Alveolo-palatal fricative is a class of consonants in some oral languages. The consonants are sibilants, a variety of fricative. Their place of articulation is postalveolar. They differ in voicing.

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The voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative and voiced alveolo-palatal fricative are written ⟨ɕ⟩ and ⟨ʑ⟩ in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Features of alveolo-palatal fricatives:^[1]

• 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.
• Its place of articulation is alveolo-palatal. This means that:
  • Its place of articulation is postalveolar, meaning that the tongue contacts the roof of the mouth in the area behind the alveolar ridge (the gum line).
  • Its tongue shape is laminal, meaning that it is the tongue blade that contacts the roof of the mouth.
  • It is heavily palatalized, meaning that the middle of the tongue is bowed and raised towards the hard palate.
• 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 pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

• Alveolo-palatal consonant
• Alveolar consonant
• Palatal consonant