Alveolo-palatal consonant

Sagittal section of alveolo-palatal fricative

In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants are palatalized postalveolar fricatives, articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate. They are similar to palato-alveolar and retroflex fricatives, but are laminal rather than apical or sub-apical as the retroflex fricatives are, and are more fully palatalized than the "domed" palato-alveolar fricatives are.

Alveolo-palatal sibilants can be found in the Chinese languages such as Mandarin, Hakka, and Wu, as well as other languages of the East Asian sprachbund, such as Japanese and Korean. Alveolo-palatal sibilants are also a feature of many Slavic languages, such as Polish, Russian, and Serbian, and of North Caucasian languages, such as Abkhaz and Ubykh. Kinnauri uses an alveolo-palatal nasal. The alveolo-palatal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

IPA	Description	Example
		Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
	Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative	Mandarin	小 (xiǎo)	[ɕiɑu˨˩˦]	small
	Voiced alveolo-palatal fricative	Polish	zioło	[ʑɔwɔ]	herb
t͡ɕ	Voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate	Serbian	кућа (kuća)	[kut͡ɕa]	house
d͡ʑ	Voiced alveolo-palatal affricate	Japanese	地震 (jishin)	[d͡ʑiɕĩɴ]	earthquake

Note: The table displays only sibilants. In sinological circles symbols for alveolo-palatal stops (ȶ, ȡ), nasals (ȵ), and liquids (ȴ) are used, but they often represent simple palatal or palatalized consonants, and thus are not recognized by the IPA. The "palatal" consonants of several Indigenous Australian languages are also sometimes judged closer to alveolo-palatal in their articulation.

See also

• Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative
• Voiced alveolo-palatal fricative
• Place of articulation
• List of phonetics topics

References

• Ladefoged, Peter; Ian Maddieson (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8.