In phonetics, retroflex consonants are consonant sounds used in some languages. (They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology.) The tongue articulates with the roof of the oral cavity behind the alveolar ridge, and may even be curled back to touch the palate or uvula: that is, they are articulated in the postalveolar to palatal region of the mouth.
Retroflex consonants, like other coronals, come in several varieties, depending on the shape of the tongue. The tongue may be flat, with the blade of the tongue (the top surface of the tongue near the tip) approaching or touching the roof of the mouth, as in Polish cz, sz, ż (rz), dż and Mandarin zh, ch, sh, r. This is termed laminal (laminal retroflex). Or they may be pronounced with the tip of the tongue, as in Hindi. This is termed apical (apical retroflex). Finally, the tongue may be curled back so that the underside touches the alveolar or pre-palatal region, as in many of the Dravidian languages. This is termed subapical (subapical retroflex).[1]
The consonants commonly called postalveolar, or more precisely palato-alveolar, such as English sh and ch, as well as the alveolo-palatals, such as Mandarin q, j, x, are also pronounced in the postalveolar region. However, they differ from retroflex consonants in having an additional secondary articulation of palatalization. The consonants commonly called palatal are pronounced in the palatal region like the subapical retroflexes, but they touch the palate with the back of the tongue, not the tip. (That is, they are dorsal, or more precisely dorso-palatal, rather than coronal consonants.)
In other words, retroflex consonants include various types of coronal consonants articulated behind the alveolar ridge which do not have the secondary articulation of palatalization.
Occurrence
Although data is not precise, about 20 percent of the world's languages contain retroflex consonants of one sort or another[2]. About half of these possess only retroflex continuants, with most of the rest having both stops and continuants. Retroflex consonants are concentrated in the Indo-Aryan languages and the Dravidian languages of the Indian subcontinent.
The Nuristani languages of eastern Afghanistan also have retroflex consonants. Among Eastern Iranian languages, they are common in Pashto, Wakhi, Sanglechi-Ishkashimi, and Munji-Yidgha. They also occur in some other Asian languages such as Mandarin Chinese, Javanese and Vietnamese. The other major concentration is in the indigenous languages of Australia and the Western Pacific (notably New Caledonia). Here, most languages have retroflex plosives, nasal and approximants.
Retroflex consonants are relatively rare among European languages, occurring in Sardinian, in Sicilian, some Italian dialects such as Calabrian, Salentino and Lunigianese, in Swedish and Norwegian (where a sequence of r plus a coronal consonant may be replaced by the coronal's retroflex equivalent, e.g. the name Martin would be pronounced [maʈin]. Also, this is sometimes done for several consonants in a row after an r - Hornstull is pronounced [hoɳʂʈul]). The retroflex approximant /ɻ/ is an allophone of the alveolar approximant /ɹ/ in many dialects of American English, particularly in the Midwestern United States. Polish and Russian possess retroflex sibilants, but no stops or liquids at this place of articulation. Retroflex consonants are largely absent from indigenous languages of the Americas with the exception of the extreme south of South America, an area in Southwestern US as in Hopi and Papago, and in Alaska and the Yukon Territory as in the Athabaskan languages Gwichʼin and Hän. In African languages retroflex consonants are also very rare, reportedly occurring in a few Nilo-Saharan languages. In southwest Ethiopia, phonemically distinctive retroflex consonants are found in Bench and Sheko, two contiguous, but not closely related, Omotic languages.[3]
There are several retroflex consonants not yet recognized by the IPA. For example, the Iwaidja language of northern Australia has a retroflex lateral flap [ɺ̢] as well as a retroflex tap [ɽ] and retroflex lateral approximant [ɭ]; and the Dravidian language Toda has a subapical retroflex lateral fricative [ɬ̢] and a retroflexed trill [ɽ͡r]. Because of the regularity of deriving retroflex symbols from their alveolar counterparts, people will occasionally use a font editor to create the appropriate symbols for such sounds. (Here they were written with diacritics.) The Ngad'a language of Flores has been reported to have a retroflex implosive [ᶑ], but in this case the expected symbol is coincidentally supported by Unicode. Subapical retroflex clicks occur in Central Juu and in Damin.[citation needed]
Retroflex consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
| IPA | Description | Example | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Language | Orthography | IPA | Meaning | ||
| retroflex nasal | Swedish | Vänern | [vɛː.neɳ] | Vänern | |
| voiceless retroflex plosive | Hindi | टापू (ṭāpū) | [ʈɑpu] | island | |
| voiced retroflex plosive | Swedish | nord | [nuːɖ] | north | |
| voiceless retroflex fricative | Mandarin | 上海 (Shànghǎi) | [ʂɑ̂ŋ.xàɪ] | Shanghai | |
| voiced retroflex fricative | Russian Polish | жаба żaba | [ʐaba] | toad frog | |
| retroflex approximant | Tamil | தமிழ் (Tamil) | [t̪ɐmɨɻ] | Tamil | |
| retroflex lateral approximant | Swedish | Karlstad | [kʰɑːɭ.sta] | Karlstad | |
| retroflex flap | Hausa | shaara | [ʃáːɽa] | sweeping | |
| ɺ̢ | retroflex lateral flap | Pashto | ړوند | [ɺ̢und] | blind |
| ǃ˞ | (voiced) retroflex click | Central Juu | — | [ɡǃ˞ú] | water |
Note: In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the symbols for retroflex consonants are typically the same as for the alveolar consonants, but with the addition of a right-facing hook to the bottom of the symbol. Some linguists restrict these symbols for the "true" retroflex consonants with subapical palatal articulation, and use the alveolar symbols with the obsolete IPA underdot symbol for an apical post-alveolar articulation: [ṭ, ḍ, ṇ, ṣ, ẓ, ḷ, ɾ̣, ɹ̣]. Another solution, more in keeping with the official IPA, would be to use the rhotic diacritic for the apical retroflexes: [t˞, d˞, n˞, s˞, z˞, l˞, ɾ˞, ɹ˞]. Laminal retroflexes, as in Polish and Russian, are often transcribed with a retraction diacritic, as [s̱], etc. Otherwise they are typically but inaccurately transcribed as if they were palato-alveolar, as *[ʃ], etc.
See also
References
- ^ Ladefoged, Peter; Ian Maddieson (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8.
- ^ Ian Maddieson (with a chapter contributed by Sandra Ferrari Disner); Patterns of sounds; Cambridge University Press, 1984. ISBN 0-521-26536-3
- ^ Breeze, Mary. 1988. "Phonological features of Gimira and Dizi." In Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst and Fritz Serzisko (eds.), Cushitic - Omotic: papers from the International Symposium on Cushitic and Omotic languages, Cologne, January 6-9, 1986, 473-487. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.
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Categories: Consonants
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