Sj-sound

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Voiceless palatal-velar fricative (Sj-sound)
ɧ
IPA Number	175
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɧ
Unicode (hex)	U+0267
X-SAMPA	x\
Image

The sj-sound (Swedish: sj-ljudet [ˈɧêːˌjʉːdɛt]) is a voiceless fricative phoneme found in the sound system of most dialects of Swedish. It has a variety of realisations, whose precise phonetic characterisation is a matter of debate, but which usually feature distinct labialization. The sound is represented in Swedish orthography by a number of spellings, including the digraph ⟨sj⟩ from which the common Swedish name for the sound is derived, as well as ⟨stj⟩, ⟨skj⟩, and (before front vowels) ⟨sk⟩. The sound should not be confused with the Swedish tj-sound /ɕ/, often spelled ⟨tj⟩, ⟨kj⟩, or (before front vowels) ⟨k⟩.

These sounds are transcribed ⟨ɧ⟩ in the International Phonetic Alphabet. The International Phonetic Association (IPA) describes them as "simultaneous [ʃ] and [x]", but this realization is not attested, and phoneticians doubt that such a realization actually occurs in any language.^[1]
Other descriptive labels include:

• Voiceless postalveolo-velar fricative
• Voiceless palatal-velar fricative
• Voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative
• Voiceless postalveolar and velar fricative
• Voiceless coarticulated velar and palatoalveolar fricative

The closest sound found in English, as well as many other languages, is the voiceless postalveolar fricative [ʃ] (Swedish words with the sound often correspond to English words with "sh", such as "shield", "shoot"), although usually the closest audible approximation is the voiceless labialized velar approximant [ʍ] found in some English dialects. Regionally, it varies from being more [ʍ]-like in the standard speech, to being more [ʃ]-like in northern Sweden and Finland. The tj-sound (which often corresponds to English words with "ch", such as "chicken", "church") remains distinct, varying from more [ʃ]-like (i.e., /ɕ/) in the standard speech to more [tʃ]-like in northern Sweden and Finland.