The voiced retroflex sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spokenlanguages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨d̠͡ʐ ⟩, sometimes simplified to ⟨dʐ ⟩ or ⟨ꭦ ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is dz`. Its apical variant is ⟨ɖ̺͡ʐ̺ ⟩ and laminal variant ⟨ɖ̻͡ʐ̻ ⟩. It occurs in such languages as Polish (the laminal affricate dż) and Northwest Caucasian languages (apical).
Its manner of articulation is sibilantaffricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the air flow entirely, then directing it with the tongue to the sharp edge of the teeth, causing high-frequency turbulence.
Its manner of articulation is affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the airflow entirely, then allowing air flow through a constricted channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
Its place of articulation is retroflex, which prototypically means it is articulated subapical (with the tip of the tongue curled up), but more generally, it means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized. That is, besides the prototypical subapical articulation, the tongue can be apical (pointed) or, in some fricatives, laminal (flat).
Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
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.
Landau, Ernestina; Lončarić, Mijo; Horga, Damir; Škarić, Ivo (1999), "Croatian", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 66–69, ISBN978-0-521-65236-0
