| Retroflex Consonant |
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Information AboutRetroflex Consonant |
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In 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 have 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 are 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 do not 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'' 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). Retroflex consonants are common in the Indo-Aryan Languages and the Dravidian Languages ; and can also be found in languages such as Mandarin Chinese , Javanese , Vietnamese , Swedish , Norwegian and some languages of Southern Italy and Sardinia. There are several retroflex consonants not yet recognized by the IPA. For example, the Iwaidja Language of northwestern Australia has a Retroflex Lateral Flap as well as a retroflex tap and retroflex lateral approximant ; and the Dravidian Language Toda has a Sub-apical Retroflex Lateral Fricative and a Retroflexed Trill . 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 , but in this case the expected symbol is coincidentally supported by Unicode. Retroflex consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
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