Everything about Retroflex totally explained
In
phonetics,
retroflex consonants are
consonant sounds used in some
languages. (They are sometimes referred to as
cerebral consonants, especially in
indology.) The tongue is placed behind the
alveolar ridge, and may even be curled back to touch the
palate: that is, they're articulated in the
postalveolar to
palatal region of the mouth.
The consonants commonly called "
postalveolar", or more precisely "palato-alveolar", as well as the "
alveolo-palatals", are also pronounced in the postalveolar region. However, they've an additional secondary articulation of
palatalization. The consonants commonly called "
palatal" are also pronounced in the palatal region, but are more precisely "dorso-palatal", meaning that they're
dorsal (articulated with the
dorsum or back of the tongue), rather than
coronal like retroflex consonants.
In other words,
retroflex consonants are coronal consonants articulated behind the alveolar ridge, which don't have the secondary articulation of palatalization.
Retroflex consonants, like other coronals, may involve several shapes of the tongue. The tongue may be flat, with the
blade of the tongue (the top surface of the tongue near the tip) touching the roof of the mouth, as in
Polish cz, sz, ż (rz), dż and
Mandarin ch, zh, 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
sub-apical (sub-apical retroflex).
Occurrence
Although data are not precise, about 20 percent of the world's languages contain retroflex consonants of one sort or another. About half of these possess only retroflex
continuants, with most of the rest having both stops and continuants. Retroflex consonants are relatively rare among European languages, occurring in
Sardinian, some southern Italian dialects such as
Sicilian, in
Swedish and
Norwegian (where a sequences of
r plus a coronal consonant may be replaced by the coronal's retroflex equivalent, for example the name
Martin would be pronounced
Maṭin. Also, this is sometimes done for several consonants in a row after an
r -
Hornstull is pronounced
Hoɳʂṭull), Polish, Russian, and some indigenous languages of
Siberia. They are also largely absent from indigenous languages of the Americas with the exception of the extreme south of South America and an area in
Southwestern US, as in
Hopi and
Papago. In African languages retroflex consonants are also very rare, reportedly occurring in a few
Nilo-Saharan languages. In southwest Ethiopia, phonemically distinctive retroflex sibilants and plosives are found in
Bench and
Sheko, two contiguous, but not closely related,
Omotic languages.
Retroflex consonants are concentrated in the
Indo-Aryan languages and the
Dravidian languages of the
Indian subcontinent. 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.
There are several retroflex consonants not yet recognized by the IPA. For example, the
Iwaidja language of northern Australia has a
retroflex lateral flap [ɺ̡] as well as a retroflex tap [ɽ] and retroflex lateral approximant [ɭ]; and the
Dravidian language Toda has a
sub-apical retroflex lateral fricative [ɬ̡] 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. Sub-apical retroflex clicks occur in Central
Juu and in
Damin.
Retroflex consonants identified by the
International Phonetic Alphabet are:
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 sub-apical 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're typically but inaccurately transcribed as if they were palato-alveolar, as *[ʃ],
etc.Further Information
Get more info on 'Retroflex'.
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