Voiced postalveolar fricative

Transcription

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is the lower case form of the letter Ezh ⟨Ʒ ʒ⟩ (/ɛʒ/ ^ⓘ). An alternative symbol used in some older and American linguistic literature is ⟨ž⟩, a z with a caron. In some transcriptions of alphabets such as the Cyrillic, the sound is represented by the digraph ⟨zh⟩.

Although present in English, the sound is not represented by a specific letter or digraph, but is formed by yod-coalescence of [z] and [j] in words such as measure. It also appears in some loanwords, mainly from French (thus written with ⟨g⟩ and ⟨j⟩).

[ʒ] occurs as a borrowed phoneme in a number of languages under the influence of French, Persian or Slavic languages, as in the Germanic languages (Dutch, English, German and Luxembourgish), the Romance languages (Italian and Romanian), the Turkic languages (Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Turkish, and Uyghur), and the Uralic languages (Estonian and Hungarian), Breton and Maltese.^[2] The phoneme has the lowest consonant frequency in both English and Persian.^[3]

In English and French, /ʒ/ may have simultaneous lip rounding ([ʒʷ]), although this is rarely indicated in transcription.

Features

Features of a voiced palato-alveolar fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is sibilant (a subclass of fricatives and affricates), which means it is generally produced with a higher-frequency turbulence. Sibilants may be articulated with various tongue shapes and degrees of palatalization, depending on their place of articulation.
• Its place of articulation is postalveolar, which means it is articulated with the tip or blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• It is a median consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream down the midline of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

The sound in Russian denoted by ⟨ж⟩ is commonly transcribed as a palato-alveolar fricative but is actually a laminal retroflex fricative.

In English, the phoneme [ʒ] is often found as a hyperforeign substitute for [dʒ] in certain borrowings, Beijing (Mandarin Chinese [tɕ], a voiceless [dʒ]), raj, Taj Mahal, and sometimes even parmesan (French [paʁməzɑ̃]; Italian [parmiˈdʒaːno]).

Features

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence. However, it does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.
• Its place of articulation is postalveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• It is a median consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream down the midline of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence