Voiceless palatal fricative

The voiceless palatal fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ç⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is. It is the non-sibilant equivalent of the voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative.

The symbol ç is the letter c with a cedilla (◌̧), as used to spell French and Portuguese words such as façade and ação. However, the sound represented by the symbol ç in French and Portuguese orthography is not a voiceless palatal fricative; the cedilla, instead, changes the usual, the voiceless velar plosive, when ⟨c⟩ is employed before ⟨a⟩ or ⟨o⟩, to , the voiceless alveolar fricative.

Palatal fricatives are relatively rare phonemes, and only 5% of the world's languages have as a phoneme. The sound further occurs as an allophone of (e.g. in German or Greek), or, in other languages, of  in the vicinity of front vowels.

There is also the voiceless post-palatal fricative in some languages, which is articulated slightly farther back compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical voiceless palatal fricative, though not as back as the prototypical voiceless velar fricative. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for that sound, though it can be transcribed as ⟨ç̠⟩, ⟨ç˗⟩ (both symbols denote a retracted ⟨ç⟩) or ⟨x̟⟩ (advanced ⟨x⟩). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are  and , respectively.

Especially in broad transcription, the voiceless post-palatal fricative may be transcribed as a palatalized voiceless velar fricative (⟨xʲ⟩ in the IPA,  or   in X-SAMPA).

Some scholars also posit the voiceless palatal approximant distinct from the fricative, found in a few spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨&thinsp;j̊&thinsp;⟩, the voiceless homologue of the voiced palatal approximant.

The palatal approximant can in many cases be considered the semivocalic equivalent of the voiceless variant of the close front unrounded vowel. The sound is essentially an Australian English $⟨y⟩$ (as in year) pronounced strictly without vibration of the vocal cords.

It is found as a phoneme in Jalapa Mazatec and Washo as well as in Kildin Sami.

Features
Features of the voiceless palatal fricative:

The otherwise identical post-palatal variant is articulated slightly behind the hard palate, making it sound slightly closer to the velar.