Karelian actually uses /z/ as a
Voiced Alveolar Fricative . (In Finnish, ''z'' is a foreign spelling for /ts/.) The plosives /b/, /d/ and /g/ may be voiced. (Most Finnish speakers refuse to differentiate these from /p/, /t/, and /k/.)
The letters ''č'', ''š'' and ''ž'', or "hat"-letters, are postalveolar, i.e. pronounced like
Háček s. They are replaceable with the digraphs ''ch'', ''sh'' and ''zh'' — even so that ''ruočči'' becomes ''ruochchi''. The sounds represented by ''č, š'' and ''ž'' are native to Karelian, but not Finland Finnish. Finnish speakers do not distinguish /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ from /s/, nor /tʃ/ from /ts/ (medial) or /s/ (initial). For example, the native Karelian words ''kiža'', ''kucu'', ''čoma'', ''liedžu'' and ''seiččemän'' are ''kisa'', ''kutsu'', ''soma'', ''lietsu'' and ''seitsemän'' in standard Finnish.
