A voiceless retroflex implosive is a rare

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 wit ...

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 met ...

s. There is no official symbol in the

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

that represents this sound, but or may be used, or the old convention ().

Features

Features of the voiceless retroflex implosive:

Occurrence

A rare and evidently unstable sound, has been described in Oromo of Ethiopia, and

Ngiti The Ngiti , or South Lendu, is an ethnolinguistic group located in the Ituri Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Ngiti speakers call their language ''Ndruna''. In 1991, the Ngiti numbered 100,000 located in the Irumu territory sout ...

of the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

References

{{IPA navigation Retroflex consonants Implosives Voiceless oral consonants