Alveolo-palatal consonant

Image:Alveolopalatal fricative.png In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants are palatalized postalveolar fricatives, articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate. They are similar to palato-alveolar and retroflex fricatives, but are laminal rather than apical or sub-apical as the retroflex fricatives are, and are more fully palatalized than the "domed" palato-alveolar fricatives are. Alveolo-palatal consonants can be found in Chinese languages such as Mandarin, Hakka, and Wu, as well as Abkhaz, Polish, Ubykh, Japanese, Korean, and Kinnauri. The alveolo-palatal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

IPA	Description	Example
IPA	Description	Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
Image:Xsampa-sslash.png	Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative	Mandarin	小 (xiǎo)	[Template:IPATemplate:IPA]	small
Image:Xsampa-zslash.png	Voiced alveolo-palatal fricative	Hungarian	zseb	[Template:IPATemplate:IPA]	pocket

Note: The table displays only fricatives. Affricates (Template:IPA) are also common. In sinological circles symbols for alveolo-palatal stops (Template:IPA), nasals (Template:IPA), and liquids (Template:IPA) are used, but they often represent simple palatal or palatalized consonants, and thus are not recognized by the IPA.

See also