Avoiceless retroflex sibilant fricative is a type ofconsonantal sound used in somespokenlanguages. The symbol in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʂ⟩ which is a Latin letters combined with aretroflex hook. Like all theretroflex consonants, the IPA letter is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook to the bottom of⟨s⟩ (the letter used for the correspondingalveolar consonant). A distinction can be made between laminal, apical, and sub-apical articulations. Only one language,Toda, appears to have more than one voiceless retroflex sibilant, and it distinguishes subapical palatal from apical postalveolar retroflex sibilants; that is, both the tongue articulation and the place of contact on the roof of the mouth are different.
Itsmanner of articulation issibilantfricative, which means it is generally produced by channeling air flow along agroove in the back of the tongue up to the place of articulation, at which point it is focused against the sharp edge of the nearly clenched teeth, causing high-frequencyturbulence.
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. 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 anoral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
It is acentral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
Features of a voiceless retroflex non-sibilant fricative:
Itsmanner of articulation isfricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causingturbulence.
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. 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 anoral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
It is acentral consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
^Novák, Ľubomír (2013)."Other Eastern Iranian Languages".Problem of Archaism and Innovation in the Eastern Iranian Languages (PhD dissertation). Prague: Charles University. p. 59. Archived fromthe original on 2022-08-14. Retrieved2022-11-18.This sound can be transcribed also ṣ̌ʳ, the sound should be similar to Czech voiceless ř (Burki 2001), phonetically[ɻ̝̊]: voiceless retroflex non-sibilant fricative. Similar sound but voiced occurs also in the Nūristānī languages
^Efimov, V. A. (2011). Baart, Joan L. G. (ed.).The Ormuri Language in Past and Present. Translated by Baart, Joan L. G. Islamabad: Forum for Language Initiatives.ISBN978-969-9437-02-1....andř for the peculiar voiceless fricativized trill that occurs in the Kaniguram dialect.... In the original work, Efimov followed Morgenstierne in usingṣ̌ʳ to represent this sound, which has been replaced here with the typographically simplerṛ̌.
Árnason, Kristján (2011),The Phonology of Icelandic and Faroese, Oxford University Press,ISBN978-0-19-922931-4
Canepari, Luciano (1992),Il MªPi – Manuale di pronuncia italiana [Handbook of Italian Pronunciation] (in Italian), Bologna: Zanichelli,ISBN88-08-24624-8
Zygis, Marzena (2003), "Phonetic and Phonological Aspects of Slavic Sibilant Fricatives",ZAS Papers in Linguistics,3:175–213,doi:10.21248/zaspil.32.2003.191
