Retroflex consonant
|
Sub-apical retroflex plosive |
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 as well as a retroflex tap and retroflex lateral approximant ; and the
Dravidian language Toda has a
sub-apical retroflex lateral fricative and a
retroflexed trill . 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 , but in this case the expected symbol is coincidentally supported by Unicode.
Retroflex consonants identified by the
International Phonetic Alphabet are:
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: . Another solution, more in keeping with the official IPA, would be to use the rhotic diacritic for the apical retroflexes: . Laminal retroflexes, as in Polish and Russian, are often transcribed with a retraction diacritic, as ,
etc. Otherwise they are typically but inaccurately transcribed as if they were palato-alveolar, as *,
etc.*
Retroflex approximant*
Place of articulation*
List of phonetics topics*Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson,
The Sounds of the World's Languages. Blackwell Publishers, 1996. ISBN 0631198156
