Voiceless retroflex fricative

A voiceless retroflex sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʂ⟩ which is a Latin letter s combined with a retroflex hook. Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA letter is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook to the bottom of ⟨s⟩ (the letter used for the corresponding alveolar 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.

Voiceless retroflex fricative
ʂ
IPA number	136
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʂ
Unicode (hex)	U+0282
X-SAMPA	s`
Braille
Image

Features

Features of a voiceless retroflex fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is sibilant fricative, which means it is generally produced by channeling air flow along a groove 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-frequency turbulence.
• 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 can be apical (pointed) or, in some fricatives, laminal (flat).
• 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 that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• It is a median consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream down the midline of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

In the following transcriptions, diacritics may be used to distinguish between apical [ʂ̺] and laminal [ʂ̻].

The commonality of [ʂ] cross-linguistically is 6% in a phonological analysis of 2155 languages.

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Abkhaz		амш / amš	[amʂ]	'day'	See Abkhaz phonology
Adyghe		пшъашъэ / پصاصەpšáša		'girl'	Laminal.
Chinese	Mandarin	石 / shí	[ʂ̺ɻ̩˧˥]	'stone'	Apical. See Mandarin phonology
Emilian-Romagnol	Romagnol	sé	[ˈʂĕ]	'yes'	Apical; may be [s̺ʲ] or [ʃ] instead.
English	General American	worship	[wəɹʂɪp]	'worship'	Allophone of [ʃ] after [ɹ].
Faroese		fýrs	[fʊʂ]	'eighty'
Hindustani	Hindi	कष्ट / kašť	[ˈkəʂʈ]	'trouble'	See Hindi phonology
Hmong		𖬤𖬵 / sau	[ʂau˧]	'to write'
Kannada		ಕಷ್ಟ / kašťa	[kɐʂʈɐ]	'difficult'	Only in loanwords. See Kannada phonology.
Kazakh		шағын / şağın	[ʂɑɣɯn]	'small, compact'	See Kazakh phonology
Khanty	Most northern dialects	шаш / šaš	[ʂɑʂ]	'knee'	Corresponds to a voiceless retroflex affricate /ʈ͡ʂ/ in the southern and eastern dialects.
Lower Sorbian		glažk	[ˈɡläʂk]	'glass'
Malayalam		കഷ്ടം / kaštam	[kɐʂʈɐm]	'difficult'	Only occurs in loanwords. See Malayalam phonology
Mapudungun		trukur	[ʈ͡ʂʊ̝ˈkʊʂ]	'fog'	Possible allophone of /ʐ/ in post-nuclear position.
Marathi		ऋषी / reši	[r̩ʂiː]	'sage'	See Marathi phonology
Nepali		षष्ठी / sóšthi	[sʌʂʈʰi]	'Shashthi (day)'	Allophone of /s/ in neighbourhood of retroflex consonants. See Nepali phonology
Norwegian		norsk	[nɔʂk]	'Norwegian'	Allophone of the sequence /ɾs/ in many dialects, including Urban East Norwegian. See Norwegian phonology
Oʼodham		Cuk Ṣon	[t͡ʃʊk ʂ̺ɔn]	'Tucson'	Apical.
Pashto	Southern dialect	ښودل / šodël	[ʂodəl]	'to show'
Polish	Standard	szum		'rustle'	After voiceless consonants it is also represented by ⟨rz⟩. When written so, it can be instead pronounced as the voiceless raised alveolar non-sonorant trill by few speakers. Transcribed /ʃ/ by most Polish scholars. See Polish phonology
	Southeastern Cuyavian dialects	schowali	[ʂxɔˈväli]	'they hid'	Some speakers. It's a result of hypercorrecting the more popular merger of /ʂ/ and /s/ into [s] (see szadzenie).
	Suwałki dialect
Romanian	Moldavian dialects	șură	['ʂurə]	'barn'	Apical. See Romanian phonology
	Transylvanian dialects
Russian		шут / šut	[ʂut̪]	'jester'	See Russian phonology
Serbo-Croatian		šal / шал	[ʂâ̠ːl]	'scarf'	Typically transcribed as /ʃ/. See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Slovak		šatka	[ˈʂätkä]	'kerchief'
Swedish		fors		'rapids'	Allophone of the sequence /rs/ in many dialects, including Central Standard Swedish. See Swedish phonology
Tamil		கஷ்டம் / kaštham	[kɐʂʈɐm]	'difficult'	Only occurs in loanwords, often replaced with /s/. See Tamil phonology
Telugu		కష్టం / kaštam			Only occurs in loanwords. See Telugu phonology
Toda			[pɔʂ]	'(clan name)'	Subapical, contrasts /θ s̪ s̠ ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ/.
Torwali		ݜیݜ / šeš	[ʂeʂ]	'thin rope'
Ubykh			[ʂ̺a]	'head'	See Ubykh phonology
Ukrainian		шахи / šahy	[ˈʂɑxɪ]	'chess'	See Ukrainian phonology
Upper Sorbian	Some dialects	^[example needed]	—	—	Used in dialects spoken in villages north of Hoyerswerda; corresponds to [ʃ] in standard language.
Vietnamese	Southern dialects	sữa	[ʂɨə˧ˀ˥]	'milk'	See Vietnamese phonology
Yi		ꏂ / shy	[ʂ̺ɹ̩˧]	'gold'
Yurok		segep	[ʂɛɣep]	'coyote'
Zapotec	Tilquiapan	^[example needed]	—	—	Allophone of /ʃ/ before [a] and [u].

Voiceless retroflex non-sibilant fricative

Voiceless retroflex non-sibilant fricative
ɻ̊˔
IPA number	152 402B 429
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
X-SAMPA	r\`_0_r

Features

Features of a voiceless retroflex non-sibilant fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• 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 can be apical (pointed) or, in some fricatives, laminal (flat).
• 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 that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• It is a median consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream down the midline of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Ormuri	Kaniguram dialect	suř		'red'	Usually corresponds to /ʃ/ in the Logar dialect.

Voiceless retroflex approximant

Voiceless retroflex approximant
ɻ̊
IPA number	152 402A
Encoding
X-SAMPA	r\`_0

Some scholars also posit the voiceless retroflex approximant distinct from the fricative. The approximant may be represented in the IPA as ⟨ɻ̊⟩.

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Angami		ɻ̥ə³	[ɻ̥ə˨]	'to plan'	Contrasts with /ɻ/
Chokri		[təɻ̥ɨ˥˧]		'sew'	In free variation with /χ/; contrasts with /ɻ/
Faroese		bert	[pɛɻ̊ʈ]	'only'	Devoiced approximant allophone of /r/. See Faroese phonology

See also

• Index of phonetics articles
• Voiced retroflex fricative