An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant sequence. English has two affricate phonemes, and , generally spelled ch and j, respectively.
Examples The English sounds spelled "ch" and "j" (broadly transcribed as and in the IPA), German and Italian z and Italian z are typical affricates, and sounds like these are fairly common in the world's languages, as are other affricates with similar sounds, such as those in Polish and Chinese. However, voiced affricates other than are relatively uncommon. For several places of articulation they are not attested at all.
Much less common are labiodental affricates, such as in German, Kinyarwanda and Izi, or velar affricates, such as in Tswana (written kg) or in High Alemannic Swiss German dialects. Worldwide, relatively few languages have affricates in these positions even though the corresponding stop consonants, and , are common or virtually universal. Also less common are alveolar affricates where the fricative release is lateral, such as the sound found in Nahuatl and Navajo. Some other Athabaskan languages, such as Dene Suline, have unaspirated, aspirated, and ejective series of affricates whose release may be dental, alveolar, postalveolar, or lateral: , , , , , , , , , , , and .
Notation Affricates are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by a combination of two letters, one for the stop element and the other for the fricative element. In order to clarify that these form a single consonant, a tie bar may be used. The tie bar appears most commonly above the two letters, but may be placed under them if it fits better there, or simply because it is more legible.For example, in Thus:
or .
A less common notation indicates the release of the affricate with a superscript:
This is derived from the IPA convention of indicating other releases with a superscript. However, this convention is more typically used for a fricated release that is too brief to be considered a true affricate.
Though they are no longer standard IPA, ligatures are available in Unicode for the sibilant affricates, which remain in common use: .
The remaining coronal affricates were added to Unicode 18.0 in 2026: ⟨ , , , ⟩ for [t͜θ] [d͜ð], [t͜ɬ] [d͡ɮ], [t͡ꞎ] [d͡𝼅], [t͜ʆ] [d͡ʓ].
Ligatures for the non-coronal affricates have also been used.The Universal Phonetic Symbol Set in China [中国通用音标符号集]. Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Language and Writing Standards no. GF 3007-2006.
Any of these notations can be used to distinguish an affricate from a sequence of plosive plus fricative, which is contrastive in languages such as Polish. However, in languages where there is no such distinction within a syllable, such as English or Turkish, a simple sequence of letters such as is commonly used, with no overt indication that they form an affricate. In such cases the syllable boundary may be written to distinguish the plosive-fricative sequence in petshop from the similar affricate in ketchup .
In other phonetic transcription systems, such as the Americanist system, affricates may be transcribed with single letters. The affricate may be transcribed as or ; as , or ; as or ; as , or ; as ; and as .
Single letters may also be used with phonemic transcription in IPA: and are sometimes transcribed with the symbols for the palatal stops, and , for example in the IPA Handbook.
Contrast with stop–fricative sequences In some languages, affricates contrast phonemically with stop–fricative sequences at the same place of articulation: Polish affricate in czysta 'clean (f.)' versus stop–fricative in trzysta 'three hundred'; or affricate in dżem 'jam' versus stop–fricative in drzem 'snooze (2nd person singular imperative)'; Klallam affricate in k'ʷə́nc 'look at me' versus stop–fricative in k'ʷə́nts 'he looks at it'.
The exact phonetic difference varies between languages. In stop–fricative sequences, the stop has a release burst before the fricative starts (which in the case of Klallam is aspirated ), but in affricates, the fricative element is the release. Stop–fricatives can be distinguished acoustically from affricates by the rise time of the frication noise, which is shorter for affricates.
In English, and (nuts, nods) are stop–fricative sequences. They most often contain a morpheme boundary (for example, nuts = nut + s), though there are exceptions such as waltz and adze. The affricates and , on the other hand, do not allow morpheme boundaries. The phonemic distinction in English between the affricate and the stop–fricative sequence (found across syllable boundaries) can be observed by minimal pairs such as the following:
worst ship → worse chip →
The in 'worst ship' may be elided: , but that of chip is not.
Geminate affricates When affricates are geminated, it is usually the duration of the plosive closure that is lengthened, not that of the frication. For example, in most languages is pronounced , not *.Joshua Wilbur (2014) A Grammar of Pite Saami, p 47 This is the case with Italian and Japanese. However, Polish has been reported to be more variable, with phonological gemination through rearticulation of the affricate, lengthening of the plosive closure or – less commonly – lengthening of the fricative release, so that may be realized as , or .
List of affricates In the case of coronals, the symbols are normally used for the stop portion of the affricate regardless of place. For example, is commonly seen for , for and for .
The exemplar languages are ones that have been reported to have these sounds, but in several cases, they may need confirmation.
Sibilant affricates
Voiceless Languages Voiced Languages Voiceless alveolar affricate Albanian cGeorgian ცGerman z, tz, cJapanese つ/ツ KʼicheʼMandarin z (pinyin)Italian zPashto Voiced alveolar affricate Albanian xGeorgian ძJapanese (some dialects)Italian zPashto Voiceless dental sibilant affricate Hungarian cMacedonian цSerbo-Croatian c/цPolish c Voiced dental sibilant affricate Hungarian dzMacedonian ѕBulgarian дзPolish dz Voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate Japanese ち/チ Mandarin j (pinyin)Polish ć, ciSerbo-Croatian ć/ћThai จVietnamese ch Voiced alveolo-palatal affricate Japanese じ/ジ, ぢ/ヂ Polish dź, dziSerbo-Croatian đ/ђKorean ㅈ Voiceless palato-alveolar affricate Albanian çEnglish ch, tchGeorgian ჩGerman tschHungarian csIndonesian cItalian ci, ceLatvian čLithuanian čMaltese ċPersian Romanian ci, ceSpanish chTurkish çWalloon tch Voiced palato-alveolar affricate Albanian xhArabic English j, gGeorgian ჯHungarian dzsIndonesian jItalian gi, geLatvian džLithuanian džMaltese ġRomanian gi, geTurkish cWalloon dj Voiceless retroflex affricate Mandarin zh (pinyin)Polish czSerbo-Croatian č/чSlovak čVietnamese tr Voiced retroflex affricate Polish dżSerbo-Croatian dž/џSlovak dž The Northwest Caucasian languages Abkhaz and Ubykh both contrast sibilant affricates at four places of articulation: alveolar, postalveolar, alveolo-palatal and retroflex. They also distinguish voiceless, voiced, and ejective affricates at each of these.
When a language has only one type of affricate, it is usually a sibilant; this is the case in e.g. Arabic (), most dialects of Spanish (), and Thai ().
Non-sibilant affricates
Sound (voiceless) IPA Languages Sound (voiced) IPA Languages Voiceless bilabial affricate Present allophonically in Kaingang and Taos. Not reported as a phoneme in any natural language. Voiced bilabial affricate Allophonic in Banjun and Shipibo Voiceless labiodental affricate German, Teke, XiNkuna Tsonga Voiced labiodental affricate Teke, XiNkuna Tsonga Voiceless dental non-sibilant affricate New York English, Luo, Dene Suline, Cun, some varieties of Venetian and other North Italian dialects Voiced dental non-sibilant affricate New York, Dublin, and Maori English, Dene Suline Voiceless retroflex non-sibilant affricate Mapudungun , Malagasy Voiced retroflex non-sibilant affricate Malagasy Voiceless palatal affricate Skolt Sami (younger speakers), Hungarian (casual speech), Albanian (transcribed as [c]), allophonically in Kaingang Voiced palatal affricate Skolt Sami (younger speakers), Hungarian (casual speech), Albanian (transcribed as [ɟ]), some Spanish dialects. Not reported to contrast with a voiced palatal plosive Voiceless velar affricate Tswana, High Alemannic German Voiced velar affricate Allophonic in some English English Voiceless uvular affricate Nez Percé, Wolof, Bats, Kabardian, Avar, Tsez. Not reported to contrast with a voiceless uvular plosive in natural languages. Voiced uvular affricate Reported from the Raivavae dialect of Austral and Ekagi with a velar lateral allophone before front vowels. Voiceless pharyngeal affricate Haida. Not reported to contrast with an epiglottal stop Voiced pharyngeal affricate Somali. Pronounced or sometimes with weak epiglottal trilling initially, otherwise realized as Voiceless glottal affricate Allophonic in Received Pronunciation Voiced glottal affricate Not attested in any natural language
Lateral affricates
Sound (voiceless) IPA Languages Sound (voiced) IPA Languages Voiceless alveolar lateral affricate Cherokee, Nahuatl, Navajo, Tswana, etc. Voiced alveolar lateral affricate Gwich'in, Sandawe. Voiceless retroflex lateral affricate Bhadrawahi, apical post-alveolar. Realization of phonemic in Kamkata-vari and Kamvari. Voiced retroflex lateral affricate Bhadrawahi, apical post-alveolar. Realization of phonemic in Kamkata-vari and Kamviri. Voiceless palatal lateral affricate as ejective in Dahalo; in free variation with in Hadza. Voiced palatal lateral affricate Allophonic in Sandawe. Voiceless velar lateral affricate as a prevelar in Archi and as an ejective in Zulu, also exist in the Laghuu language. Voiced velar lateral affricate Laghuu.
Trilled affricates
Sound (voiceless) IPA Languages Sound (voiced) IPA Languages Voiceless trilled bilabial affricate Not attested in any natural language. Voiced trilled bilabial affricate Kele and Avava. Reported only in an allophone of [mb] before [o] or [u]. Voiceless trilled alveolar affricate Ngkoth. Voiced trilled alveolar affricate Nias. Fijian and Avava also have this sound after [n]. Voiceless epiglottal affricate Hydaburg Haida. Voiced epiglottal affricate Hydaburg Haida. Cognate to Southern Haida , Masset Haida .
Itene, Oro Win, Sangtam, and Wari' have a dental stop with bilabial trilled release .
Heterorganic affricates Although most affricates are homorganic, Navajo and Chiricahua Apache have a heterorganic alveolar-velar affricate . Itene, Oro Win, Sangtam, and Wari' have a voiceless dental bilabially trilled affricate (see Trilled affricate). Blackfoot has and . Other heterorganic affricates are reported for Northern Sotho and other Bantu languages such as Phuthi, which has alveolar–labiodental affricates and , and Sesotho, which has bilabial–palatoalveolar affricates and . Djeoromitxi has and .
Phonation, coarticulation and other variants The coronal and dorsal places of articulation attested as ejectives as well: . Several Khoisan languages such as Taa are reported to have voiced ejective affricates, but these are actually pre-voiced: . Affricates are also commonly aspirated: , murmured: , and prenasalized: (as in Hmong). Labialized, palatalized, velarized, and pharyngealized affricates are also common. Affricates may also have phonemic length, that is, affected by a chroneme, as in Italian and Karelian.
Phonological representation