Voiceless palatal stop

The voiceless palatal stop or voiceless palatal plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in some vocal languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨c⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is c.

If distinction is necessary, the voiceless alveolo-palatal stop may be transcribed as ⟨c̟⟩ (advanced ⟨c⟩) or ⟨t̠ʲ⟩ (retracted and palatalized ⟨t⟩), but these are essentially equivalent, because the contact includes both the blade and body (but not the tip) of the tongue. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are c_+ and t_-' or t_-_j, respectively. There is also a non-IPA letter ⟨ȶ⟩ ("t", plus the curl found in the symbols for alveolo-palatal sibilant fricatives ⟨ɕ, ʑ⟩), used especially in Sinological circles.

It is common for the phonetic symbol ⟨c⟩ to be used to represent voiceless postalveolar affricate [t͡ʃ] or other similar affricates, for example in the Indic languages. This may be considered appropriate when the place of articulation needs to be specified and the distinction between stop and affricate is not contrastive.

There is also the voiceless post-palatal stop in some languages, which is articulated slightly more back compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical voiceless palatal stop, though not as back as the prototypical voiceless velar stop. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for that sound, though it can be transcribed as ⟨c̠⟩ (retracted ⟨c⟩) or ⟨k̟⟩ (advanced ⟨k⟩). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are c_- and k_+, respectively.

Especially in broad transcription, the voiceless post-palatal stop may be transcribed as a palatalized voiceless velar stop (⟨kʲ⟩ in the IPA, k' or k_j in X-SAMPA).