This articlerelies largely or entirely on asingle source. Relevant discussion may be found on thetalk page. Please helpimprove this article byintroducing citations to additional sources. Find sources: "Retroflex ejective stop" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(December 2025)

Retroflex ejective stop
ʈʼ
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
X-SAMPA	t`_>
Image

Aretroflex ejective is a rareconsonantal sound, used in somespokenlanguages. The symbol in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʈʼ⟩.

Features of a retroflex ejective stop:

• Itsmanner of articulation isocclusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also oral, with nonasal outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely, and the consonant is aplosive.
• Itsplace of articulation isretroflex, which prototypically means it is articulatedsubapical (with the tip of the tongue curled up), but more generally, it means that it ispostalveolar without beingpalatalized. That is, besides the prototypical subapical articulation, the tongue can beapical (pointed) or, in some fricatives,laminal (flat).
• Itsphonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is anoral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• It is amedian consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream down the midline of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• Theairstream mechanism isejective (glottalic egressive), which means the air is forced out by pumping theglottis upward.

• Index of phonetics articles

• Retroflex consonants
• Ejectives
• Oral consonants
• Median consonants

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles needing additional references from December 2025
• All articles needing additional references
• Pages with plain IPA
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from December 2025
• Articles containing Yokuts-language text