Voiceless palato-alveolar affricate

The voiceless palato-alveolar affricate or domed postalveolar affricate is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with $\langle\rangle$, $\langle\rangle$ or $\langle\rangle$ (formerly the ligature $\langle\rangle$), or in broad transcription with $\langle\rangle$. It is familiar to English speakers as the "ch" sound in "chip".

Historically, this sound often derives from a former voiceless velar stop (as in English, Slavic languages and Romance languages), or a voiceless dental stop by way of palatalization, especially next to a front vowel.

Some scholars use the symbol to transcribe the laminal variant of the voiceless retroflex affricate. In such cases, the voiceless palato-alveolar affricate is transcribed.