Voiced retroflex fricative

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IPA – number	137
IPA – text	ʐ
IPA – image	Image:Xsampa-z'.png
Entity	ʐ
X-SAMPA	z`
Kirshenbaum	`z.`
Sound sample (help·info)

The voiced retroflex fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ʐ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is z`.Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA symbol is formed by adding a rightward pointing hook extending from the bottom of the symbol used for the equivalent alveolar consonant, in this case the voiced alveolar fricative which has the symbol z. The IPA symbol is thus a lowercase letter z with a rightward tail protruding from the lower right of the letter. Compare z and ʐ.

[edit] Features

Features of the voiced retroflex fricative:

Its manner of articulation is sibilant fricative, which means it is produced by directing air flow through a groove in the tongue at the place of articulation and directing it over the sharp edge of the teeth, causing high-frequency turbulence.
Its place of articulation is retroflex, which prototypically means it is articulated with the tip of the tongue curled up, but more generally means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized. That is, besides the prototypical sub-apical (curled) articulation, the tongue contact can be apical (pointed) or laminal (flat).
Its phonation type is voiced, which means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.
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 middle 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.

[edit] Occurrence

In the following transcriptions, diacritics may be used to distinguish between apical [ʐ̺] and laminal [ʐ̻].

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Abkhaz		abжа	[ˈabʐa]	'half'	See Abkhaz phonology
Mandarin	Beijing	肉/ròu	[ʐòu̯]	'meat'	See Standard Mandarin
Norwegian	some dialects	rød	[ʐøː]	'red'	See Norwegian phonology
Pashto		ږمونځ	[ʐmunʣ]	'comb'
Polish		morze	[mɔʐ̠ɛ]	'sea'	See Polish phonology
Russian		кожа	[ˈkoʐə]	'skin'	See Russian phonology
Ubykh		[ʐa]		'firewood'	See Ubykh phonology