Voiced retroflex affricate

The voiced retroflex sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is $\langle&thinsp;\rangle$, sometimes simplified to $\langle&thinsp;\rangle$. It occurs in such languages as Polish (the laminal affricate dż) and Northwest Caucasian languages (apical).

Some scolars transcribe the laminal variant of this sound as, even though it is not palatalized. In such cases the voiced palato-alveolar affricate is transcribed.