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 articulates with the roof of the oral cavity 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.
Retroflex consonants, like other
coronals, come in several varieties, depending on the shape of the tongue. The tongue may be flat, with the
blade of the tongue (the top surface of the tongue near the tip) approaching or touching the roof of the mouth, as in
Polish cz, sz, ż (rz), dż and
Mandarin zh, ch, 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).
The consonants commonly called
postalveolar, or more precisely
palato-alveolar, such as English
sh and
ch, as well as the
alveolo-palatals, such as Mandarin
q, j, x, are also pronounced in the postalveolar region. However, they differ from retroflex consonants in having an additional
secondary articulation of
palatalization. The consonants commonly called
palatal are pronounced in the palatal region like the sub-apical retroflexes, but they touch the palate with the back of the tongue, not the tip. (That is, they are
dorsal, or more precisely
dorso-palatal, rather than coronal consonants.)
In other words,
retroflex consonants include various types of coronal consonants articulated behind the alveolar ridge which do not have the secondary articulation of palatalization.
Occurrence
Although data is not precise, about 20 percent of the world's languages contain retroflex consonants of one sort or another. About half of these possess only retroflex
continuants, with most of the rest having both stops and continuants. Retroflex consonants are relatively rare among European languages, occurring in
Sardinian, in
Sicilian, some Italian dialects such as
Calabrian,
Salentino and
Lunigianese, in
Swedish and
Norwegian (where a sequence of
r plus a coronal consonant may be replaced by the coronal's retroflex equivalent, e.g. the name
Martin would be pronounced . Also, this is sometimes done for several consonants in a row after an
r -
Hornstull is pronounced ). The
retroflex approximant is an
allophone of the
alveolar approximant in many dialects of
American English, particularly in the
Midwestern United States. Polish and Russian possess retroflex
sibilants, but no stops or liquids at this place of articulation. Retroflex consonants are largely absent from indigenous languages of the Americas with the exception of the extreme south of South America, an area in
Southwestern US as in
Hopi and
Papago, and in
Alaska and the
Yukon Territory as in the
Athabaskan languages Gwichʼin and
Hän. In African languages retroflex consonants are also very rare, reportedly occurring in a few
Nilo-Saharan languages. In southwest Ethiopia, phonemically distinctive retroflex consonants are found in
Bench and
Sheko, two contiguous, but not closely related,
Omotic languages.
Retroflex consonants are concentrated in the
Indo-Aryan languages and the
Dravidian languages of the
Indian subcontinent, where they occur as an
areal feature apparently inherited from
Dravidian (they do not exist in
Proto-Indo-Iranian). Many retroflex consonants also exist in
Eastern Iranian languages such as
Pashto,
Khotanese and
Pamir languages. They are also common in
Nuristani languages. They also occur in some other Asian languages such as
Mandarin Chinese,
Javanese and
Vietnamese. The other major concentration is in the
indigenous languages of Australia and the Western Pacific (notably
New Caledonia). Here, most languages have retroflex plosives,
nasal and
approximants.
There are several retroflex consonants not yet recognized by the IPA. For example, the
Iwaidja language of northern 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. Sub-apical retroflex clicks occur in Central
Juu and in
Damin.
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.See also
