Palatal fricative
Type of consonant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A palatal fricative is a type of fricative consonant that is also a palatal consonant. The two main types of palatal fricatives are:
They are produced with the friction of the dorsum of the tongue against the hard palate.[1] In some dialects of English, [ç] acts as an allophone for /hj/,[2][3][4] and some loanwords may start with [ʝ].[1]
Phonemic palatal fricatives are decently rare, especially the voiced palatal fricative. They occur more often as allophones (such as in German, where [ç] is an allophone of the voiceless velar fricative after consonants and front vowels[5]), or as alternative realizations of the voiced palatal approximant.
