voiceless palato-alveolar affricate

A voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant affricate or voiceless domed postalveolar sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English-speakers as the "ch" sound in "chip".

This sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨tʃ⟩, ⟨t͡ʃ⟩, ⟨t͜ʃ⟩, or, in broad transcription, ⟨c⟩. There is also a ligature ⟨ʧ⟩, which was retired by the International Phonetic Association but is still used. An alternative commonly used in Americanist tradition is ⟨č⟩.