Affricate

Template:Short description Template:Full citations needed Template:IPA affricates Template:IPA notice An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. English has two affricate phonemes, and , generally spelled ch and j, respectively.

Examples

The English sounds spelled "ch" and "j" (broadly transcribed as and in the IPA), German and Italian z and Italian z are typical affricates, and sounds like these are fairly common in the world's languages, as are other affricates with similar sounds, such as those in Polish and Chinese. However, voiced affricates other than are relatively uncommon. For several places of articulation they are not attested at all.

Much less common are labiodental affricates, such as in German, Kinyarwanda and Izi, or velar affricates, such as in Tswana (written kg) or in High Alemannic Swiss German dialects. Worldwide, relatively few languages have affricates in these positions even though the corresponding stop consonants, and , are common or virtually universal. Also less common are alveolar affricates where the fricative release is lateral, such as the sound found in Nahuatl and Navajo. Some other Athabaskan languages, such as Dene Suline, have unaspirated, aspirated, and ejective series of affricates whose release may be dental, alveolar, postalveolar, or lateral: , , , , , , , , , , , and .

Notation

Affricates are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by a combination of two letters, one for the stop element and the other for the fricative element. In order to clarify that these are parts of a single consonant, a tie bar may be used. The tie bar appears most commonly above the two letters, but may be placed under them if it fits better there, or simply because it is more legible. Thus:

Template:Angbr IPA

or

Template:Angbr IPA.

A less common notation indicates the release of the affricate with a superscript:

Template:Angbr IPA

This is derived from the IPA convention of indicating other releases with a superscript. However, this convention is more typically used for a fricated release that is too brief to be considered a true affricate.

Though they are no longer standard IPA, ligatures are available in Unicode for the sibilant affricates, which remain in common use:

Template:Angbr IPA.Template:NoteTag

Approved for Unicode 18 in 2026, per request from the IPA, are the remaining coronal affricates:

Template:Angbr IPA for .

Ligatures Template:Angbr IPA for the non-coronal affricates have also been used. Similar affricate ligatures can be found in Luciano Canepari's canIPA alphabet.

Any of these notations can be used to distinguish an affricate from a sequence of a plosive plus a fricative, which is contrastive in languages such as Polish. However, in languages where there is no such distinction within a syllable, such as English or Turkish, a simple sequence of letters such as Template:Angbr IPA is commonly used, with no overt indication that they form an affricate. In such cases the syllable boundary may be written to distinguish the plosive-fricative sequence in petshop from the similar affricate in ketchup .

In other phonetic transcription systems, such as the Americanist system, affricates may be transcribed with single letters. The affricate may be transcribed as Template:Angbr or Template:Angbr; as Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr or Template:Angbr; as Template:Angbr or Template:Angbr; as Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr or Template:Angbr; as Template:Angbr; and as Template:Angbr.

Single letters may also be used with phonemic transcription in IPA: and are sometimes transcribed with the symbols for the palatal stops, Template:Angbr IPA and Template:Angbr IPA, for example in the IPA Handbook.

Affricates vs. stop–fricative sequences

In some languages, affricates contrast phonemically with stop–fricative sequences:

• Polish affricate in czysta 'clean (f.)' versus stop–fricative in trzysta 'three hundred'; or affricate in dżem 'jam' versus stop–fricative in drzem 'snooze (2nd person singular imperative)';
• Klallam affricate in k'ʷə́nc 'look at me' versus stop–fricative in k'ʷə́nts 'he looks at it'.

The exact phonetic difference varies between languages. In stop–fricative sequences, the stop has a release burst before the fricative starts; but in affricates, the fricative element is the release. Phonologically, stop–fricative sequences may have a syllable boundary between the two segments, but not necessarily.

In English, and (nuts, nods) are considered phonemically stop–fricative sequences. They often contain a morpheme boundary (for example, nuts = nut + s). The English affricate phonemes and do not contain morpheme boundaries.

The phonemic distinction in English between the affricate and the stop–fricative sequence (found across syllable boundaries) can be observed by minimal pairs such as the following:

• worst shin →
• worse chin →

The in 'worst shin' can be elided: .

Stop–fricatives can be distinguished acoustically from affricates by the rise time of the frication noise, which is shorter for affricates.Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Geminate affricates

When affricates are geminated, it is the duration of the plosive closure that is lengthened, not that of the frication. For example, is pronounced , not *.

List of affricates

In the case of coronals, the symbols Template:Angbr IPA are normally used for the stop portion of the affricate regardless of place. For example, Template:Angbr IPA is commonly seen for Template:Angbr IPA, Template:Angbr IPA for Template:Angbr IPA and Template:Angbr IPA for Template:Angbr IPA.

The exemplar languages are ones that have been reported to have these sounds, but in several cases, they may need confirmation.

Sibilant affricates

Voiceless	Languages	Voiced	Languages
Voiceless alveolar affricate Template:IPA soundbox	Albanian c Georgian ც German z, tz Japanese つ/ツ Kʼicheʼ Mandarin z (pinyin) Italian z Pashto	Voiced alveolar affricate Template:IPA soundbox	Albanian x Georgian ძ Japanese (some dialects) Italian z Pashto
Voiceless dental affricate Template:IPA soundbox	Hungarian c Macedonian ц Serbo-Croatian c/ц Polish c	Voiced dental affricate Template:IPA soundbox	Hungarian dz Macedonian ѕ Bulgarian дз Polish dz
Voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate Template:IPA soundbox	Japanese ち/チ Mandarin j (pinyin) Polish ć, ci Serbo-Croatian ć/ћ Thai จ Vietnamese ch	Voiced alveolo-palatal affricate Template:IPA soundbox	Japanese じ/ジ, ぢ/ヂ Polish dź, dzi Serbo-Croatian đ/ђ Korean ㅈ
Voiceless palato-alveolar affricate Template:IPA soundbox	Albanian ç English ch, tch Georgian ჩ German tsch Hungarian cs Indonesian c Italian ci, ce Latvian č Lithuanian č Maltese ċ Persian Romanian ci, ce Spanish ch Turkish ç Walloon tch	Voiced palato-alveolar affricate Template:IPA soundbox	Albanian xh Arabic English j, g Georgian ჯ Hungarian dzs Indonesian j Italian gi, ge Latvian dž Lithuanian dž Maltese ġ Romanian gi, ge Turkish c Walloon dj
Voiceless retroflex affricate Template:IPA soundbox	Mandarin zh (pinyin) Polish cz Serbo-Croatian č/ч Slovak č Vietnamese tr	Voiced retroflex affricate Template:IPA soundbox	Polish dż Serbo-Croatian dž/џ Slovak dž

The Northwest Caucasian languages Abkhaz and Ubykh both contrast sibilant affricates at four places of articulation: alveolar, postalveolar, alveolo-palatal and retroflex. They also distinguish voiceless, voiced, and ejective affricates at each of these.

When a language has only one type of affricate, it is usually a sibilant; this is the case in e.g. Arabic (), most dialects of Spanish (), and Thai ().

Non-sibilant affricates

Sound (voiceless)	IPA	Languages	Sound (voiced)	IPA	Languages
Voiceless bilabial affricate		Present allophonically in Kaingang and Taos. Not reported as a phoneme in any natural language.	Voiced bilabial affricate		Allophonic in Banjun and ShipiboTemplate:Sfnp
Voiceless bilabial-labiodental affricate		German, Teke	Voiced bilabial-labiodental affricate		Teke
Voiceless labiodental affricate		XiNkuna Tsonga	Voiced labiodental affricate		XiNkuna Tsonga
Voiceless dental non-sibilant affricate		New York English, Luo, Dene Suline, Cun, some varieties of Venetian and other North Italian dialects	Voiced dental non-sibilant affricate		New York, Dublin,Template:Sfnp and Maori English, Dene Suline
Voiceless retroflex non-sibilant affricate		Mapudungun , Malagasy	Voiced retroflex non-sibilant affricate		Malagasy
Voiceless palatal affricate		Skolt Sami (younger speakers), Hungarian (casual speech), Albanian (transcribed as [c]), allophonically in Kaingang	Voiced palatal affricate		Skolt Sami (younger speakers), Hungarian (casual speech), Albanian (transcribed as [ɟ]), some Spanish dialects. Not reported to contrast with a voiced palatal plosive
Voiceless velar affricate		Tswana, High Alemannic German	Voiced velar affricate		Allophonic in some English English
Voiceless uvular affricate		Nez Percé, Wolof, Bats, Kabardian, Avar, Tsez. Not reported to contrast with a voiceless uvular plosive in natural languages.	Voiced uvular affricate		Reported from the Raivavae dialect of Austral and Ekagi with a velar lateral allophone before front vowels.
Voiceless pharyngeal affricate		Haida. Not reported to contrast with an epiglottal stop	Voiced pharyngeal affricate		Somali. Pronounced or sometimes with weak epiglottal trilling initially, otherwise realized as
Voiceless glottal affricate		Yuxi dialect, allophonic in Received PronunciationTemplate:Sfnp	Voiced glottal affricate		Not attested in any natural language

Lateral affricates

Sound (voiceless)	IPA	Languages	Sound (voiced)	IPA	Languages
Voiceless alveolar lateral affricate		Cherokee, Nahuatl, Navajo, Tswana, etc.	Voiced alveolar lateral affricate		Gwich'in, Sandawe. Not reported to ever contrast with a voiced alveolar lateral fricative .
Voiceless retroflex lateral affricate		Bhadrawahi, apical post-alveolar. Realization of phonemic in Kamkata-vari and Kamvari.	Voiced retroflex lateral affricate		Bhadrawahi, apical post-alveolar. Realization of phonemic in Kamkata-vari and Kamviri.
Voiceless palatal lateral affricate		as ejective in Dahalo; in free variation with in Hadza.	Voiced palatal lateral affricate		Allophonic in Sandawe.
Voiceless velar lateral affricate		as a prevelar in Archi and as an ejective in Zulu, also exist in the Laghuu language.	Voiced velar lateral affricate		Laghuu.

Trilled affricates

Sound (voiceless)	IPA	Languages	Sound (voiced)	IPA	Languages
Voiceless trilled bilabial affricate		Not attested in any natural language.	Voiced trilled bilabial affricate		Kele and Avava. Reported only in an allophone of [mb] before [o] or [u].
Voiceless trilled alveolar affricate		Ngkoth.	Voiced trilled alveolar affricate		Nias. Fijian and Avava also have this sound after [n].
Voiceless epiglottal affricate		Hydaburg Haida.	Voiced epiglottal affricate		Hydaburg Haida. Cognate to Southern Haida , Masset Haida .

Pirahã and Wari' have a dental stop with bilabial trilled release .

Heterorganic affricates

Although most affricates are homorganic, Navajo and Chiricahua Apache have a heterorganic alveolar-velar affricate .Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp Wari' and Pirahã have a voiceless dental bilabially trilled affricate [t̪ʙ̥] (see #Trilled affricates). Blackfoot has and . Other heterorganic affricates are reported for Northern SothoTemplate:Sfnp and other Bantu languages such as Phuthi, which has alveolar–labiodental affricates and , and Sesotho, which has bilabial–palatoalveolar affricates and . Djeoromitxi has and .Template:Sfnp

Phonation, coarticulation and other variants

The coronal and dorsal places of articulation attested as ejectives as well: . Several Khoisan languages such as Taa are reported to have voiced ejective affricates, but these are actually pre-voiced: . Affricates are also commonly aspirated: , murmured: , and prenasalized: (as in Hmong). Labialized, palatalized, velarized, and pharyngealized affricates are also common. Affricates may also have phonemic length, that is, affected by a chroneme, as in Italian and Karelian.

Phonological representation

In phonology, affricates tend to behave similarly to stops, taking part in phonological patterns that fricatives do not. Template:Harvp analyzes phonetic affricates as phonological stops.Template:Sfnp A sibilant or lateral (and presumably trilled) stop can be realized phonetically only as an affricate and so might be analyzed phonemically as a sibilant or lateral stop. In that analysis, affricates other than sibilants and laterals are a phonetic mechanism for distinguishing stops at similar places of articulation (like more than one labial, coronal, or dorsal place). For example, Chipewyan has laminal dental vs. apical alveolar ; other languages may contrast velar with palatal and uvular . Affricates may also be a strategy to increase the phonetic contrast between aspirated or ejective and tenuis consonants.

According to Template:Harvp, no language contrasts a non-sibilant, non-lateral affricate with a stop at the same place of articulation and with the same phonation and airstream mechanism, such as and or and .

In feature-based phonology, affricates are distinguished from stops by the feature [+delayed release].

Affrication

Affrication (sometimes called affricatization) is a sound change by which a consonant, usually a stop or fricative, changes into an affricate. Examples include:

• Proto-Germanic > Modern English , as in chin (cf. Template:Langx: Anglo-Frisian palatalization)
• Proto-Semitic > Standard Arabic in all positions, as in (Template:Transliteration) Template:Gloss (cf. Aramaic: גמלא (gamlā'), Template:Langx (Template:Transliteration), and Template:Langx (Template:Transliteration)).
• Early Modern English > (yod-coalescence)
• > in the High German consonant shift and partially also in Cockney and Scouse
• > before respectively in 16th-century Japanese
• > word-initially in Udmurt
• Polish >
• Brazilian Portuguese > before in most regions
• Quebec French and are affricated to and before , , , in most regions

Pre-affrication

In rare instances, a fricative–stop contour may occur. This is the case in dialects of Scottish Gaelic that have velar frication where other dialects have pre-aspiration. For example, in the Harris dialect there is 'seven' and 'eight' (or , ). Richard Wiese argues this is the case for word-initial fricative-plosive sequences in German, and coined the term suffricate for such contours. Awngi has 2 suffricates and according to some analyses.

See also

• Apical consonant
• Hush consonant
• Laminal consonant
• Index of phonetics articles

Sources

• Template:SOWL
• Template:Cite thesis

External links

• Affricates in English