The voiced retroflex lateral flap 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, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

al sound, used in some spoken

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s. The "implicit" 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 standard written representation ...

is .The substitution may be used when cannot be displayed properly. The two are not canonically equivalent in Unicode. The sound may also be transcribed as a short , or with the retired IPA dot diacritic, .

Features

Features of the voiced retroflex lateral flap:

Occurrence

A retroflex lateral flap has been reported from various languages of

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such as the Sangiric languages, Buol and Totoli, as well as Nambikwara in Brazil (plain and laryngealized), Gaagudju in Australia, Purépecha and Western Rarámuri in Mexico, Moro in Sudan, O'odham and Mohawk in the United States, Chaga in Tanzania, and Kanuri in Nigeria. Various Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages of

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...

are reported to have a retroflex lateral flap, either phonemically or phonetically, including Gujarati,

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, Marathi, Odia, and

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. Masica describes the sound as widespread in the Indic languages of India:

References

External links

* {{LetterR Lateral consonants Retroflex consonants Tap and flap consonants Pulmonic consonants Oral consonants