The voiceless retroflex sibilant fricative is a type of

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...

al sound used in some spoken

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

s. The symbol in the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...

that represents this sound is which is a Latin letter s combined with a

retroflex hook In typesetting, the hook or tail is a diacritic mark attached to letters in many alphabets. In shape it looks like a hook and it can be attached below as a descender, on top as an ascender (typography), ascender and sometimes to the side. The ...

. Like all the

retroflex consonant A retroflex ( /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal ( /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the h ...

s, the IPA letter is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook to the bottom of (the letter used for the corresponding

alveolar consonant Alveolar (; UK also ) consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the upper teeth. Alveolar consonants may be articulated wit ...

). A distinction can be made between laminal, apical, and sub-apical articulations. Only one language, Toda, appears to have more than one voiceless retroflex sibilant, and it distinguishes subapical palatal from apical postalveolar retroflex sibilants; that is, both the tongue articulation and the place of contact on the roof of the mouth are different. Some scholars also posit the voiceless retroflex approximant distinct from the fricative. The approximant may be represented in the IPA as .

Features

Voiceless retroflex fricative articulation

Features of the voiceless retroflex fricative:

Occurrence

In the following transcriptions, diacritics may be used to distinguish between

apical Apical means "pertaining to an apex". It may refer to: *Apical ancestor, refers to the last common ancestor of an entire group, such as a species (biology) or a clan (anthropology) *Apical (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features loc ...

and

laminal A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...

. The commonality of cross-linguistically is 6% in a phonological analysis of 2155 languages.Phoible.org. (2018). PHOIBLE Online - Segments. nlineAvailable at: http://phoible.org/parameters.

Voiceless retroflex non-sibilant fricative

Features

Features of the voiced retroflex non-sibilant fricative:

Occurrence

Notes

References

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

* * {{IPA navigation Fricative consonants Retroflex consonants Pulmonic consonants Voiceless oral consonants Central consonants

Features

Occurrence

Voiceless retroflex non-sibilant fricative

Features

Occurrence

See also

Notes

References

External links