Voiceless retroflex lateral affricate

A voiceless retroflex lateral affricate is a rare consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The implicit symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet, ⟨ʈ͡ꞎ⟩, is also extIPA.

Voiceless retroflex lateral affricate
ʈꞎ
IPA number	105 A78E
Audio sample
source · help

Features

Features of a voiceless retroflex lateral affricate:

• Its manner of articulation is affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the airflow entirely, then allowing air flow through a constricted channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• 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. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
• It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• It is a lateral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream over the sides of the tongue, rather than down the middle.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Bhadarwahi[1]	Bhalesi, Bhadrawahi dialects	ट्ळा/ṭḷā	[ʈ͡ꞎaː]	"three"	From old /Cr/ clusters. Contrasts /ʈ͡ꞎ ɖ͡𝼅 ɖ͡𝼅ʱ/.[1]
Katë[2]	Southeastern	akƛ̣i	[ʔaˈkʈ͡ꞎi]	"famine"	Apical post-alveolar. Phonemically a sequence /ʈl/.