ʼʃ vs ʒ

Voiceless Palato-Alveolar Sibilant Fricative vs Voiced Palato-Alveolar Sibilant Fricative

How these sounds differ

ʼʃ

Voiceless Palato-Alveolar Sibilant Fricative

Voicing: voiceless
Place: palato-alveolar
Manner: sibilant fricative
Class: consonant
In languages: 0 / 500

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Voiced Palato-Alveolar Sibilant Fricative

Voicing: voiced
Place: palato-alveolar
Manner: sibilant fricative
Class: consonant
In languages: 88 / 500

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Cross-linguistic distribution

Languages with ʼʃ

Languages with both

Languages with ʒ

0 languages in our database contrast both sounds as distinct phonemes. Languages that have one but not the other tend to merge them into a single phoneme — meaning speakers of those languages often struggle to hear the distinction when learning a language that contrasts them.

Has ʒ, not ʼʃ (20)

Pashto Indo-European Persian Indo-European Breton Indo-European Songhai Songhay Luvale Atlantic-Congo Dagbani Atlantic-Congo Moroccan Arabic Afro-Asiatic Margi Afro-Asiatic Angas Afro-Asiatic Apinaye Nuclear-Macro-Je Ocaina Huitotoan Mixtec Otomanguean Mazahua Otomanguean Dakota Siouan Navaho Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit Aleut Eskimo-Aleut Atayal Austronesian Kabardian Abkhaz-Adyge Lak Nakh-Daghestanian Zuberoan Basque Basque