Voiceless alveolar fricative

Voiceless alveolar sibilant
s
IPA number132
Encoding
Entity (decimal)s
Unicode (hex)U+0073
X-SAMPAs
Kirshenbaums
Sound
 

The voiceless alveolar fricative is a type of consonant. The letter for this sound in the International Phonetic Alphabet is ⟨s⟩. The X-SAMPA symbol for this sound is ⟨s⟩. The English language has this sound, and it is the sound represented by 's' in sun and sorry.

Features

  • The phonation is voiceless. This means that this sound is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
  • The place of articulation (where the sound is produced) is alveolar. This means that this sound is produced with the tip of the tongue (apical) or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge (laminal).
  • The manner of articulation (how the sound is produced) is fricative. This means that this sound is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, to make turbulence.

Examples

Language Word IPA Meaning
Adyghe сэ/sė [sa] 'I'
Arabic Modern Standard[1] جَلَسَ/ǧalasa [ˈdʒælæsɐ] 'to sit'
Assyrian ܣܝܦܐ sèpa [seːpaː] 'sword'
Bengali রাস্তা [raːst̪a] 'street'
Burmese စစားဗျီ/ca carr bhye [sə sá bjì] 'I am eating now'
Chinese Cantonese 閃 / sim2 [siːm˧˥] 'twinkle'
Dutch Belgian Standard[2] staan [staːn] 'to stand'
Emilian and Romagnol sèl [ˈs̺ʲɛːl] 'salt'
Estonian sõna [ˈsɤnɑ] 'word'
English sit [sɪt] 'sit'
Esperanto Esperanto [espeˈranto] 'Who hopes'
Faroese sandur [sandʊɹ] 'sand'
Georgian[3] სამი/sami [ˈsɑmi] 'three'
Hebrew ספר/sefer [ˈsefeʁ] 'book'
Hindustani साल / سال [saːl] 'year'
Japanese[4] 複数形 / fukusūkē [ɸɯkɯsɯːkeː] 'plural'
Kabardian сэ/sė [sa] 'I'
Khmer អេស្ប៉ាញ / éspanh [ʔeːpaːɲ] noun: 'Spain'
adjective: 'Spanish'
Korean 섬 / seom [sʌːm] 'island'
Malay satu [satu] 'one'
Maltese iebes [eaˈbes] 'hard'
Marathi साप [saːp] 'snake'
Nepali सगरमाथा [sʌɡʌrmät̪ʰä] 'Mount Everest'
Odia ସମାନ [sɔmänɔ] 'equal'
Occitan Limousin maichent [mejˈsẽ] 'bad'
Persian سیب / sib [sib] 'apple'
Portuguese[5] caço [ˈkasu] 'I hunt'
Punjabi ਸੱਪ/sapp [səpː] 'snake'
Spanish[6] Latin American saltador [s̻al̪t̪aˈð̞o̞r] 'jumper'
Canarian
Andalusian
Filipino
Swahili Kiswahili [kiswaˈhili] 'Swahili'
Sylheti ꠢꠂꠍꠦ/oise [ɔise] 'done'
Vietnamese[7] xa [saː˧] 'far'
Yi ꌦ sy [sɻ̩˧] 'die'

Notes

  1. ↑ Thelwall (1990), p. 37.
  2. ↑ Collins & Mees (2003), p. 190.
  3. ↑ Shosted & Chikovani (2006), p. 255.
  4. ↑ Okada (1999), p. 117.
  5. ↑ Cruz-Ferreira (1995), p. 91.
  6. ↑ Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté (2003), p. 258.
  7. ↑ Thompson (1959), pp. 458–461.

References