phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

and

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

, a retroflex stop is a type of consonantal sound, made with the tongue curled back and in contact with area behind the

alveolar ridge The alveolar process () or alveolar bone is the thickened ridge of bone that contains the tooth sockets on the jaw bones (in humans, the maxilla and the mandible). The structures are covered by gums as part of the oral cavity. The synonymous ...

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. That is known as a subapical retroflex stop and particularly occurs in the

Dravidian language The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant ...

s of southern

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

. A stop consonant that is 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 stop In phonetics and phonology, a velar stop is a type of consonantal sound, made with the back of the tongue in contact with the soft palate (also known as the velum, hence velar), held tightly enough to block the passage of air (hence a stop consonan ...

s or

alveolar stop In phonetics and phonology, an alveolar stop is a type of consonantal sound, made with the tongue in contact with the alveolar ridge located just behind the teeth (hence alveolar), held tightly enough to block the passage of air (hence a stop con ...

s and do not occur in English. They sound somewhat like the English

s and , but they have a more hollow quality. Retroflex stops are particularly common in the South Asian languages, such as

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of North India, northern, Central India, centr ...

and Tamil. Although they are fairly rare in

European languages Most languages of Europe belong to the Indo-European language family. Out of a total European population of 744 million as of 2018, some 94% are native speakers of an Indo-European language. Within Indo-European, the three largest phyla are Ro ...

, they occur in

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

and Norwegian, as well as in some Southern dialects of Italy, such as in varieties of Sicilian, Calabrian, and Sardinian. The most common sounds are the stops and . More generally, several kinds are distinguished: * , voiceless retroflex stop * , voiced retroflex stop * , retroflex ejective (rare) * , voiced retroflex implosive (extremely rare or nonexistent) * or voiceless retroflex implosive (almost certainly nonexistent)

References

* * {{IPA navigation Retroflex consonants