Retroflex consonant
Encyclopedia
A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant
where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge
and the hard palate
. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology
. Other terms occasionally encountered are domal and cacuminal.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet
, retroflex consonants are indicated with a hook in the bottom right, such as [ʂ ʐ ʈ ɖ ɳ ɭ ɽ ɻ]. Alternatively, especially for those sounds with a relatively forward articulation (e.g. in the or postalveolar region rather than the hard palate
), they can be indicated with a retracted diacritic (underbar); this occurs especially for [s̱ ẕ]. (Other sounds indicated this way, such as [ṉ ḻ ḏ], tend to refer to alveolo-palatal rather than retroflex consonants.)
The first three types of sounds above have a convex tongue shape, which gives them an additional secondary articulation
of palatalization
. The last type has a groove running down the center line of the tongue, which gives it a strongly hissing quality. The retroflex sounds, however, have a flat or concave shape, with no associated palatalization, and no groove running down the tongue. The term "retroflex", in fact, literally means "bent back" (concave), although consonants with a flat tongue shape are commonly considered retroflex as well.
s, come in several varieties, depending on the shape of the tongue. The tongue may be either flat or concave, or even with the tip curled back. The point of contact on the tongue may be with the tip , with the blade , or with the underside of the tongue . The point of contact on the roof of the mouth may be with the alveolar ridge
, or the hard palate
. Finally, both sibilant ( or ) and nonsibilant consonants can have a retroflex articulation.
The greatest variety of combinations occurs with sibilants, because for these, small changes in tongue shape and position cause significant changes in the resulting sound. Retroflex sounds in general have a duller, lower-pitched sound than other alveolar or postalveolar consonants, and especially the sibilants. The farther back the point of contact with the roof of the mouth, the more concave is the shape of the tongue, and the duller (lower pitched) is the sound, with sub-apical consonants being the most extreme.
The main combinations normally observed are:
The sub-apical sounds are sometimes called "true retroflex" because of the curled-back shape of the tongue, while the other sounds sometimes go by other names. For example, Ladefoged
and Maddieson
prefer to call the laminal post-alveolar sounds "flat post-alveolar", and the apical alveolar sounds are often referred to simply as "apico-alveolar" (which is ambiguous with, and often confused with, other apical alveolar sounds such as the apical variety of the voiceless alveolar sibilant (English [s]).
s, with most of the rest having both stops and continuants. Retroflex consonants are concentrated in the Indo-Aryan
and Dravidian languages
of the Indian subcontinent
.
The Nuristani languages
of eastern Afghanistan
also have retroflex consonants. Among Eastern Iranian languages
, they are common in Pashto
, Wakhi
, Sanglechi-Ishkashimi
, and Munji-Yidgha. They also occur in some other Asian languages such as Mandarin Chinese, Javanese
and Vietnamese
. The other major concentration is in the indigenous languages of Australia and the Western Pacific (notably New Caledonia
). Here, most languages have retroflex plosives, nasal
and approximants
.
Retroflex consonants are relatively rare among European languages, occurring for example in Sardinian
, in Sicilian
, some Italian dialects such as Calabrian, Salentino
and Lunigianese
, in most forms of Swedish
and in Norwegian
. In the two latter, a sequence of r plus a coronal consonant may be replaced by the coronal's retroflex equivalent, e.g. the name Martin would be pronounced ['maʈːin] or ['mɑʈːin]. This is sometimes done for several consonants in a row after an r — Hornstull
is pronounced [huːɳʂ'ʈɵlː]). The type also occurs in peninsular Spanish
and in Basque
, although the phonological descriptions of these languages rarely refer to these sounds as "retroflex", preferring the (ambiguous) term "apico-alveolar".
The retroflex approximant /ɻ/ is an allophone
of the alveolar approximant /ɹ/ in many dialects of American English
, particularly in the Midwestern
United States
. Polish and Russian possess retroflex sibilants, but no stops or liquids at this place of articulation.
Retroflex consonants are largely absent from indigenous languages of the Americas with the exception of the extreme south of South America, an area in Southwestern US
as in Hopi
and Papago, and in Alaska
and the Yukon Territory as in the Athabaskan languages
Gwichʼin and Hän
. In African languages retroflex consonants are also very rare, reportedly occurring in a few Nilo-Saharan languages
. In southwest Ethiopia, phonemically distinctive retroflex consonants are found in Bench
and Sheko
, two contiguous, but not closely related, Omotic languages.
There are several retroflex consonants not yet recognized by the IPA. For example, the Iwaidja language
of northern Australia has a retroflex lateral flap
[ɺ̢] ([]) as well as a retroflex tap [ɽ] and retroflex lateral approximant [ɭ]; and the Dravidian language
Toda
has a subapical retroflex lateral fricative
[ɬ̢] ([]) and a retroflexed trill
[ɽ͡r]. Because of the regularity of deriving retroflex symbols from their alveolar counterparts, people will occasionally use a font editor
to create the appropriate symbols for such sounds. (Here they were written with diacritics.) The Ngad'a language
of Flores
has been reported to have a retroflex implosive
[ᶑ], but in this case the expected symbol is coincidentally supported by Unicode. Subapical retroflex clicks occur in Central Juu and in Damin
.
Most languages with retroflex sounds typically have only one retroflex sound with a given manner of articulation
. An exception, however, is the Toda language
, with a two-way distinction among retroflex sibilants between apical (post)alveolar and subapical palatal.
are:
Note: In the International Phonetic Alphabet
, the symbols for retroflex consonants are typically the same as for the alveolar consonant
s, but with the addition of a right-facing hook to the bottom of the symbol. Some linguists restrict these symbols for the "true" retroflex consonants with subapical palatal articulation, and use the alveolar symbols with the obsolete IPA underdot symbol for an apical post-alveolar articulation: [ṭ, ḍ, ṇ, ṣ, ẓ, ḷ, ɾ̣, ɹ̣]. Another solution, more in keeping with the official IPA, would be to use the rhotic diacritic for the apical retroflexes: [t˞, d˞, n˞, s˞, z˞, l˞, ɾ˞, ɹ˞]. Laminal retroflexes, as in Polish and Russian, are often transcribed with a retraction diacritic, as [s̠], etc. Otherwise they are typically but inaccurately transcribed as if they were palato-alveolar, as *[ʃ], etc.
Coronal consonant
Coronal consonants are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical , laminal , domed , or subapical , as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such...
where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge
Alveolar ridge
An alveolar ridge is one of the two jaw ridges either on the roof of the mouth between the upper teeth and the hard palate or on the bottom of the mouth behind the lower teeth. The alveolar ridges contain the sockets of the teeth....
and the hard palate
Hard palate
The hard palate is a thin horizontal bony plate of the skull, located in the roof of the mouth. It spans the arch formed by the upper teeth.It is formed by the palatine process of the maxilla and horizontal plate of palatine bone....
. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology
Indology
Indology is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent , and as such is a subset of Asian studies....
. Other terms occasionally encountered are domal and cacuminal.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
, retroflex consonants are indicated with a hook in the bottom right, such as [ʂ ʐ ʈ ɖ ɳ ɭ ɽ ɻ]. Alternatively, especially for those sounds with a relatively forward articulation (e.g. in the or postalveolar region rather than the hard palate
Hard palate
The hard palate is a thin horizontal bony plate of the skull, located in the roof of the mouth. It spans the arch formed by the upper teeth.It is formed by the palatine process of the maxilla and horizontal plate of palatine bone....
), they can be indicated with a retracted diacritic (underbar); this occurs especially for [s̱ ẕ]. (Other sounds indicated this way, such as [ṉ ḻ ḏ], tend to refer to alveolo-palatal rather than retroflex consonants.)
Compared with other sounds
Retroflex sounds need to be distinguished from other consonants made in the same parts of the mouth (postalveolar, , or ):- the palato-alveolar sounds (e.g. [ʃ ʒ]),such as the sh, ch and "zh" occurring in EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
words like ship, chip and vision - the alveolo-palatal sounds (e.g. [ɕ ʑ]), such as the q, j and x occurring in Mandarin Chinese
- the consonants (e.g. [ç ʝ ɲ]), such as the ch [ç] in GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
ich or the ñ [ɲ] in SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
año - the consonants (e.g. [s z]), such as the s and z occurring in EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
words like sip and zip
The first three types of sounds above have a convex tongue shape, which gives them an additional secondary articulation
Secondary articulation
Secondary articulation refers to co-articulated consonants where the two articulations are not of the same manner. The approximant-like secondary articulation is weaker than the primary, and colors it rather than obscuring it...
of palatalization
Palatalization
In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
. The last type has a groove running down the center line of the tongue, which gives it a strongly hissing quality. The retroflex sounds, however, have a flat or concave shape, with no associated palatalization, and no groove running down the tongue. The term "retroflex", in fact, literally means "bent back" (concave), although consonants with a flat tongue shape are commonly considered retroflex as well.
Types of retroflex consonants
Retroflex consonants, like other coronal consonantCoronal consonant
Coronal consonants are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical , laminal , domed , or subapical , as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such...
s, come in several varieties, depending on the shape of the tongue. The tongue may be either flat or concave, or even with the tip curled back. The point of contact on the tongue may be with the tip , with the blade , or with the underside of the tongue . The point of contact on the roof of the mouth may be with the alveolar ridge
Alveolar ridge
An alveolar ridge is one of the two jaw ridges either on the roof of the mouth between the upper teeth and the hard palate or on the bottom of the mouth behind the lower teeth. The alveolar ridges contain the sockets of the teeth....
, or the hard palate
Hard palate
The hard palate is a thin horizontal bony plate of the skull, located in the roof of the mouth. It spans the arch formed by the upper teeth.It is formed by the palatine process of the maxilla and horizontal plate of palatine bone....
. Finally, both sibilant ( or ) and nonsibilant consonants can have a retroflex articulation.
The greatest variety of combinations occurs with sibilants, because for these, small changes in tongue shape and position cause significant changes in the resulting sound. Retroflex sounds in general have a duller, lower-pitched sound than other alveolar or postalveolar consonants, and especially the sibilants. The farther back the point of contact with the roof of the mouth, the more concave is the shape of the tongue, and the duller (lower pitched) is the sound, with sub-apical consonants being the most extreme.
The main combinations normally observed are:
- Laminal post-alveolar, with a flat tongue. These occur, for example, in in PolishPolish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
cz, sz, ż (rz), dż and Mandarin zh, ch, sh, r. - Apical post-alveolar, with a somewhat concave tongue. These occur, for example, in HindiHindiStandard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
and other Indo-Aryan languagesIndo-Aryan languagesThe Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
. (Hindi has no retroflex sibilants, although some of the other Indo-Aryan languages do.) - Sub-apical palatal, with a highly concave tongue. These occur particularly in the Dravidian languagesDravidian languagesThe Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...
. These are the dullest and lowest-pitched type, and when following a vowel often add strong r-coloring to the vowel, sounding as if an American EnglishAmerican EnglishAmerican English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
r occurs between the vowel and consonant. - Apical alveolar, with a somewhat concave tongue. These occur, for example, in peninsular SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and BasqueBasque languageBasque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
. These sounds don't quite fit on the front-to-back, laminal-to-subapical continuum, with a relatively dull but higher pitched sound.
The sub-apical sounds are sometimes called "true retroflex" because of the curled-back shape of the tongue, while the other sounds sometimes go by other names. For example, Ladefoged
Peter Ladefoged
Peter Nielsen Ladefoged was an English-American linguist and phonetician who traveled the world to document the distinct sounds of endangered languages and pioneered ways to collect and study data . He was active at the universities of Edinburgh, Scotland and Ibadan, Nigeria 1953–61...
and Maddieson
Ian Maddieson
Ian Maddieson is a linguist at UC Berkeley, an Adjunct Professor Emeritus at the University of New Mexico, Vice-President of the International Phonetic Association, and Secretary of the Association for Laboratory Phonology...
prefer to call the laminal post-alveolar sounds "flat post-alveolar", and the apical alveolar sounds are often referred to simply as "apico-alveolar" (which is ambiguous with, and often confused with, other apical alveolar sounds such as the apical variety of the voiceless alveolar sibilant (English [s]).
Occurrence
Although data is not precise, about 20 percent of the world's languages contain retroflex consonants of one sort or another. About half of these possess only retroflex continuantContinuant
A continuant is a sound produced with an incomplete closure of the vocal tract. That is, any sound except a stop or nasal. An affricate is considered to be a complex segment, composed of both a stop and a continuant.-See also:...
s, with most of the rest having both stops and continuants. Retroflex consonants are concentrated in the Indo-Aryan
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
and Dravidian languages
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...
of the Indian subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
.
The Nuristani languages
Nuristani languages
The Nuristani languages are one of the three groups within the Indo-Iranian language family, alongside the much larger Indo-Aryan and Iranian groups. They are spoken primarily in eastern Afghanistan...
of eastern Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
also have retroflex consonants. Among Eastern Iranian languages
Eastern Iranian languages
The Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages emerging in Middle Iranian times .The Avestan language is often classified as early Eastern Iranian. The largest living Eastern Iranian language is Pashto, with some 50 million speakers between the Hindu Kush mountains in...
, they are common in Pashto
Pashto language
Pashto , known as Afghani in Persian and Pathani in Punjabi , is the native language of the indigenous Pashtun people or Afghan people who are found primarily between an area south of the Amu Darya in Afghanistan and...
, Wakhi
Wakhi language
Wakhi is an Indo-European language in the branch of Eastern Iranian language family and is intimately related to other Southeastern Iranian languages in the Pamir languages group.-Classification and Distribution:...
, Sanglechi-Ishkashimi
Ishkashimi language
The Ishkashimi language is one of the Pamir languages of the Southeastern Iranian language group. Its distribution is in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province in Tajikistan, Badakhshan Province in Afghanistan and Chitral region of Pakistan....
, and Munji-Yidgha. They also occur in some other Asian languages such as Mandarin Chinese, Javanese
Javanese language
Javanese language is the language of the Javanese people from the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, in Indonesia. In addition, there are also some pockets of Javanese speakers in the northern coast of western Java...
and Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
. The other major concentration is in the indigenous languages of Australia and the Western Pacific (notably New Caledonia
New Caledonia
New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...
). Here, most languages have retroflex plosives, nasal
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
and approximants
Approximant consonant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...
.
Retroflex consonants are relatively rare among European languages, occurring for example in Sardinian
Sardinian language
Sardinian is a Romance language spoken and written on most of the island of Sardinia . It is considered the most conservative of the Romance languages in terms of phonology and is noted for its Paleosardinian substratum....
, in Sicilian
Sicilian language
Sicilian is a Romance language. Its dialects make up the Extreme-Southern Italian language group, which are spoken on the island of Sicily and its satellite islands; in southern and central Calabria ; in the southern parts of Apulia, the Salento ; and Campania, on the Italian mainland, where it is...
, some Italian dialects such as Calabrian, Salentino
Salentino
The Salentino dialect is the traditional vernacular of the southern Italian provinces of Lecce, Brindisi and part of that of Taranto, known more commonly as the Salento, the extreme southern part of the region of Puglia or the southern "heel" of the Italian peninsula.For socio-political reasons...
and Lunigianese
Lunigiana
The Lunigiana is an historical territory of Italy, which today falls within the provinces of La Spezia and Massa Carrara. Its borders derive from the ancient Roman settlement, later the medieval diocese of Luni, which no longer exists....
, in most forms of Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
and in Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
. In the two latter, a sequence of r plus a coronal consonant may be replaced by the coronal's retroflex equivalent, e.g. the name Martin would be pronounced ['maʈːin] or ['mɑʈːin]. This is sometimes done for several consonants in a row after an r — Hornstull
Hornstull
Hornstull is an area in western Södermalm, Stockholm. Hornstull is actually the name of where the streets Hornsgatan and Långholmsgatan intersect...
is pronounced [huːɳʂ'ʈɵlː]). The type also occurs in peninsular Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and in Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
, although the phonological descriptions of these languages rarely refer to these sounds as "retroflex", preferring the (ambiguous) term "apico-alveolar".
The retroflex approximant /ɻ/ is an allophone
Allophone
In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
of the alveolar approximant /ɹ/ in many dialects of American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
, particularly in the Midwestern
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....
United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Polish and Russian possess retroflex sibilants, but no stops or liquids at this place of articulation.
Retroflex consonants are largely absent from indigenous languages of the Americas with the exception of the extreme south of South America, an area in Southwestern US
Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
as in Hopi
Hopi language
Hopi is a Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Hopi people of northeastern Arizona, USA, although today some Hopi are monolingual English speakers.The use of the language has gradually declined over the course of the 20th century...
and Papago, and in Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
and the Yukon Territory as in the Athabaskan languages
Athabaskan languages
Athabaskan or Athabascan is a large group of indigenous peoples of North America, located in two main Southern and Northern groups in western North America, and of their language family...
Gwichʼin and Hän
Hän language
The Hän language is a Native American endangered language spoken in only two places: Eagle, Alaska and Dawson City, Yukon. There are only a few fluent speakers left , all of them elderly....
. In African languages retroflex consonants are also very rare, reportedly occurring in a few Nilo-Saharan languages
Nilo-Saharan languages
The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by some 50 million people, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers , including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of Nile meet...
. In southwest Ethiopia, phonemically distinctive retroflex consonants are found in Bench
Bench language
Bench is a Northern Omotic language of the "Gimojan" subgroup, spoken by about 174,000 people in the Bench Maji Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region, in southern Ethiopia, around the towns of Mizan Teferi and Shewa Gimira...
and Sheko
Sheko language
Sheko is an Omotic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken in the area between Tepi and Mizan Teferi in western Ethiopia, in the Sheko district in the Bench Maji Zone...
, two contiguous, but not closely related, Omotic languages.
There are several retroflex consonants not yet recognized by the IPA. For example, the Iwaidja language
Iwaidja language
Iwaidja, in phonemic spelling Iwaja, is an Australian language with about 150 speakers in northernmost Australia. Historically from the base of the Cobourg Peninsula, it is now spoken on Croker Island...
of northern Australia has a retroflex lateral flap
Retroflex lateral flap
The retroflex lateral flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It has no symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet, but an ad hoc symbol may be easily created .-Features:Features of the retroflex flap:...
[ɺ̢] ([]) as well as a retroflex tap [ɽ] and retroflex lateral approximant [ɭ]; and the Dravidian language
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...
Toda
Toda language
Toda is a Dravidian language well known for its many fricatives and trills. It is spoken by the Toda people, a population of about one thousand who live in the Nilgiri Hills of southern India.-Vowels:...
has a subapical retroflex lateral fricative
Voiceless retroflex lateral fricative
The voiceless retroflex lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The IPA has no officially recognized symbol for this sound...
[ɬ̢] ([]) and a retroflexed trill
Retroflex trill
The retroflex trill is a sound that has been reported from the Dravidian language Toda, and confirmed with laboratory measurements. Peter Ladefoged transcribes it with the IPA symbol normally associated with the retroflex flap, '...
[ɽ͡r]. Because of the regularity of deriving retroflex symbols from their alveolar counterparts, people will occasionally use a font editor
Font editor
A font editor is a class of application software specifically designed to create or modify computer font files.Font editors differ greatly depending if they are designed to edit bitmap fonts or outline fonts. Modern font editors mostly deal with the outline fonts, because bitmap fonts are an older...
to create the appropriate symbols for such sounds. (Here they were written with diacritics.) The Ngad'a language
Ngadha language
Ngadha or Ngad'a is an undocumented Austronesian language, one of six languages spoken in the central stretch of the Indonesian island of Flores.From west to east these languages are: Ngadha, Nage, Keo, Ende, Lio, and Palu'e.-References:...
of Flores
Flores
Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, an island arc with an estimated area of 14,300 km² extending east from the Java island of Indonesia. The population was 1.831.000 in the 2010 census and the largest town is Maumere. Flores is Portuguese for "flowers".Flores is located east of Sumbawa...
has been reported to have a retroflex implosive
Voiced retroflex implosive
The voiced retroflex implosive is a type of consonantal sound that has not been confirmed to exist in any language. It has been claimed that Ngad'a, an Austronesian language spoken in Flores, contains such a sound...
[ᶑ], but in this case the expected symbol is coincidentally supported by Unicode. Subapical retroflex clicks occur in Central Juu and in Damin
Damin
Damin was a ceremonial language register used by the advanced initiated men of the Lardil and the Yangkaal tribes in Aboriginal Australia. Both inhabit islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria, the Lardil on Mornington Island, the largest island of the Wesley Group, and the Yangkaal and Forsyth Islands...
.
Most languages with retroflex sounds typically have only one retroflex sound with a given manner of articulation
Manner of articulation
In linguistics, manner of articulation describes how the tongue, lips, jaw, and other speech organs are involved in making a sound. Often the concept is only used for the production of consonants, even though the movement of the articulars will also greatly alter the resonant properties of the...
. An exception, however, is the Toda language
Toda language
Toda is a Dravidian language well known for its many fricatives and trills. It is spoken by the Toda people, a population of about one thousand who live in the Nilgiri Hills of southern India.-Vowels:...
, with a two-way distinction among retroflex sibilants between apical (post)alveolar and subapical palatal.
In the IPA
Retroflex consonants identified by the International Phonetic AlphabetInternational Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
are:
| IPA | Description | Example | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Language | Orthography | IPA | Meaning | ||
 |
retroflex nasal | Swedish Swedish language Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish... |
Vänern | [vɛː.neɳ] | Vänern Vänern Vänern is the largest lake in Sweden, the largest lake in the EU and the third largest lake in Europe after Ladoga and Onega in Russia. It is located in the provinces of Västergötland, Dalsland, and Värmland in the southwest of the country.- History :... |
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voiceless retroflex plosive Voiceless retroflex plosive -External links:*... |
Hindi Hindi Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi... |
टापू (ṭāpū) | [ʈaːpuˑ] | island Island An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm... |
 |
voiced retroflex plosive Voiced retroflex plosive The voiced retroflex plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is d`. The IPA symbol is a lowercase letter d with a rightward-pointing tail protruding... |
Swedish Swedish language Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish... |
nord | [nuːɖ] | north North North is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.North is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west.By convention, the top side of a map is north.... |
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voiceless retroflex fricative | Mandarin | 上海 (Shànghǎi) | [ʂɑ̂ŋ.xàɪ] | Shanghai Shanghai Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010... |
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voiced retroflex fricative | Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics... Polish Polish language Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries... |
жаба żaba |
[ʐaba] | frog |
 |
retroflex approximant | Tamil Tamil language Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore... |
தமிழ் (Tamil) | t̪ɐmɨɻ] | Tamil Tamil language Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore... |
 |
retroflex lateral approximant | Swedish Swedish language Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish... |
Karlstad | [kʰɑːɭ.sta] | Karlstad Karlstad Karlstad is a city, the seat of Karlstad Municipality, the capital of Värmland County, and the largest city in the province Värmland in Sweden. The city had 61,685 inhabitants in 2010 out of a municipal total that during the first quarter 2010 was 84,885 inhabitants... |
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retroflex flap | Hausa Hausa language Hausa is the Chadic language with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 25 million people, and as a second language by about 18 million more, an approximate total of 43 million people... |
shaara | [ʃáːɽa] | sweeping |
| ɺ̢ () | retroflex lateral flap Retroflex lateral flap The retroflex lateral flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It has no symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet, but an ad hoc symbol may be easily created .-Features:Features of the retroflex flap:... |
Pashto Pashto language Pashto , known as Afghani in Persian and Pathani in Punjabi , is the native language of the indigenous Pashtun people or Afghan people who are found primarily between an area south of the Amu Darya in Afghanistan and... |
ړوند | [ɺ̢und] | blind |
| ǃ˞ | (voiced) retroflex click Retroflex click The retroflex clicks are a family of click consonants found only in central Juu dialects of Namibia and in the Damin ritual jargon of Australia... |
Central Juu | — | [ɡǃ˞ú] | water |
Note: In the International Phonetic Alphabet
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
, the symbols for retroflex consonants are typically the same as for the alveolar consonant
Alveolar consonant
Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
s, but with the addition of a right-facing hook to the bottom of the symbol. Some linguists restrict these symbols for the "true" retroflex consonants with subapical palatal articulation, and use the alveolar symbols with the obsolete IPA underdot symbol for an apical post-alveolar articulation: [ṭ, ḍ, ṇ, ṣ, ẓ, ḷ, ɾ̣, ɹ̣]. Another solution, more in keeping with the official IPA, would be to use the rhotic diacritic for the apical retroflexes: [t˞, d˞, n˞, s˞, z˞, l˞, ɾ˞, ɹ˞]. Laminal retroflexes, as in Polish and Russian, are often transcribed with a retraction diacritic, as [s̠], etc. Otherwise they are typically but inaccurately transcribed as if they were palato-alveolar, as *[ʃ], etc.
See also
- Retroflex approximant
- Place of articulationPlace of articulationIn articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an articulatory gesture, an active articulator , and a passive location...
- Hush consonant
- List of phonetics topics