Voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative

The voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative (also called voiceless postalveolar and velar fricative, voiceless coarticulated velar and palatoalveolar fricative and voiceless dorsovelar fricative) is a type of consonant sound, used in spoken languages, in certain variants and dialects of Swedish, where it is most often known as the "sje"-sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is [ɧ], and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is [x\]. The English sigh of relief "phew!" is probably the closest approximation, resembling the voiceless labial-velar fricative that is used in some varieties of American English.

Features

Features of the voiceless dorso-palatal velar 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 varies over Swedish regions, and is not entirely agreed upon (see References). It has been variously found to be:
  • velar and postalveolar, meaning it is articulated simultaneously against the velum (like /x/) and just behind the teeth (like /ʃ/).
  • dorso-palatal velar (which means it is articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the velum), usually with rounded and/or protruding lips,
  • labiodental (in this case meaning it is articulated with the lower teeth against the upper lip)
  • A sequence of frication segments moving from dorsal to labial,
  • Other methods have been documented as well, with no obvious standard emerging.
• Its phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the center of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

References

• Abercrombie, David. (1967). Elements of general phonetics. Chicago: Aldine.
• Ladefoged, Peter; & Maddieson, Ian. (1996). The sounds of the world's languages. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
• Lindblad, Per. (1980). Svenskans sje- och tje-ljud i ett Allmänfonetisk Perspektiv. Travaux de l'Institut de Linguistique de Lund 16. Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup.

See also

• List of phonetics topics
• Swedish phonology