Voiceless retroflex plosive

The voiceless retroflex plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. This consonant is found as a phoneme mostly (though not exclusively) in two areas: South Asia and Australia.

Voiceless retroflex plosive
ʈ
IPA number	105
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʈ
Unicode (hex)	U+0288
X-SAMPA	t`
Braille
Image

Transcription

The symbol that represents this sound in the International Phonetic Alphabet is ⟨ʈ ⟩. Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA symbol is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of "t" (the letter used for the equivalent alveolar consonant). In many fonts lowercase "t" already has a rightward-pointing hook, but ⟨ʈ⟩ is distinguished from ⟨t⟩ by extending the hook below the baseline.

Features

Features of the voiceless retroflex stop:

• Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also oral, with no nasal outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely, and the consonant is a plosive.
• 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 contact can be apical (pointed) or laminal (flat)^{[citation needed]}.
• 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 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	Translation	Notes
Bengali[1]		টাকা	[ʈaka]	'taka'	Apical postalveolar;[1] contrasts unaspirated and aspirated forms. See Bengali phonology
Brahui		سىٹ	[asiʈ]	'one'
English	Indian dialects	time	[ʈaɪm]	'time'	Corresponds to alveolar /t/ in other dialects. See English phonology
Gujarati[2]		બટાકા	[bəʈaːka]	'potato'	Subapical;[2] contrasts unaspirated and aspirated forms. See Gujarati phonology
Hindustani[3][4]	Hindi	टोपी	[ʈoːpiː]	'hat'	Apical postalveolar
	Urdu	ٹوپی
Hmong		𖬅𖬰𖬡 / raus	[ʈàu]	'immerse in liquid'	Contrasts with aspirated form (written ⟨rh⟩).
Iwaidja		yirrwartbart	[jiɺwɑʈbɑʈ]	'taipan'
Javanese		bathang	[baʈaŋ]	'cadaver'
Kannada		ತಟ್ಟು	[t̪ʌʈːu]	'to tap'	Contrasts unaspirated and aspirated forms
Lo-Toga[5]		dege	[ʈəɣə]	'we (incl.)'	Laminal retroflex.
Malayalam		കാട്ട് / كٰاڊّْ / kāṭṭŭ	[kaːʈːɨ̆]	'wild'	Contrasts /t̪ t ʈ d̪ ɖ/.
Marathi[2]		बटाटा	[bəʈaːʈaː]	'potato'	Subapical;[2] contrasts unaspirated and aspirated forms. See Marathi phonology
Mutsun		TiTkuSte	[ʈiʈkuʃtɛ]	'torn'
Nepali		टोली	[ʈoli]	'team'	Apical postalveolar; contrasts unaspirated and aspirated forms. See Nepali phonology
Norwegian		kort	[kɔʈː]	'card'	See Norwegian phonology
Nunggubuyu[6]		rdagowa	[ʈakowa]	'prawn'
Odia		ଟଗର / ṭagara	[ʈɔgɔrɔ]	'crepe jasmine'	Apical postalveolar; contrasts unaspirated and aspirated forms.
Pashto		ټول	[ʈol]	'all'
Punjabi	Gurmukhi	ਟੋਪੀ	[ʈoːpi]	'hat'
	Shahmukhi	ٹـوپی
Scottish Gaelic	Some Hebridean dialects[7]	àrd	[aːʈ]	'high'	Corresponds to the sequence /rˠt/ in other dialects. See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Sicilian		latru	[ˈlaʈɽu]	'thief'
Swedish[8]		karta	[ˈkʰɑːʈa]	'map'	See Swedish phonology
Sylheti		ꠐꠥꠟ꠆ꠟꠤ	[ʈulli]	'skull'	contains tonal pronunciation.[9] See Sylheti phonology
Tamil[2][10]		எட்டு / يࣣڊُّ / eṭṭu	[eʈːɯ]	'eight'	Subapical.[2] See Tamil phonology
Telugu		కొట్టు	[koʈːu]	'to hit or beat'	Contrasts unaspirated and aspirated forms
Torwali[11][12]		ٹـىىےل	[ʈiɡel]	'words'	Contrasts aspirated and unaspirated forms.
Vietnamese	Southern dialects[13]	bạn trả	[ɓa˧˨ʔɳˀ ʈa˧˩˧]	'you pay'	May be somewhat affricated. See Vietnamese phonology
Welayta		[ʈaza]		'dew'

See also

• Index of phonetics articles