Affricate

 ( Manner Of Articulation ) 

An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop consonant 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 , often spelled ch and j, respectively.

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Examples The English language sounds spelled "ch" and "j" (broadly transcribed as and in the IPA), German language and Italian language z and Italian language 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 language and Chinese language. 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 language, Kinyarwanda and Izi language, or velar consonant affricates, such as in Tswana language (written kg) or in High Alemannic Swiss German dialects. Worldwide, relatively few languages have affricates in these positions even though the corresponding , 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 language. 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 .

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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 show that these are parts of a single consonant, a tie bar is generally 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.For example, in Thus:

or

.

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

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:

.

Approved for Unicode 18 in 2026, per request from the IPA, are the remaining coronal affricates: Unicode pipeline: L2/24-051

for .

Ligatures for the non-coronal affricates are recognized in China. The Universal Phonetic Symbol Set in China [中国通用音标符号集. Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, Language and Writing Standards no. GF 3007-2006.

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 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 or ; as , or (older) ; as or ; as , or (older) ; as ; and as .

This also happens with phonemic transcription in IPA: and are sometimes transcribed with the symbols for the palatal stops, and , for example in the IPA Handbook.

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

• Polish language 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 language 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 →

In some accents of English, the in 'worst shin' debuccalization to a glottal stop before .

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

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Geminate affricates When affriates are , it is the duration of the plosive closure that is lengthened, not that of the frication. For example, is pronounced , not *.Joshua Wilbur (2014) A Grammar of Pite Saami, p 47

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List of affricates In the case of coronals, the symbols are normally used for the stop portion of the affricate regardless of place. For example, is commonly seen for , for and for .

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

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Sibilant affricates

Albanian c Georgian ც German language z, tz Japanese つ/ツ Kʼicheʼ Mandarin Chinese z (pinyin) Italian language z Pashto language څ	Albanian x Georgian ძ Japanese (Yotsugana) Italian z Pashto ځ
Hungarian c Macedonian ц Serbo-Croatian c/ц Polish language c	Hungarian dz Macedonian Dze Bulgarian дз Polish dz
Japanese ち/チ Mandarin j (pinyin) Polish ć, ci Serbo-Croatian ć/ћ Thai language จ Vietnamese ch	Japanese じ/ジ, ぢ/ヂ Polish dź, dzi Serbo-Croatian đ/ђ Korean language ㅈ
Albanian ç English language ch, tch Georgian ჩ German tsch Hungarian cs Indonesian c Italian ci, ce Latvian language č Lithuanian č Maltese ċ Persian language چ Romanian ci, ce Spanish language ch Turkish ç	Albanian xh Arabic ج English j, g Georgian ჯ Hungarian dzs Indonesian j Italian gi, ge Latvian dž Lithuanian dž Maltese ġ Romanian gi, ge Turkish c
Mandarin zh (pinyin) Polish cz Serbo-Croatian č/ч Slovak language č Vietnamese tr	Polish dż Serbo-Croatian dž/џ Slovak dž

The Northwest Caucasian languages Abkhaz phonology and Ubykh phonology 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 language (), most dialects of Spanish language (), and Thai language ().

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Non-sibilant affricates

Allophonic in Banjun language and Shipibo
Teke language
XiNkuna Tsonga language	XiNkuna Tsonga
New York English, Luo dialect, Dene Suline, Cun language, some varieties of Venetian and other North Italian dialects	New York, Hiberno-English, and Maori English, Dene Suline
Mapudungun , Malagasy	Malagasy
Skolt Sami (younger speakers), Hungarian (casual speech), Albanian (transcribed as c), allophonically in Kaingang	Skolt Sami (younger speakers), Hungarian (casual speech), Albanian (transcribed as ɟ), some Spanish language dialects. Not reported to contrast with a voiced palatal plosive
Allophonic in some English English John C. Wells (1982). 052124224X, Cambridge University Press. . 052124224X
Reported from the Raivavae dialect of Austral language and Ekagi language with a velar lateral allophone before front vowels.
Somali language. Pronounced or sometimes with weak epiglottal trilling initially, otherwise realized as
	Not attested in any natural language

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Lateral affricates

Cherokee, Nahuatl language, Navajo language, Tswana language, etc.	Gwich'in, Sandawe language. Not reported to ever contrast with a voiced alveolar lateral fricative .
Bhadrawahi, apical post-alveolar. Realization of phonemic in Kamkata-vari and Kamviri dialect.	Bhadrawahi, apical post-alveolar. Realization of phonemic in Kamkata-vari and Kamviri.
as ejective in Dahalo language; in free variation with in Hadza language.	Allophonic in Sandawe language.
as a prevelar in Archi language and as an ejective in Zulu language, also exist in the Laghuu language.	Laghuu language.

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Trilled affricates

Kele and Avava. Reported only in an allophone of mb before o or u.
Ngkoth language.	Nias language. Fijian language and Avava also have this sound after n.
Hydaburg Haida language. Cognate to Southern Haida , Masset Haida .

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

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

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

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Phonological representation In phonology, affricates tend to behave similarly to stops, taking part in phonological patterns that fricatives do not. analyzes phonetic affricates as phonological stops. 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 , 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.

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

• Proto-Germanic > Modern English , as in chin (cf. : Anglo-Frisian palatalization)
• Proto-Semitic > Standard Arabic in all positions, as in جمل () (cf. Aramaic language: גמלא (gamlā'), (), and ()).
• Early Modern English > (yod-coalescence)
• > in the High German consonant shift
• > before respectively in 16th-century Japanese
  (2025). 9781614511984, Walter de Gruyter. . ISBN 9781614511984
• > word-initially in Udmurt language
  Sándor Csúcs (2025). 9789630581844, Akadémiai Kiadó. ISBN 9789630581844
• Polish language >
• Brazilian Portuguese > before in most regions
• Quebec French and to and before , , , in most regions

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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 seachd 'seven' and ochd 'eight' (or , ).

John Laver (1994). 9780521450317, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521450317

Richard Wiese argues this is the case for word-initial fricative-plosive sequences in German, and coined the term suffricate for such contours.Harry van der Hulst & Nancy Ritter (2012: 175) The Syllable: Views and Facts. De Gruyter. Awngi language has 2 suffricates and according to some analyses.

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See also

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

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Notes

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Sources

• (2025). 9780598942005, University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780598942005
• Keith Johnson (2025). 9781405101233, Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 9781405101233
• (2025). 9783484304666, De Gruyter. ISBN 9783484304666
• P. Ladefoged (2025). 9781413006889, Wadsworth. ISBN 9781413006889
• Ian Maddieson (1984). 9780521265362, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521265362
• Joyce McDonough (2025). 9781402013515, Springer Netherlands. . ISBN 9781402013515
• (1987). 9780826310149, University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 9780826310149

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External links

• Affricates in English

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