Alveolar ejective fricative

Alveolar ejective fricative
sʼ
IPA number	132 401
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	s​ʼ
Unicode (hex)	U+0073 U+02BC
X-SAMPA	s_>
Kirshenbaum	s`
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The alveolar ejective fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨sʼ⟩.

Features

Features of the alveolar ejective fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is sibilant fricative, which means it is generally produced by channeling air flow along a groove in the back of the tongue up to the place of articulation, at which point it is focused against the sharp edge of the nearly clenched teeth, causing high-frequency turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
• Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is ejective (glottalic egressive), which means the air is forced out by pumping the glottis upward.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Adyghe	Shapsug	сӏэ	[sʼa]	'name'	Corresponds to [tsʼ] in other dialects.
Ganza		[sʼásʼà]		‘fat, thick’
Hausa					Allophone of /tsʼ/ in some dialects
Lakota
Tlingit		sʼeek	[sʼiːk]	'bear'
Upper Necaxa Totonac		[ˈsʼa̰ta̰]		'small'

See also

• List of phonetic topics