematic mid-sagittal section

Features of the voiced retroflex sibilant:

• Its manner of articulation is sibilant fricative, which means it is generally produced by channeling air flow along a groove in the back of the tongue up to the place of articulation, at which point it is focused against the sharp edge of the nearly clenched teeth, causing high-frequency turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is retroflex, which prototypically means it is articulated subapical (with the tip of the tongue curled up), but more generally, it means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized. That is, besides the prototypical subapical articulation, the tongue contact can be apical (pointed) or laminal (flat).
• 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 diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

In the following transcriptions, diacritics may be used to distinguish between apical [ʐ̺] and laminal [ʐ̻].

The commonality of [ʐ] cross-linguistically is 2% in a phonological analysis of 2155 languages^[1]

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Abkhaz		абжа	[ˈabʐa]	'half'	See Abkhaz phonology
Adyghe		жъы	[ʐ̻ə] (help·info)	'old'	Laminal.
Awetí[2]		[pɨtiˈʐɨk˺]		'to pray'	Diachronically related to [ɾ] and also to some other alveolar sounds in certain occasions. As word lists created in the 1900s appoint for [ɾ] where there is [ʐ] now, this sound is supposed to be the result of a very recent sound change that is analogically happening in waurá.[2]
Chinese	Mandarin	肉/ròu	[ʐoʊ̯˥˩] (help·info)	'meat'	May also be a retroflex approximant [ɻ]. See Mandarin phonology
Faroese		renn	[ʐɛn]	'run'
Emilian-Romagnol	Romagnol	diṣ	[ˈdiːʐ]	'ten'	Apical; may be [z̺ʲ] or [ʒ] instead.
Lower Sorbian[3][4]		Łužyca	[ˈwuʐɨt͡sa]	'Lusatia'
Mapudungun[5]		rayen	[ʐɜˈjën]	'flower'	May be [ɻ] or [ɭ] instead.[5]
Marrithiyel	Marri Tjevin dialect	[wiˈɲaʐu]		'they are laughing'	Voicing is non-contrastive.
Mehináku[6]		[ɨˈʐũte]		'parrot'	Resulted from the voicing of /ʂ/ in between vowels.[6]
Pashto	Southern dialect	تږى‎	[ˈtəʐai]	'thirsty'	See Pashto phonology
Polish	Standard[7]	żona	[ˈʐ̻ɔn̪ä] (help·info)	'wife'	Also represented orthographically by ⟨rz⟩ and when written so, it can be instead pronounced as the raised alveolar non-sonorant trill by few speakers.[8] It is transcribed as /ʒ/ by most Polish scholars. See Polish phonology
	Southeastern Cuyavian dialects[9]	zapłacił	[ʐäˈpwät͡ɕiw]	'he paid'	Some speakers. It is a result of hypercorrecting the more popular merger of /ʐ/ and /z/ into [z] (see Szadzenie).
	Suwałki dialect[10]
Russian[7]		жена	[ʐɨ̞ˈna] (help·info)	'wife'	See Russian phonology
Serbo-Croatian		жут / žut	[ʐûːt̪]	'yellow'	Typically transcribed as /ʒ/. See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Slovak[11]		žaba	[ˈʐäbä]	'frog'
Spanish	Andean	marrón, ratón	[maˈʐon], [ʐa'ton]	'brown', 'mouse'
Tilquiapan Zapotec[12]		?	[ʐan]	'bottom'
Torwali[13]		ݜوڙ	[ʂuʐ]	'straight'
Ubykh		[ʐa]		'firewood'	See Ubykh phonology
Upper Sorbian	Some dialects[14][15]	[example needed]			Used in dialects spoken in villages north of Hoyerswerda; corresponds to [ʒ] in standard language.[3] See Upper Sorbian phonology
Vietnamese	Southern dialects	rô	[ʐow]	'diamond'	See Vietnamese phonology
Swedish	Central dialects	fri	[fʐi]	'free'	Allophone of /ɹ/. Also may be pronounced as [r] or [ɾ]. See Swedish phonology
Yi		ꏜ ry	[ʐʐ̩˧]	'grass'

Voiced retroflex non-sibilant fricative

Features

Features of the voiced retroflex non-sibilant 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 retroflex, which prototypically means it is articulated subapical (with the tip of the tongue curled up), but more generally, it means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized. That is, besides the prototypical subapical articulation, the tongue contact can be apical (pointed) or laminal (flat).
• 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 diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence