Retroflex stop
In phonetics and phonology, a retroflex stop is a type of consonantal sound, made with the tongue curled back and in contact with area behind the alveolar ridge or with the hard palate (hence retroflex), held tightly enough to block the passage of air (hence a stop consonant). The point of contact is commonly either the tongue tip or tongue blade (the portion just behind the tip). Sometimes, however, the tongue is curled far enough back that the underside actually contacts the palate; this is known as a subapical retroflex stop, and particularly occurs in the Dravidian languages of southern India. Note that a stop consonant made with the body of the tongue in contact with the hard palate is called a palatal stop.
Retroflex stops are less common than velar stops or alveolar stops, and do not occur in English. They sound somewhat like the English alveolar stops [t] and [d], but with a more hollow quality. Retroflex stops are particularly common in the South Asian languages, such as Hindi and Tamil. They are fairly rare in the European languages, but do occur e.g. in Swedish and Norwegian.
The most common sounds are the stops [ʈ] and [ɖ]. More generally, several kinds are distinguished:
- [ʈ], voiceless retroflex stop
- [ɖ], voiced retroflex stop
- [ʈʼ], retroflex ejective (rare)
- [ᶑ], voiced retroflex implosive (extremely rare or nonexistent)
- [ᶑ̥] or [ʈʼ↓] voiceless retroflex implosive (almost certainly nonexistent)
