What Are Fricatives and Affricates?

Robert Thorne
Robert Thorne
• • 5 min read

Fricatives and Affricates Fricatives Are Characterised by a “Hissing” Sound Which Is Produced by the Air Escaping Through a Small Passage in the Mouth...

What Are Fricatives and Affricates?

Fricatives and Affricates
Fricatives are characterised by a “hissing” sound which is produced by the air escaping through a small passage in the mouth. Affricates begin as plosives and end as fricatives. These are homorganic sounds, that is, the same articulator produces both sound, the plosive and the fricative.

What are the fricative sounds?

The nine English fricative sounds:
  • v sound /v/
  • f sound /f/
  • voiced th sound /ð/
  • unvoiced th sound /θ/
  • z sound /z/
  • s sound /s/
  • zh sound /ʒ/
  • sh sound /ʃ/

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What are Affricates in speech?

Affricate, also called semiplosive, a consonant sound that begins as a stop (sound with complete obstruction of the breath stream) and concludes with a fricative (sound with incomplete closure and a sound of friction).

Robert Thorne

Robert Thorne

Automotive & Future Transportation Editor
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Robert Thorne covers electric vehicle innovations, autonomous driving systems, global mobility trends, and automotive engineering developments.