Retroflex consonant

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Places of articulation

Labial

Bilabial

Labial-velar

Labial-alveolar

Labiodental

Coronal

Linguolabial

Interdental

Dental

Alveolar

Apical

Laminal

Postalveolar

Alveolo-palatal

Retroflex

Dorsal

Palatal

Labial-palatal

Velar

Uvular

Uvular-epiglottal

Radical

Pharyngeal

Epiglotto-pharyngeal

Epiglottal

Glottal

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In phonetics, retroflex consonants are consonant sounds used in some languages. (They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in indology.) The tongue is placed behind the alveolar ridge, and may even be curled back to touch the palate: that is, they are articulated in the postalveolar to palatal region of the mouth.

The consonants commonly called "postalveolar", or more precisely "palato-alveolar", as well as the "alveolo-palatals", are also pronounced in the postalveolar region. However, they have an additional secondary articulation of palatalization. The consonants commonly called "palatal" are also pronounced in the palatal region, but are more precisely "dorso-palatal", meaning that they are dorsal (articulated with the dorsum or back of the tongue), rather than coronal like retroflex consonants.

In other words, retroflex consonants are coronal consonants articulated behind the alveolar ridge, which do not have the secondary articulation of palatalization.

Retroflex consonants, like other coronals, may involve several shapes of the tongue. The tongue may be flat, with the blade of the tongue (the top surface of the tongue near the tip) touching the roof of the mouth, as in Polish cz, sz, ż and Mandarin ch, zh, sh, r. This is termed laminal (laminal retroflex). Or they may be pronounced with the tip of the tongue, as in Hindi. This is termed apical (apical retroflex). Finally, the tongue may be curled back so that the underside touches the alveolar or pre-palatal region, as in many of the Dravidian languages. This is termed sub-apical (sub-apical retroflex).

Retroflex consonants are common in the Indo-Aryan languages and the Dravidian languages; and can also be found in languages such as Mandarin Chinese, Javanese, Vietnamese, Swedish, Norwegian and some languages of Southern Italy and Sardinia.

There are several retroflex consonants not yet recognized by the IPA. For example, the Iwaidja language of northwestern 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 sub-apical 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.

Retroflex consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

IPA	Description	Example
		Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
	retroflex nasal	Swedish	Vänern	[vɛː.neɳ]	Vänern
	voiceless retroflex plosive	Hindi	टापू (ṭāpū)	[ʈɑpu]	island
	voiced retroflex plosive	Swedish	nord	[nuːɖ]	north
	voiceless retroflex fricative	Mandarin	上海 (Shànghǎi)	[ʂɑ̂ŋ.xàɪ]	Shanghai
	voiced retroflex fricative	Russian Polish	жаба żaba	[ʐaˑba]	toad
	retroflex approximant	Tamil	தமிழ் (Tamil)	[t̪ɐmɨɻ]	Tamil
	lateral retroflex approximant	Swedish	Karlstad	[kʰɑːɭ.sta]	Karlstad
	retroflex flap	Hausa	shaara	[ʃáːɽa]	sweeping

Note: In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the symbols for retroflex consonants are typically the same as for the alveolar consonants, 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 sub-apical 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 [s̱], etc. Otherwise they are typically but inaccurately transcribed as if they were palato-alveolar, as *[ʃ], etc.

[edit] See also

• Retroflex approximant
• Place of articulation
• List of phonetics topics

[edit] Reference

• Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson, The Sounds of the World's Languages. Blackwell Publishers, 1996. ISBN 0-631-19815-6

Consonants (List, table)	See also: IPA, Vowels
Pulmonics Bilabial Lab'den. Dental Alveolar Postalv. Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn. Epiglottal Glottal Non-pulmonics and other symbols Nasals m ɱ n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ Clicks  ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ Plosives p b • • t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Implo­­sives  ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ ʛ Fricatives ɸ β f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Ejec­­tives  pʼ tʼ kʼ qʼ sʼ Approximants β̞ ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ Other laterals  ɺ ɫ Trills ʙ r • ʀ • Co-articulated approximants  ʍ w ɥ Flaps & Taps ѵ̟ ѵ ɾ ɽ • Co-articulated fricatives  ɕ ʑ ɧ Lat. Fricatives ɬ ɮ • • • Affricates  ʦ ʣ ʧ ʤ Lat. Appr'mants l ɭ ʎ ʟ Co-articulated stops  k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m
This page contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help] Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged impossible.