Voiceless retroflex plosive

The voiceless retroflex plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ʈ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is t`. Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA symbol is formed by adding a rightward pointing hook extending from the bottom of the symbol used for the equivalent alveolar consonant, in this case the voiceless alveolar plosive which has the symbol t. If lowercase letter t in the font used already has a rightward pointing hook, then ʈ is distinguished from t by extending the righward pointing hook below the baseline as a descender. Compare t and ʈ.

Features

Features of the voiceless retroflex plosive:

• Its manner of articulation is plosive or stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
• Its place of articulation is retroflex which means it is articulated with the tip of the tongue curled up.
• Its phonation type 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.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

In English

Standard English does not have the voiceless retroflex plosive. However, it is common in some dialects spoken by non-native speakers. For example, in Indian English, the sound /t/ is often realized as [ʈ]. This difference may be fairly hard for speakers of other varieties of English to detect.

In other languages

Swedish

In many dialects of Swedish, the combination 'rt' after a long vowel (e.g., mört) may be pronounced as [ʈ].

External links

• Phonology of English, including dialectical variations

See also

• List of phonetics topics