Voiced palatal plosive
Consonantal sound represented by ⟨ɟ⟩ in IPA
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A voiced palatal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɟ⟩, a barred dotless ⟨j⟩ that was initially created by turning the type for a lowercase letter ⟨f⟩.
| Voiced palatal plosive | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ɟ | |||
| IPA number | 108 | ||
| Audio sample | |||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) | ɟ | ||
| Unicode (hex) | U+025F | ||
| X-SAMPA | J\ | ||
| Braille | |||
| |||
If a distinction is necessary, a voiced alveolo-palatal plosive may be transcribed ⟨d̠ʲ⟩ (retracted and palatalized [d]) or ⟨ɟ᫈⟩ (advanced [ɟ], depending on the linguistic analysis of that sound. There is also a para-IPA letter ⟨ȡ⟩ that is used primarily in Sinological phonetic notation.
[ɟ] is a less common sound worldwide than the voiced postalveolar affricate [d͡ʒ] because it is difficult to get the tongue to touch just the hard palate without also touching the back part of the alveolar ridge.[1]
It is common for the symbol ⟨ɟ⟩ to be used to transcribe a palatalized voiced velar plosive [ɡʲ] or, as often in the Indo-Aryan languages, a postalveolar affricate [dʒ] – especially in phonemic notation. The latter may be appropriate when the place of articulation needs to be specified but the distinction between plosive and affricate is not contrastive, or simply for a cleaner transcription.
Features

Features of a voiced palatal stop:
- Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also oral, with no nasal outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely, and the consonant is a plosive.
- Its place of articulation is palatal, which means it is articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised to the hard palate.
- Alveolo-palatal variant is articulated also with the blade of the tongue at or 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
Palatal or alveolo-palatal
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albanian[2] | gjuha | [ˈɟuha] | 'tongue' | Merged with [d͡ʒ] in Gheg Albanian and some speakers of Tosk Albanian.[3] | |
| Arabic | Some Northern Yemeni dialects[4] | جمل | [ˈɟamal] | 'camel' | Corresponds to [d͡ʒ ~ ʒ ~ ɡ ~ j] in other varieties. See Arabic phonology |
| Rural and some urban Sudanese speakers[4] | |||||
| Upper Egypt[4] | |||||
| Aramaic | some Urmian & Koine speakers | ܓܒ̣ܪܐ/gavrɑ | [ɟoːrɑ] | 'husband' or 'man' lit. (male) person | Corresponds to /ɡ/ or /d͡ʒ/ in other dialects. |
| some Northern speakers | [ɟaʊrɑ] | ||||
| Azerbaijani | گۆنش/günəş | [ɟyˈnæʃ] | 'sun' | ||
| Basque | anddere | [äɲɟe̞ɾe̞] | 'doll' | ||
| Breton | Gwenedeg | gwenn | [ɟɥɛ̃n] | 'white' | Realization of /ɡ/ before front vowels. |
| Bulgarian | гьол | [ɟoɫ] | 'swamp' | Palatalized [g] in Standard Bulgarian, may also be realized as [ɡj] by some speakers. See Bulgarian phonology | |
| Catalan | Majorcan[5][6] | guix | [ˈɟi̞ɕ] | 'chalk' | Corresponds to /ɡ/ in other varieties. See Catalan phonology |
| Corsican | fighjulà | [viɟɟuˈla] | 'to watch' | ||
| Czech | dělit | ⓘ | 'to divide' | Alveolo-palatal.[7] See Czech phonology | |
| Dinka | jir | [ɟir] | 'blunt' | ||
| Ega[8] | [ɟé] | 'become numerous' | |||
| Friulian | gjat | [ɟat] | 'cat' | ||
| Ganda | jjajja | [ɟːaɟːa] | 'grandfather' | ||
| Hausa | gyara | [ɟːarːa] | 'repair' | ||
| Hungarian[9] | gyám | [ɟäːm] | 'guardian' | See Hungarian phonology | |
| Irish | Gaeilge | [ˈɡeːlʲɟə] | 'Irish language' | See Irish phonology | |
| Latvian | ģimene | [ˈɟime̞ne̞] | 'family' | See Latvian phonology | |
| Livonian | kīņḑõl | [ˈkiːɲɟəl] | 'candle' | ||
| Macedonian | раѓање | [ˈraɟaɲɛ] | 'birth' | See Macedonian phonology | |
| Malay | Kelantan-Pattani | تراجڠ/terajang | [tə.ɣa.ɟɛ̃ː] | 'kick' | See Kelantan-Pattani Malay |
| Munji | ڱب | [ɟɪb] | 'lost' | ||
| Norwegian | Central[10] | fadder | [fɑɟːeɾ] | 'godparent' | See Norwegian phonology |
| Northern[10] | |||||
| Occitan | Auvergnat | diguèt | [ɟiˈɡɛ] | 'said' (3rd pers. sing.) | See Occitan phonology |
| Limousin | dissèt | [ɟiˈʃɛ] | |||
| Pannonian Rusyn | Дюрдьов | [ˈɟurɟɔw] | 'Đurđevo' | Only occurs in loanwords; Old Slovak ď becomes дз in native inherits. | |
| Pitjantjatjara | Pitjantjatjara | [ˈpɪɟanɟaɟaɾa] | See Pitjantjatjara dialect | ||
| Sicilian | travagghju | [ʈɽɑ̝ˈväɟ.ɟʊ̠] or [ʈ͡ʂɑ̝ˈväɟ.ɟʊ̠] | 'job, task' | ||
| Slovak | ďaleký | [ˈɟ̟äɫe̞kiː] | 'far' | Alveolo-palatal.[11][12] See Slovak phonology | |
| Spanish | ya | [ˈɟa] | 'already' | Realization of /ʝ/, may also be realized as [ɟʝ] in onset or after nasal consonant. See Spanish phonology | |
| Turkish | güneş | ⓘ | 'sun' | See Turkish phonology | |
| Vietnamese | North-central dialect | da | [ɟa˧] | 'skin' | See Vietnamese phonology |
| Wu | Taizhou dialect | 共/gion6 | [ɟyoŋ] | 'together' | |
Post-palatal
| Voiced post-palatal or pre-velar plosive | |
|---|---|
| ɟ | |
| ɡ᫈ |
There is also a voiced post-palatal or pre-velar plosive in some languages, which is articulated slightly more back than the place of articulation of the prototypical palatal consonant but not as back as the prototypical velar consonant. The IPA does not have a separate symbol for that sound, which can be transcribed as ⟨ɟ̠⟩, ⟨ɟ⟩ (both symbols denote a retracted ⟨ɟ⟩), ⟨ɡ̟⟩, ⟨ɡ᫈⟩ (both symbols denote an advanced ⟨ɡ⟩), or ⟨ɡʲ⟩ (palatalized ⟨ɡ⟩, though this is more ambiguous than the others; see below).
Features
- Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also oral, with no nasal outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely, and the consonant is a plosive.
- Its place of articulation is post-palatal (or pre-velar; also called palato-velar, retracted palatal, backed palatal, advanced velar or fronted velar), which means it is articulated between the position of palatal consonants and velar consonants. Palatalized velar consonants may be the same, but "palatalized" may also simply mean a palatal approximant-like release.
- 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
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Catalan[13] | guix | [ˈɡ̟i̞ɕ] | 'chalk' | Allophone of /ɡ/ before front vowels when not preceded by a vowel.[13] See Catalan phonology | |
| English[14][15] | geese | ⓘ | 'geese' | Allophone of /ɡ/ before front vowels and /j/.[14][15] See English phonology | |
| Greek[16] | μετάγγιση/metággisi | [me̞ˈtɐŋ̟ɟ̠is̠i] | 'transfusion' | Post-palatal.[16] See Modern Greek phonology | |
| Italian | Standard[17] | ghianda | [ˈɡ̟jän̪ːd̪ä] | 'acorn' | Post-palatal; allophone of /ɡ/ before /i, e, ɛ, j/.[17] See Italian phonology |
| Japanese | 銀/gin | ⓘ | 'silver' | ||
| Portuguese | amiguinho | [ɐmiˈɡ̟ĩɲu] | 'little buddy' | Allophone of /ɡ/ before front vowels. See Portuguese phonology | |
| Romanian[18] | ghimpe | [ˈɡ̟impe̞] | 'thorn' | Both an allophone of /ɡ/ before /i, e, j/ and the phonetic realization of /ɡʲ/.[18] See Romanian phonology | |
| Russian | Standard[19] | герб/gerb | [ɡ̟e̞rp] | 'coat of arms' | Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɡʲ⟩. See Russian phonology |
| Spanish[20] | guía | [ˈɡ̟i.ä] | 'guidebook' | Allophone of /ɡ/ before front vowels when not preceded by a vowel.[20] See Spanish phonology | |
| Yanyuwa[21] | [ɡ̠uɡ̟uɭu] | 'sacred' | Contrasts plain and prenasalized versions. | ||
