Voiceless postalveolar affricate
tʃ
t̠ʃ
IPA Number103 134
Audio sample
Encoding
Entity (decimal)t​͡​ʃ
Unicode (hex)U+0074 U+0361 U+0283
X-SAMPAtS or t_rS

The voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant affricate or voiceless domed postalveolar sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨t͡ʃ⟩, ⟨t͜ʃ⟩ ⟨tʃ⟩ (formerly the ligature ⟨ʧ⟩), or, in broad transcription, ⟨c⟩. The alternative commonly used in American tradition is ⟨č⟩. It is familiar to English speakers as the "ch" sound in "chip".

Historically, this sound often derives from a former voiceless velar stop /k/ (as in English church; also in Gulf Arabic, Slavic languages, Indo-Iranian languages and Romance languages), or a voiceless dental stop /t/ by way of palatalization, especially next to a front vowel (as in English nature; also in Amharic, Portuguese, some accents of Egyptian, etc.).

Features

Features of the voiceless domed postalveolar affricate:

Occurrence

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Adyghe чэмы/čėmy [t͡ʃamə] (help·info) 'cow' Some dialects contrast labialized and non-labialized forms.
Albanian çelur [t͡ʃɛluɾ] 'open'
Aleut Atkan dialect chamĝul [t͡ʃɑmʁul] 'to wash'
Amharic አንቺ/anite [ant͡ʃi] 'you'
Arabic[1] Central Palestinian مكتبة (Normally unwritten)/maktaba [ˈmat͡ʃt̪abe] 'library' Corresponds to [k] in Standard Arabic and other varieties. See Arabic phonology
Iraqi چتاب/kitaab [t͡ʃɪˈt̪ɑːb] 'book'
Jordanian كتاب (Normally unwritten)/kitaab [t͡ʃɪˈt̪aːb]
Aragonese chuego [ˈt͡ʃueɣo] 'game'
Armenian Eastern[2] ճնճղուկ/č̣nč̣ġowk/chnchghuk [t͡ʃənt͡ʃʁuk] (help·info) 'sparrow'
Assyrian ܟ̰ܝܡܐ čyomo [t͡ʃjɑmɑ] 'to turn off' Found in native terminology. Used in some Urmia and Nochiya dialects. Corresponds to [c] in other varieties.
Asturian Chipre [ˈt͡ʃipɾe] 'Cyprus' Mostly found in loanwords, if possible, usually replaced by x [ʃ].
Azerbaijani Əkinçi [æcint͡ʃʰi] 'the ploughman'
Bengali চশমা/chôshma [t͡ʃɔʃma] 'spectacles' Contrasts with aspirated form. See Bengali phonology
Basque txalupa [t͡ʃalupa] 'boat'
Bulgarian чучулига/chuchuliga [t͡ʃʊt͡ʃuˈliɡɐ] 'lark' See Bulgarian phonology
Catalan cotxe [ˈkɔ.t͡ʃə] 'car' See Catalan phonology.
Central Alaskan Yup'ik nacaq [ˈnat͡ʃaq] 'parka hood'
Choctaw hakchioma [hakt͡ʃioma] 'tobacco'
Coptic Bohairic dialect ϭⲟϩ/čoh [t͡ʃʰɔh] 'touch'
Czech morče [ˈmo̞rt͡ʃɛ] 'guinea pig' See Czech phonology
Dhivehi ޗަކަސް / chakas [t͡ʃakas] 'mud' Relatively rare, usually occurs in loanwords / onomatoepic words
English beach [biːt͡ʃ] 'beach' Slightly labialized [tʃʷ]. See English phonology
Esperanto ĉar [t͡ʃar] 'because' See Esperanto phonology
Faroese gera [t͡ʃeːɹa] 'to do' Contrasts with aspirated form. See Faroese phonology
French Standard caoutchouc [kaut͡ʃu] 'rubber' Relatively rare; occurs mostly in loanwords. See French phonology
Acadian tiens [t͡ʃɛ̃] '(I/you) keep' Allophone of /k/ and /tj/ before a front vowel.
Galician cheo [ˈt͡ʃeo] 'full' Galician-Portuguese /t͡ʃ/ is conserved in Galician and merged with /ʃ/ in most Portuguese dialects. See Galician phonology
Georgian[3] ჩიხი/ch'ikhi [t͡ʃixi] 'impasse'
German Standard[4] Tschinelle [t͡ʃʷiˈnɛlə] 'cymbal' Laminal or apico-laminal and strongly labialized.[4] See Standard German phonology
Greek Cypriot τσ̌άι/chái [t͡ʃɑːiː] 'tea'
Hebrew תשובה/čuva [t͡ʃuˈva] 'answer' See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindustani Hindi चाय/chāy [t͡ʃɑːj] 'tea' Contrasts with aspirated form. See Hindustani phonology
Urdu چائے/chāy
Haitian Creole match [mat͡ʃ] 'sports match'
Hungarian gyümölcslé [ˈɟymølt͡ʃleː] 'juice' See Hungarian phonology
Italian[5] ciao [ˈt͡ʃaːo] 'hi' See Italian phonology
Javanese cedhak [t͡ʃəɖaʔ] 'near'
Kʼicheʼ K'iche' [kʼiˈt͡ʃeʔ] 'Kʼicheʼ'' Contrasts with ejective form
Kabardian чэнж/čėnž [t͡ʃanʒ] (help·info) 'shallow'
Kashubian[6] czësto [t͡ʃəstɔ] 'cleanly'
Kurdish hirç [hɪɾt͡ʃ] 'bear'
Macedonian чека [t͡ʃɛka] 'wait' See Macedonian phonology
Malay Indonesian cuci [t͡ʃut͡ʃi] 'wash'
Maltese bliċ [blit͡ʃ] 'bleach'
Manx çhiarn [ˈt͡ʃaːrn] 'lord'
Marathi चहा/chahā [t͡ʃəhaː] 'tea' Contrasts with aspirated form. Allophone of /tɕ / and /ts/.See Marathi phonology
Mongolian Khalkha dialect наргиж/nargij [ˈnargit͡ʃ] 'laugh'
Nahuatl āyōtōchtli [aːjoːˈtoːt͡ʃt͡ɬi] 'armadillo'
Norwegian Some dialects kjøkken [t͡ʃøkːen] 'kitchen' See Norwegian phonology
Nunggubuyu[7] jaro [t͡ʃaɾo] 'needle'
Occitan chuc [ˈt͡ʃyk] 'juice' See Occitan phonology
Odia ଚକ/caka [t͡ʃɔkɔ] 'wheel' Contrasts with aspirated form.
Persian چوب/čhûb [t͡ʃʰuːb] 'wood' See Persian phonology
Polish Gmina Istebna ciemny [ˈt͡ʃɛmn̪ɘ] 'dark' /ʈ͡ʂ/ and /t͡ɕ/ merge into [t͡ʃ] in these dialects. In standard Polish, /t͡ʃ/ is commonly used to transcribe what actually is a laminal voiceless retroflex affricate.
Lubawa dialect[8]
Malbork dialect[8]
Ostróda dialect[8]
Warmia dialect[8]
Portuguese Most northern and some central Portuguese dialects chamar [t͡ʃɐˈmaɾ] 'to call' Archaic realization of etymological ⟨ch⟩. Its use is diminishing due to influence of the standard language, being replaced by [ʃ].
Most Brazilian dialects[9] presente [pɾe̞ˈzẽ̞t͡ʃi] 'present' Allophone of /t/ before /i, ĩ/ (including when [i, ĩ, j] is not actually produced) and other instances of [i] (e.g. epenthesis), marginal sound otherwise. See Portuguese phonology
Most dialects tchau [ˈt͡ʃaw] 'bye' In Standard European Portuguese it occurs only in recent loanwords.
Punjabi ਚੌਲ/ چول/caul [t͡ʃɔːl] 'rice'
Quechua chunka [t͡ʃʊŋka] 'ten'
Romani ćiriklo [t͡ʃiriˈklo] 'bird' Contrasts with aspirated form.
Romanian cer [ˈt͡ʃe̞r] 'sky' See Romanian phonology
Rotuman[10] joni [ˈt͡ʃɔni] 'to flee'
Scottish Gaelic slàinte [ˈsl̪ˠaːnʲt͡ʃə] 'health' Southern dialects only; standard pronunciation is [tʲ]. See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Serbo-Croatian Some speakers čokoláda чоколада [t͡ʃo̞ko̞ˈɫǎ̠ːd̪a̠] 'chocolate' In varieties that don't distinguish /ʈ͡ʂ/ from /t͡ɕ/.
Silesian Gmina Istebna[11] szpańelsko [t̠͡ʃpaɲɛskɔ] 'Spanish' These dialects merge /ʈ͡ʂ/ and /t͡ɕ/ into [t͡ʃ].
Jablunkov[11] [t̠͡ʃpaɲɛlskɔ]
Spanish[12] chocolate [t͡ʃo̞ko̞ˈlät̪e̞] (help·info) 'chocolate' See Spanish phonology
Swahili jicho [ʄit͡ʃo] 'eye'
Swedish Finland tjugo [t͡ʃʉːɡʉ] 'twenty' See Swedish phonology
Some rural Swedish dialects kärlek [t͡ʃæːɭeːk] 'love'
Tagalog tsuper [t͡ʃʊˈpɛɾ] 'driver' See Tagalog phonology
Tlingit jinkaat [ˈt͡ʃinkʰaːtʰ] 'ten'
Turkish çok [t͡ʃok] 'very' See Turkish phonology
Tyap cat [t͡ʃad] 'love'
Ubykh Çəbƹəja/çabjaya [t͡ʃəbʒəja] 'pepper' See Ubykh phonology
Ukrainian[13] чотири/chotyry [t͡ʃo̞ˈtɪrɪ] 'four' See Ukrainian phonology
Uzbek choʻl [t͡ʃɵl] 'desert'
Zapotec Tilquiapan[14] chane [t͡ʃanɘ]

Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Polish, Catalan, and Thai have a voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate /t͡ɕ/; this is technically postalveolar but it is less precise to use /t͡ʃ/.

Related characters

There are several Unicode characters based on the tesh digraph (ʧ):

Voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant affricate

Voiceless postalveolar non-sibilant affricate
t̠ɹ̠̊˔
tɹ̝̊˗
Audio sample

Features

Occurrence

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
English Australian[19] tree [t̠͡ɹ̠̊˔ʷɪi̯] 'tree' Phonetic realization of the stressed, syllable-initial sequence /tr/.[19][20][21][22] In General American and Received Pronunciation, the less common alternative is alveolar [tɹ̝̊].[20] See Australian English phonology and English phonology
General American[20][21]
Received Pronunciation[20][21]
Port Talbot[22] [t̠͡ɹ̠̊˔iː]

Notes

  1. ^ Watson (2002:17)
  2. ^ Dum-Tragut (2009:13)
  3. ^ Shosted & Chikovani (2006:255)
  4. ^ a b Mangold (2005:51–52)
  5. ^ Rogers & d'Arcangeli (2004:117)
  6. ^ Jerzy Treder. "Fonetyka i fonologia". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2015-11-16.
  7. ^ Ladefoged (2005:158)
  8. ^ a b c d Dubisz, Karaś & Kolis (1995:62)
  9. ^ Barbosa & Albano (2004:228)
  10. ^ Blevins (1994:492)
  11. ^ a b Dąbrowska (2004:?)
  12. ^ Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté (2003:255)
  13. ^ Danyenko & Vakulenko (1995), p. 4.
  14. ^ Merrill (2008:108)
  15. ^ Miller, Kirk; Ashby, Michael (2020-11-08). "L2/20-252R: Unicode request for IPA modifier-letters (a), pulmonic" (PDF).
  16. ^ Miller, Kirk (2020-07-11). "L2/20-125R: Unicode request for expected IPA retroflex letters and similar letters with hooks" (PDF).
  17. ^ Anderson, Deborah (2020-12-07). "L2/21-021: Reference doc numbers for L2/20-266R "Consolidated code chart of proposed phonetic characters" and IPA etc. code point and name changes" (PDF).
  18. ^ Miller, Kirk; Everson, Michael (2021-01-03). "L2/21-004: Unicode request for dezh with retroflex hook" (PDF).
  19. ^ a b Cox & Fletcher (2017), p. 144.
  20. ^ a b c d Cruttenden (2014), pp. 177, 186–188, 192.
  21. ^ a b c Wells (2008).
  22. ^ a b Connolly (1990), p. 121.

References

External links

International Phonetic Alphabet (chart)
Categories