# Voiceless palatal fricative
The **voiceless palatal fricative** is a consonant sound made by forcing air through a narrow constriction between the tongue body and the hard palate without vibration of the vocal folds. Its [International Phonetic Alphabet](https://www.edgepedia.org/international-phonetic-alphabet) symbol is ⟨ç⟩, listed as IPA number 138 and encoded in Unicode as U+00E7, the Latin small letter c with cedilla; its voiced counterpart is ⟨ʝ⟩, IPA number 139.[1](https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/IPAcharts/common_files/pdfs/pdfs_IPA_charts_E/IPA_unitipa_sl.pdf) On the IPA pulmonic consonant chart it occupies the palatal column of the fricative row, with voiceless symbols to the left of voiced ones in each cell.[2](https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/IPAcharts/IPA_charts_TI/IPA_charts_TI.html)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| IPA symbol and number | ⟨ç⟩, IPA number 138; Unicode U+00E7, LATIN SMALL LETTER C W/ CEDILLA[1](https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/IPAcharts/common_files/pdfs/pdfs_IPA_charts_E/IPA_unitipa_sl.pdf) |
| Voiced counterpart | ⟨ʝ⟩, IPA number 139[1](https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/IPAcharts/common_files/pdfs/pdfs_IPA_charts_E/IPA_unitipa_sl.pdf) |
| Articulation | A voiceless dorso-palatal spirant: breath forced through a slit-shaped opening between the front of the tongue and the hard palate[3](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED285407.pdf) |
| Best-known occurrence | German *ich*-Laut, as in *mich* [miç][3](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED285407.pdf) |
| Typology | The palatal fricative /ç/ is relatively rare among the languages of the world[4](https://pubs.aip.org/asa/jasa/article/142/1/395/662504/Spectral-moments-vs-discrete-cosine-transformation?searchresult=1) |
| Common allophonic role | Realizes /h/ before /i/ in Standard Japanese ([çi]) and /j/ in English words such as *hue*[5](https://pubs.aip.org/asa/jasa/article-pdf/156/5/2935/20230534/2935_1_10.0034229.pdf) • [6](https://vulms.vu.edu.pk/Courses/ENG507/Downloads/A-Course-in-Phonetics.pdf) |
## Articulation
The sound is produced with the tongue body (dorsum) rather than the tongue tip. German /ç/ is described in pedagogical terms as a voiceless dorso-palatal spirant, produced when the airflow is pushed through a narrow, slit-like gap formed by the tongue front against the hard palate; its voiced counterpart is /ʝ/.[3](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED285407.pdf) The slit shape distinguishes it from the postalveolar sibilant [ʃ], whose tongue opening is a deep groove and which involves a degree of lip-rounding; a comparison with [Mandarin Chinese](https://www.edgepedia.org/mandarin-chinese) notes that the Chinese palatal fricative has a tighter medial tongue closure and a frication point further back than English [ʃ], without lip-rounding or grooving.[3](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED285407.pdf) • [7](https://unicode.org/wg2/docs/n2366r.pdf)
A **post-palatal variant** is also recognized.
## German: the ich-Laut
The sound is best known as the German *ich*-Laut. It occurs after front vowels and after the sonorants /l, r, n/, and it is an allophone (variant pronunciation of one sound in context) of the phonemic class /x/, together with the *ach*-Laut [x, χ].[3](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED285407.pdf) • [8](https://journals.lub.lu.se/LWPL/article/download/2564/2139/5218) The velar fricative [x] appears after back vowels, while the palatal fricative surfaces after front vowels, after sonorants, at the beginning of the diminutive suffix *-chen*, and word-initially in non-native words: *mich*, *manch*, *Mädchen*, and *Chemie* all have [ç].[9](https://scholarworks.iu.edu/iuswrrest/api/core/bitstreams/cf2bf8c1-e98f-4c02-8120-04b646f332fa/content) Because this distribution is predictable, the velar and palatal fricatives of [Standard German](https://www.edgepedia.org/standard-german) are understood to be one underlying phoneme; in other languages the same two sounds can contrast and would then be distinct phonemes.[9](https://scholarworks.iu.edu/iuswrrest/api/core/bitstreams/cf2bf8c1-e98f-4c02-8120-04b646f332fa/content)
German is also unusual in a second respect: it is one of the three known languages in which the palatal fricative /ç/ and the postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ are contrastive.[4](https://pubs.aip.org/asa/jasa/article/142/1/395/662504/Spectral-moments-vs-discrete-cosine-transformation?searchresult=1) In some Central German varieties the two have historically merged, with palatal /ç/ (from Middle High German /x/) and postalveolar /ʃ/ collapsing into an alveolopalatal /ɕ/.[10](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259544574_Alveolopalatalization_in_Central_German_as_Markedness_Reduction)
## Occurrence in other languages
**Japanese.** Standard Japanese treats [ç] as one of three conditioned variants of the consonant traditionally described as [h]: a voiceless bilabial fricative [ɸ] before /u/, the palatal fricative [ç] before /i/, and glottal [h] elsewhere, so /hi/ is realized [çi].[5](https://pubs.aip.org/asa/jasa/article-pdf/156/5/2935/20230534/2935_1_10.0034229.pdf)
**English.** In English, the sole genuinely palatal sound is /j/; this is typically an approximant, though in a word like *hue* it can surface allophonically as a voiceless fricative, allowing the transcription [çu].[6](https://vulms.vu.edu.pk/Courses/ENG507/Downloads/A-Course-in-Phonetics.pdf) The pronunciation of *hue*, *hew*, *Hugh*, and *huge* by many English speakers closely approximates German /ç/, particularly when the initial sound is somewhat exaggerated to produce greater friction.[3](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED285407.pdf)
**Afrikaans.** The voiceless velar fricative /x/ is realized as the palatal fricative [ç] after front vowels, as in /xit/ *giet* 'pour' pronounced [çit] and /xe:l/ *geel* 'yellow' pronounced [çe:l].[11](https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/2A6D5AC1AE493D1CCE3C1EFF6E0FEE77/S0025100318000269a.pdf/afrikaans.pdf)
## Acoustics and change
Fricatives are among the segments most affected by changes in the shape of the vocal tract. In a palatal-perturbation experiment using artificial palates, fricatives were more affected than stops, and a thickened palate lowered the spectral center of gravity, with speakers showing complete acoustic adaptation after training.[12](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21476667/) For the palatal fricative specifically, an ICPhS 2019 study examined whether the sound is disappearing in a German-speaking population, comparing [ç] and [ʃ] productions across speakers under and over 40 years of age and across palatal and postalveolar categories.[13](https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/icphs-proceedings/ICPhS2019/papers/ICPhS_814.pdf)
## References
1. [CONSONANTS (PULMONIC), IPA unitipa chart, International Phonetic Association](https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/IPAcharts/common_files/pdfs/pdfs_IPA_charts_E/IPA_unitipa_sl.pdf)
2. [Interactive IPA Chart in English, International Phonetic Association](https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/IPAcharts/IPA_charts_TI/IPA_charts_TI.html)
3. [The so-called German ich-sound, ERIC document ED285407](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED285407.pdf)
4. [Spectral moments vs discrete cosine transformation coefficients: Evaluation of acoustic measures distinguishing two merging German fricatives, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America](https://pubs.aip.org/asa/jasa/article/142/1/395/662504/Spectral-moments-vs-discrete-cosine-transformation?searchresult=1)
5. [Acoustic study of the Japanese /h/ consonant using real-time MRI, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America](https://pubs.aip.org/asa/jasa/article-pdf/156/5/2935/20230534/2935_1_10.0034229.pdf)
6. [A Course in Phonetics (Ladefoged), course text](https://vulms.vu.edu.pk/Courses/ENG507/Downloads/A-Course-in-Phonetics.pdf)
7. [Voiceless "alveolo-palatal" median laminal fricative, Unicode WG2 document N2366](https://unicode.org/wg2/docs/n2366r.pdf)
8. [Palatal Fricatives in German Revisited: Durational Aspects, Working Papers in Linguistics, Lund University](https://journals.lub.lu.se/LWPL/article/download/2564/2139/5218)
9. [Distribution of German [ç] and [x], Indiana University scholarship repository](https://scholarworks.iu.edu/iuswrrest/api/core/bitstreams/cf2bf8c1-e98f-4c02-8120-04b646f332fa/content)
10. [Alveolopalatalization in Central German as Markedness Reduction](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259544574_Alveolopalatalization_in_Central_German_as_Markedness_Reduction)
11. [Afrikaans, Journal of the International Phonetic Association Illustrations](https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/2A6D5AC1AE493D1CCE3C1EFF6E0FEE77/S0025100318000269a.pdf/afrikaans.pdf)
12. [Articulatory and acoustic adaptation to palatal perturbation, PubMed](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21476667/)
13. [Is the voiceless palatal fricative disappearing from..., ICPhS 2019 proceedings](https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/icphs-proceedings/ICPhS2019/papers/ICPhS_814.pdf)
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