Voiceless retroflex flap

The voiceless retroflex flap or tap is a sound that has been reported to occur as a dialectal realization of /ʂ/ in the Dhivehi language.^[1] The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɽ̊⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r`_0.

Voiceless retroflex flap
ɽ̊
IPA number	105 402B
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Unicode (hex)	U+027D U+030A
X-SAMPA	r`_0

Features

Features of the voiceless retroflex flap:

• Its manner of articulation is tap or flap, which means it is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator (usually the tongue) is thrown against another.
• Its place of articulation is retroflex, which prototypically means it is articulated subapical (with the tip of the tongue curled up), but more generally, it means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized. That is, besides the prototypical subapical articulation, the tongue can be apical (pointed) or, in some fricatives, laminal (flat).
• Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Dhivehi	Some dialects[1]	[example needed]			May be a trill instead.[1] Corresponds to /ʂ/ in other dialects.[1]
Nepali		काठमाडौँ	[käɽ̊mäɳɖu]	'Kathmandu'	Coda and intervocalic allophone of /ʈʰ/.[2]
		अठार	[ʌɽ̊äɾʌ]	'eighteen'
Norwegian	Selbu dialect	mølk	[mœɽ̊k]	'milk'	Uncommon allophone of /ɽ/ before k and p.[3]
Swedish	Ångermanland dialect	mjölk	[mi̯ɔɽ̊k]	'milk'	Retroflex pronunciation of /l/ before k and p always voiceless in western Ångermanland dialects.[4]