Voiceless postalveolar affricate

IPA - Unicode
IPA - image
X-SAMPA	tS
Kirshenbaum	tS
Sound sample

The voiceless postalveolar affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is [tʃ], and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is [tS]. Alternatives commonly used in linguistic works, particularly in older or American literature, are č and more rarely tš.

Historically, this sound often derives from a former voiceless velar plosive (k, as in English, Mandarin Chinese, and Romance languages) or voiceless dental plosive (t, as in Japanese) by way of palatalization, especially next to a front vowel.

In English

The voiceless postalveolar affricate occurs in English, and it is the sound denoted by the letters 'ch' in chip.

In other languages

This sound is present as the following spellings in these languages:

• tx in Basque
• ch in Spanish and Quiché
• tch in French
• tj in Dutch
• c followed by i or e in Italian and Romanian, as well as the church pronunciation of Latin
• ч in Bulgarian and Russian
• cz in Polish
• ç in Turkish
• č in Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, and Belarusian
• چ in Persian and Urdu
• ĉ in Esperanto
• j (unaspirated) and ch (aspirated) in Chinese as transcribed in Pinyin
• च (unaspirated) and छ (aspirated) in Sanskrit, Hindi, and other languages transcribed using Devanagari.
• ㅈ (unaspirated) and ㅊ (aspirated) in Korean.

See also

• List of phonetics topics