Voiceless retroflex plosive

Consonantal sound represented by ⟨ʈ⟩ in IPA

IPA Number 105

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Encoding

Entity (decimal) ʈ

Unicode (hex) U+0288

X-SAMPA t`

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The voiceless retroflex plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. This consonant is found as a phoneme mostly (though not exclusively) in two areas: South Asia and Australia.

Transcription

The symbol that represents this sound in the International Phonetic Alphabet is ⟨ʈ ⟩. Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA symbol is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of "t" (the letter used for the equivalent alveolar consonant). In many fonts lowercase "t" already has a rightward-pointing hook, but ⟨ʈ⟩ is distinguished from ⟨t⟩ by extending the hook below the baseline.

Features

Features of the voiceless retroflex stop:

Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also oral, with no nasal outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely, and the consonant is a plosive.
Its place of articulation is retroflex, which prototypically means it is articulated subapical (with the tip of the tongue curled up), but more generally, it means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized. That is, besides the prototypical subapical articulation, the tongue contact can be apical (pointed) or laminal (flat)^{[citation needed]}.
Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language	Word	IPA	Translation	Notes
Bengali^[1]	টাকা	[ʈaka]	'taka'	Apical postalveolar;^[1] contrasts unaspirated and aspirated forms. See Bengali phonology
Brahui	سىٹ	[asiʈ]	'one'
English	time	[ʈaɪm]	'time'	Corresponds to alveolar /t/ in other dialects. See English phonology
Gujarati^[2]	બટાકા	[bəʈaːka]	'potato'	Subapical;^[2] contrasts unaspirated and aspirated forms. See Gujarati phonology
Hindustani^[3]^[4]	टोपी	[ʈoːpiː]	'hat'	Apical postalveolar
Hindustani^[3]^[4]	ٹوپی	[ʈoːpiː]	'hat'	Apical postalveolar
Hmong	raus	[ʈàu]	'immerse in liquid'	Contrasts with aspirated form (written ⟨rh⟩).
Iwaidja	yirrwartbart	[jiɺwɑʈbɑʈ]	'taipan'
Javanese	bathang	[baʈaŋ]	'cadaver'
Kannada	ತಟ್ಟು	[t̪ʌʈːu]	'to tap'	Contrasts unaspirated and aspirated forms
Lo-Toga^[5]	dege	[ʈəɣə]	'we (incl.)'	Laminal retroflex.
Malayalam	കാട്ട്	[kaːʈːɨ̆]	'wild'	Contrasts /t̪ t ʈ d̪ ɖ/.
Marathi^[2]	बटाटा	[bəʈaːʈaː]	'potato'	Subapical;^[2] contrasts unaspirated and aspirated forms. See Marathi phonology
Mutsun	TiTkuSte	[ʈiʈkuʃtɛ]	'torn'
Nepali	टोली	[ʈoli]	'team'	Apical postalveolar; contrasts unaspirated and aspirated forms. See Nepali phonology
Norwegian	kort	[kɔʈː]	'card'	See Norwegian phonology
Nunggubuyu^[6]	rdagowa	[ʈakowa]	'prawn'
Odia	ଟଗର/ṭagara	[ʈɔgɔrɔ]	'crepe jasmine'	Apical postalveolar; contrasts unaspirated and aspirated forms.
Pashto	ټـول	[ʈol]	'all'
Punjabi	ਟੋਪੀ	[ʈoːpi]	'hat'
Punjabi	ٹـوپی	[ʈoːpi]	'hat'
Sicilian	latru	[ˈlaʈɽu]	'thief'
Scottish Gaelic	árd	[aːʈ]	'high'	Corresponds to the sequence /rˠt/ in other dialects. See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Swedish^[7]	karta	[ˈkʰɑːʈa]	'map'	See Swedish phonology
Sylheti	ꠐꠥꠟ꠆ꠟꠤ	[ʈulli]	'skull'	contains tonal pronunciation.^[8] See Sylheti phonology
Tamil^[2]^[9]	எட்டு	[eʈːɯ]	'eight'	Subapical.^[2] See Tamil phonology
Telugu	కొట్టు	[koʈːu]	'to hit or beat'	Contrasts unaspirated and aspirated forms
Torwali^[10]^[11]	ٹـىىےل	[ʈiɡel]	'words'	Contrasts aspirated and unaspirated forms.
Vietnamese	bạn trả	[ɓa˧˨ʔɳˀ ʈa˧˩˧]	'you pay'	May be somewhat affricated. See Vietnamese phonology
Welayta	[ʈaza]		'dew'

Notes

^ ^a ^b Mazumdar (2000:57)
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Khatiwada (2009:374)
^ Ladefoged (2005:141)
^ Tiwari (2004:?)
^ François (2009:189); François (2016:35).
^ Ladefoged (2005:158)
^ Eliasson (1986:278–279)
^ Wright, Tony (2002). "Doing language awareness". Language in Language Teacher Education. Language Learning & Language Teaching. Vol. 4. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 113–130. doi:10.1075/lllt.4.09wri. ISBN 978-90-272-1697-7. Retrieved 2023-07-11.
^ Keane (2004:111)
^ Lunsford (2001:11–16)
^ "ٹیگیل". Online Torwali Dictionary. Center for Language Engineering. Archived from the original on 2024-03-28.

References

Eliasson, Stig (1986), "Sandhi in Peninsular Scandinavian", in Anderson, Henning (ed.), Sandhi Phenomena in the Languages of Europe, Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 271–300
Keane, Elinor (2004), "Tamil", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (1): 111–116, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001549
François, Alexandre (2009), "Verbal aspect and personal pronouns: The history of aorist markers in north Vanuatu" (PDF), in Pawley, Andrew; Adelaar, Alexander (eds.), Austronesian historical linguistics and culture history: A festschrift for Bob Blust, vol. 601, Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, pp. 179–195
François, Alexandre (2016), "The historical morphology of personal pronouns in northern Vanuatu" (PDF), in Pozdniakov, Konstantin (ed.), Comparatisme et reconstruction : tendances actuelles, Faits de Langues, vol. 47, Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 25–60.
Khatiwada, Rajesh (2009), "Nepali", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 39 (3): 337–380, doi:10.1017/s0025100309990181
Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (2nd ed.), Blackwell
Lunsford, Wayne A. (2001), "An overview of linguistic structures in Torwali, a language of Northern Pakistan" (PDF), M.A. Thesis, University of Texas at Arlington
Mazumdar, Bijaychandra (2000) [First published 1920], The history of the Bengali language, New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, ISBN 8120614526
Thompson, Laurence (1959), "Saigon phonemics", Language, 35 (3): 454–476, doi:10.2307/411232, JSTOR 411232
Tiwari, Bholanath (2004) [First published 1966], Hindī Bhāshā, Kitāb Mahal: Kitāb Mahal, ISBN 81-225-0017-X

External links

Phonology of English, including dialectical variations
List of languages with [ʈ] on PHOIBLE

International Phonetic Alphabet (chart)

IPA topics

IPA	International Phonetic Association History of the alphabet Extensions for disordered speech (extIPA) Voice Quality Symbols (VoQS) Journal of the IPA (JIPA)
Special topics	Cursive forms Case variants Obsolete and nonstandard symbols Naming conventions Sinological extensions World Orthography IPA chart for English dialects
Encodings	ASCII encodings SAMPA X-SAMPA Kirshenbaum TIPA Phonetic symbols in Unicode IPA number IPA Braille

Consonants

Pulmonic consonants

Place →	Labial					Coronal										Dorsal					Laryngeal
Manner ↓	Bilabial		Labiodental		Linguolabial		Dental		Alveolar		Postalveolar		Retroflex		Palatal		Velar		Uvular		Pharyngeal/epiglottal		Glottal
Nasal	m̥	m	ɱ̊	ɱ		n̼			n̥	n			ɳ̊	ɳ	ɲ̊	ɲ	ŋ̊	ŋ	ɴ̥	ɴ
Plosive	p	b	p̪	b̪	t̼	d̼			t	d			ʈ	ɖ	c	ɟ	k	ɡ	q	ɢ	ʡ		ʔ
Sibilant affricate									ts	dz	t̠ʃ	d̠ʒ	tʂ	dʐ	tɕ	dʑ
Non-sibilant affricate	pɸ	bβ	p̪f	b̪v			t̪θ	d̪ð	tɹ̝̊	dɹ̝	t̠ɹ̠̊˔	d̠ɹ̠˔			cç	ɟʝ	kx	ɡɣ	qχ	ɢʁ	ʡʜ	ʡʢ	ʔh
Sibilant fricative									s	z	ʃ	ʒ	ʂ	ʐ	ɕ	ʑ
Non-sibilant fricative	ɸ	β	f	v	θ̼	ð̼	θ	ð	θ̠	ð̠	ɹ̠̊˔	ɹ̠˔	ɻ̊˔	ɻ˔	ç	ʝ	x	ɣ	χ	ʁ	ħ	ʕ	h	ɦ
Approximant				ʋ						ɹ				ɻ		j		ɰ						ʔ̞
Tap/flap		ⱱ̟		ⱱ		ɾ̼			ɾ̥	ɾ			ɽ̊	ɽ						ɢ̆		ʡ̆
Trill	ʙ̥	ʙ							r̥	r			ɽ̊r̥	ɽr					ʀ̥	ʀ	ʜ	ʢ
Lateral affricate									tɬ	dɮ			tꞎ	d𝼅	c𝼆	ɟʎ̝	k𝼄	ɡʟ̝
Lateral fricative									ɬ	ɮ			ꞎ	𝼅	𝼆	ʎ̝	𝼄	ʟ̝
Lateral approximant										l				ɭ		ʎ		ʟ		ʟ̠
Lateral tap/flap									ɺ̥	ɺ			𝼈̥	𝼈		ʎ̆		ʟ̆

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Symbols to the right in a cell are voiced, to the left are voiceless. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible.

Non-pulmonic consonants

		BL	LD	D	A	PA	RF	P	V	U	EG
Ejective	Stop	pʼ			tʼ		ʈʼ	cʼ	kʼ	qʼ	ʡʼ
	Affricate		p̪fʼ	t̪θʼ	tsʼ	t̠ʃʼ	tʂʼ		kxʼ	qχʼ
	Fricative	ɸʼ	fʼ	θʼ	sʼ	ʃʼ	ʂʼ	ɕʼ	xʼ	χʼ
	Lateral affricate				tɬʼ			c𝼆ʼ	k𝼄ʼ	q𝼄ʼ
	Lateral fricative				ɬʼ
Click (top: velar; bottom: uvular)	Tenuis	kʘ qʘ		kǀ qǀ	kǃ qǃ		k𝼊 q𝼊	kǂ qǂ
	Voiced	ɡʘ ɢʘ		ɡǀ ɢǀ	ɡǃ ɢǃ		ɡ𝼊 ɢ𝼊	ɡǂ ɢǂ
	Nasal	ŋʘ ɴʘ		ŋǀ ɴǀ	ŋǃ ɴǃ		ŋ𝼊 ɴ𝼊	ŋǂ ɴǂ	ʞ
	Tenuis lateral				kǁ qǁ
	Voiced lateral				ɡǁ ɢǁ
	Nasal lateral				ŋǁ ɴǁ
Implosive	Voiced	ɓ			ɗ		ᶑ	ʄ	ɠ	ʛ
Implosive	Voiceless	ɓ̥			ɗ̥		ᶑ̊	ʄ̊	ɠ̊	ʛ̥

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Co-articulated consonants

Labial–alveolar

Labial–velar

Fricative/approximant

ɥ̊

Labial–palatal

Labial–velar

Sj-sound (variable)

Lateral approximant

Velarized alveolar

Labial–velar

Labial–alveolar

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Other	Nasal labial–velar approximant [w̃] Nasal palatal approximant [j̃] Voiceless bidental fricative [h̪͆] Voiceless bilabially post-trilled dental stop [t̪ʙ̥] Voiceless nasal glottal approximant [h̃]