Voiceless palatal plosive

A voiceless palatal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨c⟩.

If distinction is necessary, a voiceless alveolo-palatal plosive may be transcribed ⟨t̠ʲ⟩ (retracted and palatalized [t]) or ⟨c̟⟩ (advanced [c], depending on the linguistic analysis of that sound. There is also a para-IPA letter ⟨ȶ⟩ that is used primarily in Sinological phonetic notation.

It is common for the symbol ⟨c⟩ to be used to transcribe a palatalized voiced velar plosive [kʲ] or, as often in the Indo-Aryan languages, a postalveolar affricate [tʃ] – especially in phonemic notation. The latter may be appropriate when the place of articulation needs to be specified but the distinction between plosive and affricate is not contrastive, or simply for a cleaner transcription.