Voiced retroflex affricate

The voiced retroflex sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨d̠&#865;ʐ&thinsp;⟩, sometimes simplified to ⟨dʐ&thinsp;⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is. Its apical variant is ⟨ɖ̺͡ʐ̺&thinsp;⟩ and laminal variant ⟨ɖ̻͡ʐ̻&thinsp;⟩. It occurs in such languages as Polish (the laminal affricate dż) and Northwest Caucasian languages (apical).

Features
Features of the voiced retroflex affricate:


 * Its place of articulation is retroflex, which prototypically means, but more generally, it means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized. That is, besides the prototypical subapical articulation, the tongue contact can be apical (pointed) or laminal (flat).